UW rallies for Lewelyn | Corporations emboldened | Supreme Court

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

LOCAL

► From The Daily — UW community rallies to support detained staff member Lewelyn Dixon, stand in solidarity with immigrant students and staff  — Students, faculty, staff, and local organizations gathered on the UW Quad on April 3 in a show of solidarity for Lewelyn Dixon, a UW staff member and SEIU 925 member who was detained by United States Customs and Border Protection agents Feb. 28. It is likely that Dixon will be held in the detention center until at least July 17, when an immigration judge is scheduled to hear her case.  Fellow UW faculty members have volunteered their sick days to protect Dixon’s employment, but organizers feel that this is not enough and should not have to happen. “The university’s response has been lackluster,” a speaker from Anakbayan said. “We must protect each other.”

Editor’s note: sign SEIU 925’s petition in support of Lewelyn.

► From NW Public Broadcasting — US Forest Service employees return to work after mass terminations –Employees who were laid off include members in Local 34 of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE),  a union that represents workers across the Okanagan, Wenatchee, Colville, Olympic, Mount Baker and Snoqualmie forests. Despite their return, many employees remain concerned about future job security. Union representatives, including Maher, are preparing for continued legal battles. “It’s not over yet. There’s going to be more challenges,” she said. “Like I tell my members—you know, buckle up, put the bite stick in—because it’s still going to get bumpy. But don’t lose hope. Keep that energy up.”

► From the Seattle Times — UW students’ visas revoked without notice by Trump administration — UW officials learned the visas were revoked when they ran a status check in the federal government’s database of international students, the university said in a statement. Dozens of international students across the country were abruptly stripped of their ability to stay in the United States in recent days, according to universities and media reports, sowing fear among students and confusion at schools scrambling to help students facing detention and possible deportation.

► From the Spokesman Review — Two international students at Gonzaga had their visas revoked. The university wasn’t notified. — The federal government has revoked two Gonzaga University students’ international visas without notice to the school, according to a letter from Gonzaga President Thayne McCulloh. The revocations come shortly after two University of Idaho students also had their visas rescinded last week amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on foreign students who participated in campus protests against Israel, according to reporting from The Spokesman-Review.

► From the Spokesman Review — ‘It helps to know you’re not alone’: Small towns in ‘ruby-red’ counties joined Saturday’s Hands Off! protests — In the remote mountain town of Republic, Washington, about 25 people assembled at a corner on the main street. At least three protests came together across Stevens County in Kettle Falls, Colville and Chewelah. A video on Facebook shows protesters standing on all four corners of a busy intersection on U.S. Highway 97 in Omak, Washington, chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!” The Columbia Basin Herald estimated 75 to 80 people gathered in Sun Basin Plaza in downtown Ephrata, the Grant County seat. Hundreds protested in downtown Walla Walla, The Union-Bulletin reported. The Lewiston Tribune estimated 250 to 300 people lined Bridge Street in Clarkston, at least 400 attended a rally in Moscow’s Friendship Square and hundreds gathered in Pullman.

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing deliveries this year keep up with pre-blowout rates — Boeing has kept its delivery rate above 40 airplanes per month so far this year, recording 45 deliveries in January, 44 in February and 41 in March. Separately, Boeing booked 192 gross orders in March, a sharp increase from the first two months of the year and significantly higher than the monthly March average of 78 orders.

ORGANIZING

► From the Washingtonian — The Washington Post’s Tech Workers Have Formed a Union — Tech workers at the Washington Post announced Monday that they have formed a union. They plan to hand-deliver a letter management Monday morning that asks the company to voluntarily recognize them. Many employees in the Post‘s newsroom and business operations are eligible to unions, but the tech workers—product managers, system engineers, people who work on the company’s Arc XP content management system—are not, a quirky legacy from the days when the Post located its WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive business in the management-friendly commonwealth of Virginia.

NATIONAL

► From the Guardian — ‘Trump and Musk are setting the example’: how companies are becoming emboldened to be more anti-union — “Companies could definitely get more anti-union because Trump and Musk are setting the example,” said Thomas Kochan, a longtime professor of industrial relations at MIT. “They’re firing workers who are unionized. They’re ignoring their labor contracts.” Kochan said he fears the consequences for unions if the supreme court upholds the firing of federal workers despite their contract protections or upholds Trump’s dismissal of Wilcox, leaving the NLRB without a quorum. “Then I think we will see companies come out of the woodwork to be more anti-union because there’s so little risk,” Kochan said. “We’ll see companies like SpaceX and Tesla just ignore the law because there will be no consequences. That’s the big risk now.”

► From the AP — Kris Jenkins, the Villanova hero in 2016 national title game, sues NCAA for money he could have made — Kris Jenkins, who made the winning shot for Villanova in the 2016 college basketball championship game, is suing the NCAA and six conferences to recoup income he contends he would have earned if athletes at the time were not barred from making money from their name, image and likeness. Jenkins is among some 350 current and former athletes who have opted out of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement with the NCAA that’s on the cusp of final approval. Some of the opt-outs have filed lawsuits to pursue lost income on their own.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Supreme Court Pauses Order to Rehire Federal Probationary Workers — The court’s brief order said the nonprofit groups that had sued to challenge the dismissals had not suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue. The practical consequences of the ruling may be limited, as another trial judge’s ruling requiring the reinstatement of many of the same workers remains in place.

► From the New York Times — Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Order to Return Man Wrongly Deported to El Salvador — The chief justice, acting on his own, issued an “administrative stay,” an interim measure meant to give the justices some breathing room while the full court considers the matter. In a response to the court, Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said their client “sits in a foreign prison solely at the behest of the United States, as the product of a Kafka-esque mistake.”

Editor’s note: From Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, “The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.”

► From the New York Times — I.R.S. Agrees to Share Migrants’ Tax Information with ICE — In a court filing, the Trump administration said that the I.R.S. and Immigration and Customs Enforcement had reached the agreement on Monday and that the two agencies had not yet shared any information. Under the terms of the deal, a redacted version of which was submitted in the case, ICE officials can ask the I.R.S. for information about people who have been ordered to leave the United States — or whom they are otherwise investigating. I.R.S. officials have for weeks warned that the Trump administration’s plan to use the I.R.S. to help with deportations could be illegal. The top I.R.S. lawyer was demoted as the agreement came together, and was replaced by a former Trump nominee.

► From California Healthline — This Bill Aims To Help Firefighters With Cancer. Getting It Passed Is Just the Beginning. — The Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act is considered crucial by its supporters, with climate change fueling an increase in wildfire frequency and firefighting deemed carcinogenic by the World Health Organization. Firefighters have a 14% higher chance of dying from cancer than the general population, according to a 2024 study, and the disease was responsible for 66% of career firefighter line-of-duty deaths from 2002 to 2019.

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