Federal unions | Union yes @ Insert Coin | Global AI divide

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

STRIKES

► From People’s World — First Safeway strike since ’96 showcases heightened grocery worker coordination, militancy — For the first time in a generation, Safeway/Albertsons workers are out on the picket lines in Colorado…Teamsters truck drivers are honoring the picket lines across the state in solidarity with the grocery workers and are depriving picketed stores of essential deliveries…Leaflets distributed by striking workers keep the heat squarely on corporate mega-profits, asking customers: “What’s causing grocery prices to soar? Hint: It’s not workers’ wages.” Drawing from research conducted by the Groundwork Collaborative, the union highlights the eye-popping $989,000,000 profits brought in by Safeway/Albertsons in 2024, up 112% compared to the same period pre-pandemic.

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — Providence Everett hires more nurses but cuts certified nursing assistants — The labor union that represents CNAs at Providence Everett, the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 8, is in the process of negotiating impacts of the layoffs, according to union representative Byram Simpson. “We have concerns about how Providence conducted the layoff process and have requested additional information to ensure full compliance with our Collective Bargaining Agreement,” Simpson wrote in an email. Providence announced the layoffs June 12, in a statement that included Chief Operating Officer Darryl Elmouchi calling the changes “difficult but necessary.” The layoffs will eliminate about 25% of the hospital’s nursing assistant jobs starting July 11, The (Everett) Herald reported.

► From the Seattle Times — Reports of coming layoffs swirl at Microsoft as workers worry they’re next — The Redmond-based tech giant announced in mid-May that it was firing more than 6,000 employees companywide, including 1,985 based in Washington. Less than three weeks later, Microsoft terminated another 305 Washington employees. Bloomberg News reported last week that Microsoft was planning another round, aimed at thousands of people with a heavy emphasis on sales and marketing roles. The outlet reported Tuesday that more cuts were coming for Microsoft’s gaming division, doubling down on a report from The Verge in early June that gaming layoffs were looming around the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

ORGANIZING

► From UFCW 367:

NATIONAL

► From the AP — Kilmar Abrego Garcia is expected to be released from jail only to be taken into immigration custody — On Sunday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled that Abrego Garcia does not have to remain in jail ahead of that trial. On Wednesday afternoon, she will set his conditions of release and allow him to go, according to her order. However, his defense attorneys and prosecutors have said they expect him to be taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as soon as he is released on the criminal charges.

► From the AP — Musk’s ‘robotaxis’ draw regulatory scrutiny after video shows one driving in an opposing lane — One of those skeptics, a Telemetry Insight expert in car technology, said the videos were alarming enough that the tests as currently run should be halted. “The system has always had highly erratic performance, working really well a lot of the time but frequently making random and inconsistent but dangerous errors,” said Sam Abuelsamid in a text, referring to Tesla’s self-driving software. “This is not a system that should be carrying members of the public or being tested on public roads without trained test drivers behind the wheel.”

► From the New York Times — Why Factories Are Having Trouble Filling Nearly 400,000 Open Jobs — The pool of blue-collar workers who are able and willing to perform tasks on a factory floor in the United States is shrinking. As baby boomers retire, few young people are lining up to take their place. About 400,000 manufacturing jobs are currently unfilled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — a shortfall that will surely grow if companies are forced to rely less on manufacturing overseas and build more factories in the United States, experts say…“We spent three generations telling everybody that if they didn’t go to college, they are a loser,” he said. “Now we are paying for it. We still need people to use their hands.”

POLITICS & POLICY

► From CNN — Federal judge halts Trump’s order to end collective bargaining rights for many federal workers — A federal judge on Tuesday indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to terminate the collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal employees. Judge James Donato of the US District Court in San Francisco granted the preliminary injunction requested by a coalition of unions whose members would be stripped of their collective bargaining rights under Trump’s executive order. However, Donato’s decision clashes with a May ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which lifted a different judge’s block on Trump’s order pertaining to another union’s members.

► From the New York Times — Trump’s OSHA Nominee Has a History With Heat and UPS Drivers — For years, UPS truck drivers asked the delivery giant to install air-conditioning in its ubiquitous brown vans. The company resisted, even as temperatures climbed and drivers suffered from heatstroke…Now, David Keeling, a former health and safety executive at UPS who some workers blame for the inaction, is President Trump’s pick to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that regulates workplace safety.

► From Politico — The megabill’s math isn’t adding up for Senate Republicans — With just days until Senate GOP leaders want to start voting, they have been hit with a mathematical double-whammy: Tax writers are proposing a package that’s hundreds of billions of dollars more costly than what House Republicans have proposed, while senators struggle to finalize a larger package of spending cuts to offset it.

► From CNN — Trump administration scrambles to rehire key federal workers after DOGE firings — The Trump administration’s quiet backtracking from the firings and voluntary retirements — which are also paired with new hires to fill vacancies those departures created — come as federal agencies are still implementing their “reduction-in-force” plans as part of a push for spending cuts. Experts warned that even though the Trump administration has backtracked on some of its efforts to shrink the federal workforce, the rapid rehirings are a warning sign that it has lost more capacities and expertise that could prove critical — and difficult to replace — in the months and years ahead.

► From Freight Waves — Rail unions warn DOT rollbacks could jeopardize train safety — Rail unions are raising concerns about the Trump administration’s plan to roll back protections for federal inspectors and investigators put in place in 2021 that they say could increase safety risks in the rail industry. In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) issued in May, the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed several changes to Biden-era regulatory policies, including how DOT oversees enforcement procedures at its modal agencies, including the Federal Railroad Administration.

► From the Spokesman Review — Baumgartner, Northwest Republicans ask RFK Jr. to reopen NIOSH worker safety office in Spokane — Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Spokane sent a letter asking Kennedy to reverse the Trump administration’s decision in March to terminate most employees at the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH. It was signed by Rep. Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside, Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho Falls, Rep. Cliff Bentz of Eastern Oregon and both of Idaho’s senators, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch. “NIOSH’s Spokane lab is the backbone of innovation and safety in the hardrock mining industry for the Western United States,” Baumgartner said in a statement. “Shutting it down, without a plan to reassign its vital research, would be a mistake and a disservice to the Trump administration’s America First energy and mineral strategy.”

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Efforts to pass worker’s bill of rights, $20 minimum wage in Tacoma advance — Organizers with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union 367 chapter and the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America on Tuesday submitted signatures for a ballot initiative that could establish a “Worker’s Bill of Rights.” The two groups started the process of getting the initiative on the ballot in February, when they submitted a proposal to increase protections for workers in Tacoma with new policies like a $20 minimum wage. In submitting the roughly 10,000 signatures at city hall on June 24, UFCW 367 and the Tacoma DSA are one step closer in the city’s initiative process.

► From Cascade PBS — Washington says Trump’s Hanford cleanup budget falls $1.5B short — On the heels of federal layoffs, legislators and environmental watchdogs are concerned about the nuclear site meeting its legal obligations. Hanford’s fiscal 2024 budget, which ended last September, was $3.035 billion. The feds budgeted $3.070 billion for fiscal 2025, which ends Sept. 30. Trump’s fiscal 2026 proposal calls for $3.070 billion. However, the Washington Department of Ecology estimated that $3.79 billion would have been necessary in fiscal 2024 to meet Hanford’s legal cleanup schedules and standards. The department says that $4.56 billion is needed in fiscal 2025 to meet Hanford’s legal obligations, and  $4.56 billion will be needed in fiscal 2026.

► From the Washington State Standard — Tax collections tumble again in latest Washington budget forecast — “While this revenue forecast is disappointing, it is not surprising. At this time, I do not anticipate calling a special session,” Ferguson said in a statement. “We are closely monitoring developments from the federal government that could force me to revisit that question. We will also carefully review the next revenue forecast in September.”

From the Seattle Times — Pitch to sell public lands hits snag. What does that mean for WA? — Hunters and fishers, hikers and climbers, and conservation groups were among those who rallied in opposition, citing threats to wildlife, clean water, tribal treaty rights, public access and concerns about the precedent it would set. Republican Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, of Idaho, came out in opposition to the provision to sell public lands, narrowing its window for success…States and local governments were supposedly given the right of first refusal for land put up for sale in the proposal, but as written, it wouldn’t be possible, Geissler said. The window for selecting and bidding on these lands is too short for the state’s legislative approval process and other requirements, and the state doesn’t have the funding for these purchases.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the New York Times — A.I. Computing Power Is Splitting the World Into Haves and Have-Nots — Artificial intelligence has created a new digital divide, fracturing the world between nations with the computing power for building cutting-edge A.I. systems and those without. The split is influencing geopolitics and global economics, creating new dependencies and prompting a desperate rush to not be excluded from a technology race that could reorder economies, drive scientific discovery and change the way that people live and work.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.