Support Brother Max | Driverless trucks | WWU strike

Thursday, May 29, 2025

STRIKES

► From the Bellingham Herald — Campus services disrupted amid WWU student worker strike  — In the letter, [University President] Randhawa says that while the university “fully supports the rights of all employees to collectively bargain,” WWU will not recognize OSE’s bargaining unit until the state Legislature legally grants those rights…The Bellingham City Council sent a letter of support for the OSE’s union to the university in May, saying that although the state legislation did not advance this session, “the university still can voluntarily recognize the Operational Student Employees.”

LOCAL

► From FOX 13 — VIDEO: Union workers, friends rally at Tacoma ICE detention center for WA father

Editor’s note: you can support IAM Brother Maximo by donating to this fundraiser for legal fees and support for his family while he is detained.

► From KREM — Washington DOH investigators find policy failures at Sacred Heart endangered at least 4 suicidal patients — Investigators found that some time before the girl’s death in April, the hospital removed the video monitoring systems and the health care worker assigned to the 12-year-old with “no evidence of a provider or mental health provider assessment or documentation of recommendations for the downgrade.” Nursing and security staff who were interviewed during the investigation expressed they were uncomfortable with the decision and decided to implement the use of a door alarm to alert them if the girl tried to leave her room.

► From KUOW — Will AI collapse the career ladder before new graduates can get on it? — But the tech industry of today isn’t the safe bet it once was. V.L. was one of about 2,000 workers in Washington laid off from Microsoft earlier this month, part of a broader 6,000-employee downsizing. She asked to be identified by her initials to protect her future job prospects…Economic uncertainty and the rise of artificial intelligence have many wondering whether the bottom rung of the white collar career ladder is about to drop out.

► From Cascade PBS — Title IX federal investigation clashes with WA gender identity laws — “Unfortunately, it feels like anything is possible,” said David Knight, an associate professor of education policy and finance at the University of Washington. That uncertainty may already be having an impact on school funding. Since a district can’t run on a deficit, school officials will often cut their workforce until they know what the next year brings, which creates turmoil. Budget uncertainties at higher levels of government, such as losing Department of Education funding, can put additional stress on teachers and administrators.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Inside Gaming — 2 Strip casinos sign new union agreements, more — The largest casino workers union in Las Vegas announced new tentative contract agreements with two Strip operators. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 have reached three-year deals with Resorts World Las Vegas and The Cosmopolitan hotel-casinos, covering close to 4,500 employees across both properties. The tentative agreements include “the largest wage increases ever negotiated in Culinary Union’s 90-year history,” according to dual news releases.

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — Collective bargaining in college sports: Is it a third rail or an inevitability? — Collective bargaining is the reason pro sports leagues don’t have incessant court challenges to their rules the way college sports does. Pro leagues negotiate the rules on salary caps, player movement and more with players unions. Many see that as the only surefire way college sports can enforce certain rules, especially when it comes to the transfer restrictions that courts have struck down in recent years, opening up an era of unlimited player movement. White and others believe a collectively bargained agreement with a players union would mean reasonable transfer rules that would stand up in court.

► From the AP — CEO pay rose nearly 10% in 2024 as stock prices and profits soared — The median pay package for CEOs rose to $17.1 million, up 9.7%. Meanwhile, the median employee at companies in the survey earned $85,419, reflecting a 1.7% increase year over year.

► From the AP — Judge says US effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil on foreign policy grounds is likely unconstitutional — In a lengthy order issued Wednesday, Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote the government’s primary justification for removing Khalil — that his beliefs may pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy — could open the door to vague and arbitrary enforcement. Still, Farbiarz stopped short of ordering Khalil released from a Louisiana jail, finding his attorneys had not sufficiently responded to another charge brought by the government: that Khalil did not properly disclose certain personal details in his permanent residency application.

► From More Perfect Union:

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• States sue over Trump cuts to research funding, STEM diversity efforts (Reuters)
• Live Updates: Judge Intends to Block Trump Effort to Bar Foreign Students From Harvard (NY Times)

► From Wired — Elon Musk Says He’ll Step Back From the Government. DOGE Isn’t Going Anywhere — It may seem as though the worst excesses of DOGE have passed, replaced by something closer to a stasis. This isn’t true. Not even close. While the image of DOGE most likely burned into your retina is that of Elon Musk wielding a literal chain saw, the theatrics belie an organization that has quietly permeated all corners of the federal government. More than that, it’s increasingly clear that its objectives are now indistinguishable from that of the broader Trump administration. Removing DOGE at this point would be like trying to remove a drop of food coloring from a glass of water.

► From the Washington Post — DOGE employees may access sensitive Treasury data, judge rules — U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas’s ruling allows four U.S. DOGE Service employees at the Treasury Department to access the infrastructure, and opens a path for other employees of Elon Musk’s DOGE team to be granted access without judicial approval so long as they undergo training and vetting procedures.

► From the AP — $14 billion in clean energy projects have been canceled in the US this year, analysis says — More than $14 billion in clean energy investments in the U.S. have been canceled or delayed this year, according to an analysis released Thursday, as President Donald Trump’s pending megabill has raised fears over the future of domestic battery, electric vehicle and solar and wind energy development…The groups estimate the losses since January have also cost 10,000 new clean energy jobs. The tax credits, bolstered in the landmark climate bill passed under former President Joe Biden in 2022, are crucial for boosting renewable technologies key to the clean energy transition.

► From the Washington State Standard — Federal judges side with Oregon in striking down tariffs imposed by President Trump — The judges said that law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, “does not authorize worldwide and retaliatory tariffs,” and that, “because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress, we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President.”

► From the Wall Street Journal — Trump Pledged ‘No Tax on Social Security.’ The Tax Bill Says Otherwise. — The legislation passed by the House last week would give seniors a temporary extra deduction of $4,000, which would lower taxes for many of the people Trump was targeting with his pitch. But this alternative to
“no tax on Social Security” would leave many people still paying income taxes on Social Security benefits. “It’s a far cry from making Social Security tax-free,” said Tom O’Saben, an enrolled agent and director of government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals.

► From Bloomberg Law — Unions’ Layoffs Suit Is Next Major Hurdle for Trump Firing Plan — Trump’s lawyers have appealed the case to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, though attorneys predict the nation’s highest court will ultimately decide it. Even a temporary reprieve from the appeals court could allow officials to fire thousands of workers in a way that would be hard to reverse. “From the government reorganization standpoint, this is the big case,” said Rushab Sanghvi, AFGE general counsel. “It’s the only case attacking this from a 1,000-foot perspective.”

► From the union-busting Columbian — WA state employees fought against furloughs. They count new WA budget a ‘win’— The governor in February floated one-day-a-month furloughs over two years for most state employees. Senate lawmakers, meanwhile, had included 13 furlough days in their initial budget plans. WFSE President Mike Yestramski said in an interview that if the final budget had included furloughs, it would have effectively negated the cost-of-living adjustments in members’ contracts. He also said WFSE fought to defeat a bill that would’ve significantly raised the cost of every public employee’s health care. “It really comes down to our members,” Yestramski said of WFSE’s successes. “Our members were active, were paying attention. … As soon as something would come down the pike, they were ready to jump right on it and respond.”

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