Gutting the NLRB | WNBA CBA | Private equity

Monday, June 23, 2025

STRIKES

► From CBS News — Colorado union negotiations end for Safeway grocery store workers, no agreement reached — Negotiations between the Colorado union representing Safeway workers and the grocery chain have ended for the week without an agreement. Now, more stores are joining the strike, including Boulder, Lone Tree and Brighton. The union has been slowly expanding the strike to different locations across Colorado after workers started walking off the job on Sunday. Safeway and the Local 7 union met on Thursday, but in a Facebook post, the union wrote that they still could not come to an agreement on wage increases, healthcare benefits, pension benefits, staffing and paid vacation.

LOCAL

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Attorney General accuses Toppenish farm of discriminating against domestic workers — Washington Attorney General Nick Brown is suing Cornerstone Ranches, alleging the company laid off and reduced work hours for local workers and brought in foreign guest workers under the federal H-2A program instead. “Cornerstone fired local workers after holding them to unfair productivity standards and other requirements not applied to H-2A workers, laid off local workers while H-2A employees continued to work, and regularly reduced local workers’ hours and schedules,” a news release from Brown’s office said.

► From the Seattle Times — Federal biologist in Seattle devoted her life to science. Then came Trump’s cuts –But after 38 years on the job, her life’s work came to an abrupt end as waves of firings, rehirings and early retirements rippled through the federal agency. Kagley and her colleagues in Seattle braced each week for the Trump administration’s next move in cutting the federal workforce and other actions that stifled scientific work…Kagley faced a conundrum. If she held onto her job but still ended up being fired before her minimum retirement age in about three years, she would lose the health benefits that her husband relies on for a cancer treatment that cost $1 million. If his cancer were to come back, they would be uninsured. Or she could voluntarily say goodbye to her career at NOAA.

► From the Seattle Times — Wildfire conditions in WA could lead to power shut-offs, PSE says — Last year, Puget Sound Energy, which provides electricity to over 1.2 million customers in 10 counties, announced details for the first time on how and where it could implement preventive blackouts, describing it a “tool of last resort.” Power line fires have destroyed towns and homes in Washington and nationally have claimed lives. In 2020, five homes were destroyed in Pierce County after a tree fell onto a PSE power line, and Malden in Eastern Washington was razed by a blaze sparked by an Avista-owned power line.

► From KUOW — Elder care facilities driven by profit turn to automation, expert says — Elder care is facing rising pressure to cut costs and increase profits. In response, companies are turning more to video surveillance and artificial intelligence. That warning came out of the final meeting of a state-funded elder care advisory group this week…“Technology does not replace the skills and compassion of a human caregiver,” [advocate Patricia Hunter] told the group at its final meeting. “Combined with AI, technologies can be a benefit to care workers. Policies and laws should encourage the use when it supports the work of the people, but does not replace them. We need more skilled care workers, not less.”

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Family, advocate criticize ‘brutality’ of Lynden man’s recent detainment — [Vidal Palomar Perez’s] cousin Vanessa Contreras-Perez told Cascadia Daily News that ICE officers smashed his car, forced him out of the vehicle and slammed him on the ground. She said he suffered cuts and bruises on his arms and back. He called his family Wednesday night, June 18, and recounted the incident, Contreras-Perez said. Contreras-Perez said her cousin asked to see a warrant, but the officers showed him a warrant that had someone else’s name and picture on it. Palomar Perez is undocumented, said Ruby Castañeda, co-founder of Raid Relief to Reunite Families. He came to the U.S. about a decade ago from Mexico.

► From the (Everett) Herald — Cascade High School students walk out to speak up — Sophomore Sohna Manneh and freshman Shane Martinez were among those who organized the protest of recent actions by President Donald Trump and his administration – specifically mass deportations…“What is going on right now with deportation and what’s going on with wars is not OK, and we as a society cannot sit here and normalize that and act like this is nothing because these are our people,” Manneh said. “These are our people. We are all one.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the AP — Storm’s Nneka Ogwumike, WNBA players union president, speaks out on CBA negotiations — “We have women out here who know the business. And we understand where our league has been and where it’s going,” Ogwumike said. “And, we’re prepared. We’re prepared. And we want to be able to come out here and represent ourselves and our value the same way we do on the court, in our contracts, in our facilities, in the standards of the resources that are available to us.” Ogwumike said the players union received a response from the league, which she considered a “good” development. In October, WNBA players opted out of their collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA still covers the 2025 season.

NATIONAL

► From People’s World — Portland wage thief steals $195,000 over 14 years from migrant caregiver — Tita Maria, a Filipino immigrant who works as a caregiver at a care home in Portland, has become the face of wage theft in town. Over the course of 14 years on the job and being paid less than $50 a day, it’s estimated that her employer could have stolen up to $195,000 in wages that she should have been due…On Tuesday, June 3, over 100 community members representing numerous organizations—including BAYAN, People Organizing for Philippine Solidarity (POPS), Kalikasan Solidarity Organization (KSO), Migrante, SEIU 503, the Portland Club of the Communist Party USA, and more—gathered for a rally to support.

► From the New York Times — Mahmoud Khalil Discusses 3-Month Detention in First Interview Since Release — Mr. Khalil, a 30-year-old Columbia University graduate and U.S. permanent resident, was the first student protester targeted and detained by the Trump administration. On Friday, after having spent more than three months in detention in Jena, La., he was released on bail…Mr. Khalil was never accused of a crime. Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely cited law from the mid-20th century to deport him on the grounds that he had undermined American foreign policy.

► From USA Today — Judge denies government attempt to keep Abrego Garcia in detention; hearing set on release — A federal judge in Tennessee has ruled that a Salvadoran migrant at the heart of the debate over President Donald Trump’s border security policies must be released from jail while he awaits trial on human smuggling charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled in Nashville on June 22 that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, cannot remain in detention, denying the federal government’s request. The judge set a June 25 hearing in Nashville to determine the conditions of Abrego Garcia’s release.

► From the New York Times — How Black Lung Came Roaring Back to Coal Country — The Brocks followed a long family tradition when they became Appalachian coal miners. For it, they both now have coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, a debilitating disease characterized by masses and scarred tissue in the chest, and better known by its colloquial name: black lung…In coal mining communities, black lung has long been considered an “old man’s disease,” one to be almost expected after enough years underground…Like his father, [Aundra Brock] has progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of the disease. And today, at 48, he’s even sicker. When he followed his father into mining, he thought he was entering a safer industry than the one prior generations had worked in. By the 1990s, safety standards and miner protections had nearly consigned the disease to history. But now, black lung is back.

► From the Huffington Post — What People Get Wrong About Tipping Hotel Housekeepers — In 2017, The New York Times reported that fewer than a third of hotel guests leave tips for housekeeping staff. And even if they do tip, they may not realize that it’s important to do so for each day of their stay…The job is also more precarious than you might think. Housekeepers experience the highest injury rates in the industry due to the physically demanding and time-sensitive nature of their work, according to Unite Here, a labor union that represents more than 100,000 hotel workers in North America. Housekeepers also face additional risk of sexual harassment and assault, as the job generally entails working alone in strangers’ rooms.

► From USA Today — DHS, Kristi Noem sued over actions against journalists in LA — The American Civil Liberties Union is among the legal counsel representing the plaintiffs in the case, which include the Los Angeles Press Club and the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America. The lawsuit accuses DHS officers of “unnecessarily and indiscriminately” using less-lethal munitions against reporters, protesters and legal observers at the demonstrations. “Suppressing the rights of the free press and protesters is the calling card of cowardly dictators and threatens to destroy our nation,” the lawsuit said.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Nation — Trump Is Delivering on Project 2025’s Promise to Gut the NLRB — The program support assistant told me that the union representing NLRB workers had managed to push back against the board’s dismantling, but it was largely a pyrrhic victory. The three-person board currently lacks a quorum to take action, having only two members after Trump fired the third member, Gwynne Wilcox, shortly after taking office. As a result, even though most of its staff are still employed, having escaped the mass reductions in force that have corroded many other branches of the federal government, in practice the NLRB has been largely neutered and investigations against malfeasant employers such as Tesla—which has been accused by numerous employees of creating a toxic workplace environment—are on hold.

► From the AP — GOP’s food stamp plan is found to violate Senate rules. It’s the latest setback for Trump’s big bill — While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. The Republican leadership was scrambling on Saturday, days before voting is expected to begin on President Donald Trump’s package that he wants to be passed into law by the Fourth of July. The loss is expected to be costly to Republicans. They have been counting on some tens of billions of potential savings from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to help offset the costs of the $4.5 trillion tax breaks plan. The parliamentarian let stand for now a provision that would impose new work requirements for older Americans, up to age 65, to receive food stamp aid.

► From Politico — Senate parliamentarian greenlights state AI law freeze in GOP megabill — The Senate’s rules referee late Saturday allowed Republicans to include in their megabill a 10-year moratorium on enforcing state and local artificial intelligence laws — a surprising result for the provision that’s split the GOP. Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) rewrote a House-passed AI moratorium to try to comply with the chamber’s budgetary rules. His version made upholding the moratorium a condition for receiving billions in federal broadband expansion funds.

► From the New York Times — G.O.P. Can’t Include Limits on Trump Lawsuits in Megabill, Senate Parliamentarian Rules — A Senate official rejected on Sunday a measure in Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill that could limit lawsuits seeking to block President Trump’s executive actions. The measure would target the preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by federal judges on Mr. Trump’s directives. Those rulings have halted or delayed orders on a host of policies, including efforts to carry out mass firings of federal workers and to withhold funds from states that do not comply with demands on immigration enforcement.

► From the Washington Post — Social Security stops reporting call wait times and other metrics — The agency removed a menu of live phone and claims data from its website earlier this month, according to Internet Archive records. It put up a new page this week that offers a far more limited view of the agency’s customer service performance. The website also now urges customers to use an online portal for services rather than calling the main phone line or visiting a field office — two options that many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills rely on for help.

► From the Federal News Network — Union warns Trump’s rapid changes for wildland firefighters will be ‘disastrous’ — The National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents federal wildland firefighters, said some of the administration’s end goals for wildfire management are “broadly positive,” but warned that a lack of detail and planning — coupled with an expedited timeline — could lead to serious consequences. “Making major changes during fire season, without congressional authorization or full planning, could be disastrous for both employees and public safety,” NFFE wrote Thursday in a memo to its union members.

► From the Engineering News-Record — OSHA’s Proposed Heat Rule Draws Feedback From Contractors, Unions — “Many of the injuries and illnesses resulting from exposures to these heat hazards on the job are easily preventable with an appropriate heat illness prevention plan,” Goelling said while offering comments on the proposed rule. Construction is one of the leading industries for workplace heat-related illnesses and injuries, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. Between 2021 and 2022, the industry saw 620 workplace injuries that resulted from exposure to environmental heat and required at least one day away from work, and 29 deaths. Even then, OSHA officials have said they believe cases are underreported.

INTERNATIONAL

► From Labor Notes — Mexican GM Workers to Vote Next Week on Union at Second Plant — Workers at a second General Motors assembly plant in Mexico will vote June 25 to 27 on whether to join SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union), the independent union that won a landmark election to represent workers at the company’s Silao plant in 2022. A win for SINTTIA at the plant, located 90 miles north of Silao in San Luis Potosí, would mark a major breakthrough for Mexico’s labor movement. It would be the first time that an independent union represents two assembly plants at one of the Big Three automakers. The 6,500 workers set to vote produce the GMC Terrain and the Chevrolet Trax and Equinox SUVs.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From Wired — How Private Equity Killed the American Dream — Twelve million people in the US now work for companies owned by private equity, Greenwell writes, or about 8 percent of the total employed population. Her book focuses on the stories of four of these individuals, including a Toys “R” Us supervisor who loses the best job she ever had and a Wyoming doctor who watches his rural hospital cut essential services. Their collective experiences are a damning account of how innovation is being replaced by financial engineering and the ways that shift is being paid for by everyone except those at the top.

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