Stamp Out Hunger | Lelo still detained | Air traffic controllers

Friday, May 9, 2025

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the (Everett) Herald — Snohomish County letter carriers prepare for food drive this Saturday — Those wishing to donate can fill the bag — or any container — with nonperishable food items and leave it near their mailbox. The Snohomish County National Association of Letter Carriers has been part of the food drive since the first-ever pilot drive in 1991. Since 1993, the drive has collected about 1.9 billion pounds of food nationwide. Bob James, former president of the Snohomish County National Association of Letter Carriers, has been involved in the food drive since the start. In 2022, the food drive collected just under 158,000 pounds of food in Snohomish County. “The people of Snohomish County have been very kind and generous as far as donations,” James said. “I think a lot of people believe that it’s something that we need to do for those that aren’t quite as fortunate as the rest of us.”

Editor’s note: more information for how we can all participate in tomorrow’s food drive can be found on the NALC website.

STRIKES

► From the Daily Emerald — UOSW and UO reach a tentative agreement, ending strike — UO and UOSW agreed to a $16.00 minimum base pay, according to Ryan Campbell, a member of UOSW’s bargaining team. When the strike began on April 28, UOSW was proposing an $18.50 hourly base wage. UO proposed a $15.44 hourly base wage. The probationary period for student workers was dropped, according to Campbell. During a probationary period an employee is evaluated and has fewer protections. According to [bargaining team member] Campbell, reaching a tentative agreement was “very inspiring.” “They (UO) can’t push some of this stuff out of the way now. Some of this stuff is going to be tried for a while,” Campbell said. “Going through this experience, now we can help other people, so it’s a very very cool thing.”

LOCAL

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Judge rules she has no jurisdiction to grant bond to detained farmworker activist — An immigration court judge ruled Thursday, May 8 that she has no jurisdiction to grant bond to prominent Northwest farmworker activist Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino. This came after Juarez Zeferino learned at the end of a 20-minute hearing earlier Thursday that the judge was deferring her decision to grant bond. That’s unusual, said his lawyer, Larkin VanDerhoef. With the new ruling, Juarez Zeferino will remain at the center until his next immigration hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, May 13…Supporters contend Juarez Zeferino was detained because of his work with the union and farmworkers’ rights. “He needs to be out of there, because that’s a waste of leadership and humanity that our community needs so bad,” Guillen said. “He is only one of the thousands, millions, in this country of the kind of immigrant leadership that built this country.”

► From the AP — Forest and park service worker cuts leave wildland firefighting crews short-staffed — The biggest issue they’re facing is a lack of communication from the federal government as the West faces “a pretty significant wildland fire season,” Washington State Forester George Geissler said Thursday during a press conference hosted by Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. “This is the time when we make certain that we have the aviation we need, when we have the personnel we need and that all of our systems check out and are ready to go when the alarm bell rings,” he said. “Without knowing what our partners are doing or not having a clear understanding of what actions are being taken, we struggle with missing the third leg of the stool that we have.”

AEROSPACE

► From Reuters — Britain’s IAG to buy Boeing and Airbus jets, sources say — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed the U.S. part of the jet order on Thursday during the announcement of a bilateral trade deal between Britain and the United States. Such an order would add to an already large backlog of Boeing planes slated for UK purchasers – 149 in total, according to Boeing’s published backlog.

NATIONAL

► From NBC News — ‘Everybody’s worst nightmare’: Air traffic controllers say outages have become too frequent — Ten days after an equipment malfunction left about a dozen planes flying blind for 90 seconds in the crowded skies over New Jersey, worried pilots and air traffic controllers are imploring the Federal Aviation Administration to fix the system’s aging infrastructure. The “shell-shocked” controllers who guide planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport work in constant fear of radar systems’ going down or losing radio contact with pilots as they’re approaching one of the busiest airports in the country, a recently retired controller told NBC News…“They’re at stress level 10 at the Newark approach because every time they go in, they’re like, am I gonna lose the radar today? Am I gonna lose the frequencies?” he said. “I think they’re just at their breaking point.”

► From the AP — Air traffic controllers briefly lose radar access again at Newark airport — The air traffic controllers directing planes into the Newark, New Jersey, airport lost their radar Friday morning for the second time in two weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration said the radar at the facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark airport went black for 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. Friday. That’s similar to what happened on April 28.

► From Cascade PBS — REI Co-op members reject company board picks after union campaign — The election results represent a victory for the REI Union, which urged members to vote against the uncontested slate of board candidates. Members were encouraged to vote “withhold” to protest REI’s decision to block two union-backed candidates from the ballot; its approach to unionization efforts; and the company’s endorsement of Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, which was retracted last month after backlash from members.

► From SEIU 925:

Happy National Provider Appreciation Day! Union child care providers are STRONGER TOGETHER! ✊💜 pic.twitter.com/uTB9rEM3nE

— SEIU Local 925 (@SEIU925) May 9, 2025

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — Union urges Ferguson not to sign budget without their pay raises — “I recognize that the position you find yourself in is not an easy one,” union president Amanda Hacker writes in the letter. “Please recognize that signing a budget that harms over 5,000 of your employees for asserting their legal right to participate in their union is not the correct way out of this situation.” Hacker sought to drop the letter off at the governor’s office on Wednesday but was told no one was there to accept it. Also Wednesday, about 100 association members rallied at a public service recognition event held across the street from the state Capitol.

► From the Olympian — Fight to close $52M WA school for adults with disabilities is over. What’s next? — Employees at the Rainier School will also be able to keep their jobs, and the bill requires the state to offer them “opportunities to work in state-operated living alternatives and other state facilities and programs.” DSHS previously told The News Tribune the facility has 460 full-time employees and Courtney Brunell, Buckley’s city administrator, previously confirmed that the Rainier School is the largest employer in the city of 5,114 people.

► From the Everett Herald — Everett considers ordinance to require more apprentice labor — The ordinance would expand current requirements mandating certain construction or renovation projects in the city to use at least 15% apprentice labor. Currently, those mandates are in place for all projects on city buildings that cost over $1 million, or any other construction or renovation project the city undertakes with a cost over $5 million. The new ordinance would expand upon these requirements, eventually requiring apprentice labor on all city construction or renovation work expected to cost more than $1 million.

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Newhouse part of bipartisan group that reintroduces farmworker immigration reform bill — The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which was first proposed in 2019, would give farmworkers a path to legal status and citizenship, update the foreign guest worker program and implement a nationwide electronic verification system for farmworkers. UFW President Teresa Romero has spoken in favor of the legislation. “The workers who feed America have earned the right to stay in America, as Americans,” she said in a news release. “This bipartisan common-sense legislation will create an opportunity for them to do so.” [UFW] has focused on the benefits of legal status for farmworkers, which is covered in the bill. [Familias Unidas por la Justicia] has [previously] objected to the legislation’s E-Verify system that would be implemented in agriculture after the other parts of the bill were in place. The union is concerned that such a program would lead to increased surveillance and deportations.

► From Bloomberg Law — Trump’s Power Over Mass Layoffs Heads for Courtroom Showdown — The case centers on the reach of the president’s power over the federal government, with attorneys divided over its ultimate success. “The president is trying to supersize the role of the executive like we’ve never seen before,” said Debra D’Agostino, a founding partner with the Federal Practice Group representing government employees. “The point of this lawsuit is to say ‘no, this is not how our country is set up.’” Attorneys say it also will test the plaintiffs’ strategy to avoid some of the procedural issues that have dogged federal worker unions’ litigation against the administration.

► From CNN — Trump’s acting FEMA chief fired day after breaking from the administration — The move comes one day after Hamilton defended FEMA during testimony in front of the House Appropriations Committee. “As the senior advisor to the President on disasters and emergency management, and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton told the committee Wednesday.

► From More Perfect Union:

INTERNATIONAL

► From the Los Angeles Times — Why ‘Leo’? New pope shows support for workers, labor unions — For Catholic theologians, the significance of the name was evident, with the new pope tying himself to one of the foundational figures of modern Catholic social teaching, Pope Leo XIII, who advocated for the rights of the poor and working class amid profound economic change. Leo XIII served as pontiff from 1878 to 1903, encompassing the Gilded Age in the U.S. and the Second Industrial Revolution across the globe. It was a time of labor abuses and exploitation — before minimum wages, attention to workplace safety or mandated days off…Leo XIII in 1891 used the platform of the papacy to offer a spirited defense of union organizing and the rights of workers in his seminal encyclical, “Rerum Novarum.”

JOLT OF JOY

No caption necessary. See yall next week.

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