Farmworker youth | 45% raises | Musk poisoning Memphis

Thursday, June 5, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Parents, staff, students rally against cuts at this Pierce County district –Cars passing by honked in support as the group marched to the district office Tuesday evening ahead of the school board meeting. There, more than 60 people crowded into the board room, standing, sitting on the floor and overflowing into another room. Twenty-nine people spoke at the public hearing…Teachers of color are the most impacted by the reductions in force due to seniority, Zylstra said. More than 60% of the students in the district are people of color, and many students and staff said Tuesday the district’s cuts have broken trust and damaged valuable student-mentor relationships.

► From the Washington State Standard — Evictions in WA skyrocket, overwhelming legal aid program for low-income renters — Evictions in Washington have been steadily increasing over the last few years, with no signs of slowing. The spike stems from rising rents coupled with stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing and the expiration of pandemic-era eviction protections such as increased rental assistance. Filings statewide reached an all-time high in 2024, having increased by 53% since 2019. And fiscal year 2025 is on pace to surpass those numbers. Housing advocates in Washington hope a newly signed law limiting how much a landlord can increase rent each year will help prevent evictions by ensuring renters aren’t priced out of their units. Washington is the third state to implement rent stabilization statewide, following Oregon and California.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Current — Cascade PBS Union secures pay raises in ratified contract with management — Employees voted May 6 after reaching a tentative agreement April 29, according to the union. The new four-year contract will lead to an average pay raise of 6.76% for unit members. Over the term of the contract, employees’ average wages are projected to increase 18.3%. The union represents 23 employees and is under the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild.

► From Business Insider — United Airlines Flight Attendants Set for Pay Rises of up to 45% — The United branch of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA reached a tentative deal with the airline on May 23. The first details of the deal were published on Tuesday. It states that cabin crew members would receive pay increases up to 45.6% over the contract’s five-year timeframe.

NATIONAL

► From Civil Eats — Farmworker Youth Take to the Streets as Deportations and Displacement Threaten Their Parents — Fear can make workers more reluctant to demand higher wages and better conditions. “It especially affects them when employers threaten to call immigration if they start organizing. It’s a big fear,” he said. “No one wants to get sent back to the country they left for a better future. A lot of people have kids and they’ve been here for 15 or 20 years. This is what people consider home.”…On February 18, Vasquez and his friends organized a walkout of 400 students in three high schools, three middle schools, and the local Hancock Community College to protest the threat of immigration raids. According to Vasquez, over three quarters of the students at Santa Maria High School come from immigrant families, and half have worked in the fields themselves. They were motivated not just by deportation threats, but also by the unrecognized sacrifice of their parents.

► From Wired — ICE Quietly Scales Back Rules for Courthouse Raids  — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly rescinded guidance that advised ICE agents conducting courthouse raids to take steps to avoid violating state and local laws while carrying out civil immigration arrests. The subtle policy change could lead to an escalation in enforcement tactics and legal disputes. Revised policy guidance recently posted to ICE’s website and reviewed by WIRED reveals efforts by the agency to enhance the discretion and autonomy of the federal agents making arrests in and around courthouses—one of the more aggressive initiatives employed by the Trump administration as part of its all-out push to round up migrants across the United States and its territories.

► From More Perfect Union:

Editor’s note: here’s why this matters so much, in the words of Kashaun Pearson: “What’s happening in Memphis, that is Elon’s vision. A technocracy, to be able to do whatever he wants, whatever he chooses, to experiment, to kill, to destroy the environment at the behest of his machines. What that will amount to is a plantation economy for the rest of the world.”

► From the Seattle Times — Supreme Court makes it easier to claim ‘reverse discrimination’ in employment, in a case from Ohio — A unanimous Supreme Court made it easier Thursday to bring lawsuits over so-called reverse discrimination, siding with an Ohio woman who claims she didn’t get a job and then was demoted because she is straight. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the court that federal civil rights law draws no distinction between members of majority and minority groups. “By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’ — without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group — Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Jackson wrote.

► From Wired — How to Prepare for a Climate Disaster in Trump’s America — As climate change juices up severe storms and wildfires and makes heat waves even deadlier, cuts at all levels across the US federal government have thrown agencies tasked with preparing the country for disasters—and helping it recover—into chaos…Regardless of what’s unfolding at the federal level, local- and state-level emergency management departments or agencies are the ones who alert the public and lead the initial response before, during, and after a disaster.

► From Yahoo Finance — US economic activity declines as tariffs pressure prices, Fed says — “On balance, the outlook remains slightly pessimistic and uncertain, unchanged relative to the previous report,” according to the document, known as the “Beige Book” and which is based on surveys, interviews and observations collected from the commercial and community contacts of each of the Fed’s 12 regional banks through May 23. “There were widespread reports of contacts expecting costs and prices to rise at a faster rate going forward.”

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• Trump cannot proceed with gutting US Education Department, court rules (Reuters)
• Unsealed records in Abrego Garcia case offer few details that are new, unknown (AP)
• Trump signs proclamation to ban travel from 12 countries (CNN)

► From Yahoo News — US labor unions fight to contain AI disruption — “The potential displacement of workers and elimination of jobs is a significant concern not just for our members, but for the public in general,” said Peter Finn of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Under former president Joe Biden, the Department of Labor issued guidelines encouraging companies to be transparent about AI use, involve workers in strategic decisions, and support employees whose jobs face elimination. But US President Donald Trump canceled the protections within hours of taking office in January. “Now it’s clear. They want to fully open up AI without the safeguards that are necessary to ensure workers’ rights and protections at work,” said HeeWon Brindle-Khym of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which represents workers in the retail sector.

► From Bloomberg Law — Trump Likely Violated Layoff Freeze, Federal Judge Says — The Trump administration appears to be flouting a court order halting mass government layoffs, a federal judge said Wednesday. Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the administration to prove by June 9 that two sets of layoffs—at the departments of State and Housing and Urban Development—don’t violate a preliminary injunction issued by the court last month.

► From the New York Times — Electricity Prices Are Surging. The G.O.P. Megabill Could Push Them Higher. — This week, the Senate is taking up Mr. Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill, which has already passed the House. In its current form, that bill would abruptly end most of the Biden-era federal tax credits for low-carbon sources of electricity like wind, solar, batteries and geothermal power. Repealing those credits could increase the average family’s energy bill by as much as $400 per year within a decade, according to several studies published this year.

► From the Washington State Standard — Trump’s birthright citizenship order lands in Seattle appeals court — On Wednesday, state Solicitor General Noah Purcell called Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship “unconstitutional and unAmerican.” “President Trump seeks to turn citizenship into a political football, denying that precious right to hundreds of thousands of babies born in this country simply because their parents are here to work, to study or to escape persecution or violence,” said Purcell, who argued successfully against the president’s travel ban in court in 2017. As is customary, the 9th Circuit judges didn’t rule from the bench Wednesday. They’ll issue a written ruling in the coming weeks or months.

► From the Statesman Journal — Oregon House passes bill allowing striking workers to collect unemployment –Oregon lawmakers passed a bill on June 4 that would make Oregon the first state to provide unemployment benefits to both public and private employees while on strike. Under Senate Bill 916, workers who participate in a strike lasting at least two weeks would be eligible for unemployment insurance payments after a one-week waiting period. Senate Bill 916 passed 33 to 23 in the House of Representatives on June 4. Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield, voted with Republicans. The bill now heads back to the Senate. If the Senate passes the bill again, it will be sent to Gov. Tina Kotek.

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