Heat on the job | ‘Pay these people’ | Air Traffic Controllers

Thursday, July 17, 2025

STRIKES

► From My Northwest — Local residents fed up with Republic Services strikes — KIRO host Gee Scott cited a Facebook post his friend wrote to share his frustrations. “Republic Services, please come pick up this trash. I don’t care about what y’all got going on, between my dad, kids, and myself —everything is backed up over here. Pay these people because now I’m gonna go to random places. I’m over it,” Gee shared on “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio.

LOCAL

► From KUOW — Washington’s DOL is sharing information with ICE. Are they using that data to deport people? — I found that the Department of Licensing had agreements with its 24/7 web service. It includes access to driver’s license and vehicle information, height, weight, your address. This search engine also allows partial license plates, so they can look up the registered owner. They can look up a certain address as well, and it will come up with every single person who has a driver’s license within that household. They’re giving access to this database to the Department of Homeland Security, certain Border Patrol accounts, and ICE…From January to May, there were more than 6,500 searches on just the ICE account.

AEROSPACE

► From NPR — Air traffic controllers say a push to modernize equipment won’t fix deeper problems — [Controllers] say they’re expected to work under stressful conditions each day to keep the complex U.S. air travel system operating, in part by working mandatory overtime and six-day workweeks…The roots of the air traffic controller shortage go all the way back to 1981, when then-President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 controllers who had gone on strike to protest what they considered to be unfair wages and long work hours. That set off a scramble to hire and train thousands of new air traffic controllers. In some areas, the effort succeeded, but facilities that handle some of the busiest and most complex airspace in the world have always been difficult to staff.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Indy Star — Caitlin Clark is face of WNBA, will be in room for CBA meeting with league during All-Star week — “The meetings that are going to happen in Indianapolis are going to be really important,” Clark said. “Although I’m not our team rep or on the committee, I’m still trying to understand and engage as much as possible. This is my second year in the league, but also this is a very important time for our league and where it’s going to continue to grow. So, you know, I’m certainly looking forward to those meetings and being in them, and I think everybody in our league is to help these CBA talks continue to move forward.”

ORGANIZING

► From In These Times — The Battle for the Future of Farmwork — The union campaign at Lynn-Ette & Sons is part of a broader effort by farmworkers across New York state, who are facing down daunting odds to organize under the banner of the United Farm Workers (UFW), the famed California-based union and civil rights organization. Lynn-Ette & Sons vehemently denies the bus was targeted because of the union effort. In a statement published May 5 by a local news site, the company wrote it ​“had no prior knowledge of the raid,” and ​“claims suggesting that these workers were targeted in retaliation for union activity … are categorically false.” Regardless, the effect has been much the same, according to UFW organizers in upstate New York. Workers involved with the union fight were taken into ICE custody, and some have already been deported. Others feel even more afraid to speak out. The organizing gets that much harder.

NATIONAL

► From Labor Notes — Coping with Climate Crises on the Job — Heat is getting worse. Workers outdoors, like farmworkers and letter carriers, are feeling it every summer. But so are those indoors, in warehouses, kitchens, factories, classrooms—anyplace without air conditioning. Your work space may be a lot hotter than what the weather app says. Electricians working up near the rafters of a Boeing hangar brought their own thermometer to prove this point. Starbucks baristas did the same thing.

► From the Tri-City Herald — America’s child care system relies on immigrants. Without them, it could collapse — Immigrants like Maggi play a crucial role in home-based child care, as well as America’s broader child care system of more than 2 million predominantly female workers. (The Hechinger Report is not using Maggi’s last name out of concern for her safety and that of the families using her care.) Caregivers are notoriously difficult to find and keep, not only because the work is difficult, but because of poverty-level wages and limited benefits. Nationwide, immigrants make up nearly 20 percent of the child care workforce. In New York City, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of the child care workforce. In Los Angeles, it’s nearly 50 percent.

► From the AP — Judge won’t rule this week on releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia from jail — U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled last month that Abrego Garcia is eligible for release but has kept Abrego Garcia in jail at the request of his own lawyers after U.S. officials said he would be immediately detained and targeted for expulsion for the second time. At Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw to revoke Holmes’ opinion and rule that Abrego Garcia cannot be released. Crenshaw said he would likely rule on the matter next week.

► From the Guardian — How Trump’s anti-immigrant policies could collapse the US food industry – visualized — “Farm workers in many states are thinking about leaving the country because they are facing more obstacles to work under this anti-immigrant administration,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez, director of farm worker advocacy with National Farm Worker Ministry, a longstanding organization in south Texas. “They are scared, there are fewer opportunities, and they are no longer prospering here. Their fear will soon be seen in the harvest, when the quantities of produce are depleted.”

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• WA sues Trump administration for disaster funding cuts  (Seattle Times)
• The White House’s plan to downsize the federal government, in charts (Washington Post)

► From the Washington State Standard — Advocates for immigrants sue to stop courthouse ICE arrests — The suit is a proposed class action representing 12 immigrants who filed asylum claims or other types of relief and had their cases dismissed and placed in expedited removal, subjecting them to a fast-track deportation. The individual plaintiffs, who all have pseudonyms in the court documents, had their asylum cases dismissed and were arrested and placed in detention centers far from their homes. One plaintiff, E.C., fled Cuba after he was arrested and raped after he opposed that country’s government. He came to the U.S. in 2022 and applied for asylum and appeared for an immigration hearing in Miami.

► From the Government Executive — Trump’s anti-union EO can remain in effect during challenge, appellate court says — “The core question [in stay requests] is thus whether the party moving for relief can wait until the litigation is resolved through the ordinary course or whether such a delay will cause injury to the party that cannot be remedied at the close of the case, even if the party were to prevail on the merits,” she wrote.” “[The] ordinary course is ordinary for a reason . . . Our appellate procedures are structured to allow us to review a complete lower court record, hear the parties’ positions, consider complex questions, and adjudicate a fair outcome. We take ‘extraordinary action’ to intervene in the ordinary course of an appeal only when the movant makes the ‘critical’ showing that it will suffer irreparable injury before the appeal concludes.”

► From the AP — Senate passes $9 billion in spending cuts to public broadcasting, foreign aid requested by Trump — The legislation, which now moves to the House, would have a tiny impact on the nation’s rising debt but could have major ramifications for the targeted spending, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to U.S. food aid programs abroad. It also could complicate efforts to pass additional spending bills this year, as Democrats and even some Republicans have argued they are ceding congressional spending powers to Trump with little idea of how the White House Office of Management and Budget would apply the cuts.

► From Common Dreams — ‘Deadly Shadow Prison’: Inmates, ACLU Sue Trump Admin for Denying Due Process at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ –The class action suit, brought Wednesday with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant rights groups, challenges the government’s refusal to let detainees speak with lawyers and file legal documents needed to petition for their release. Inmates in the Everglades detention facility have detailed horrific conditions, including crushing heat, incessant mosquito presence, tainted food, cramped conditions, and a lack of access to water and basic sanitation. After visiting the detention center over the weekend, some Democratic lawmakers described it as an “internment camp,” where as many as 32 inmates apiece were crammed into small cages beneath a single tent.

► From the AP — Trump’s approval rating on immigration and government spending has slipped, new AP-NORC poll finds — Only about one-quarter of U.S. adults say that President Donald Trump’s policies have helped them since he took office, according to a new poll that finds underwhelming marks for him on key issues, including the economy, immigration, government spending and health care. In fact, the Republican president fails to earn majority approval on any of the issues included in the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

► From the New York Times — Supreme Court Keeps Ruling in Trump’s Favor, but Doesn’t Say Why — In clearing the way for President Trump’s efforts to transform American government, the Supreme Court has issued a series of orders that often lacked a fundamental characteristic of most judicial work: an explanation of the court’s rationale. On Monday, for instance, in letting Mr. Trump dismantle the Education Department, the majority’s unsigned order was a single four-sentence paragraph entirely devoted to the procedural mechanics of pausing a lower court’s ruling.

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