Thurston trash strike | Supremes OK firings | Wage theft

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

STRIKES

► From the AP — Philadelphia workers and city reach a deal to end strike that halted residential trash pickup — A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end a more than weeklong strike that halted residential curbside trash pickup and affected other services, officials said Wednesday…“The strike is over! Details forthcoming,” the union posted on Facebook Wednesday morning. Union President Greg Boulware briefly spoke with reporters after the deal was reached. “We did the best we could with the circumstances we had in front of us,” he said.

LOCAL

► From My Northwest — Trash collection strike begins in Thurston County; Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, Yelm affected — The strike was announced Tuesday night by Teamsters Local 252, the union representing employees at Republic trash and garbage services. The union stated they are striking to protest “unfair labor practices” and are rallying for improved wages, stronger labor protections, and better benefits…The strike is part of a national movement from the union against Republic. Teamsters 252 is set to join unions in California, Georgia, Illinois, and Massachusetts in the strike…Workers could extend picket lines to potentially 3,500 Teamsters nationwide, the union said.

► From the Seattle Times — WA wildfire danger: Red flag warning issued — Wildfire danger across Central and Eastern Washington will remain high through Wednesday evening as fires burn across the state. Much of the east side of the state is under a red flag warning from the National Weather Service as conditions become conducive to extreme fire. The warning will expire at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

► From KING 5 — Harborview CEO warns of impacts akin to early COVID-19 crisis — The head of Harborview Medical Center says sweeping federal cuts to Medicaid will ripple far beyond low-income patients, threatening care access for communities across Washington and forcing public hospitals to absorb potentially record-breaking levels of uncompensated care. Harborview CEO Sommer Kleweno Walley said the changes, signed into law under President Trump’s recently passed “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” could result in more than $365 million in lost federal funding for Harborview, part of UW Medicine.

► From the Spokesman Review — How Latinos in Washington state are coping with ICE crackdowns: ‘I don’t have time for therapy’ — Alejandra Guzman-Mercado was just weeks away from graduating college – the first in her family to do so – when a judge denied her father’s request to remain in the United States and ordered his deportation. Now, two months later, Guzman-Mercado said she’s still grappling with the emotional weight of her father’s deportation…A recent survey conducted by health-policy organization KFF in partnership with the Los Angeles Times reports one-third of immigrants have had negative impacts, with many experiencing stress and anxiety, problems eating and sleeping since Trump took office earlier this year.

► From KUOW — Arrested by ICE four days before her wedding, she’s asking a judge to free her — They’ve been together more than 12 years, jointly raising a teenage son. KUOW is not naming the women because they expressed concerns that being named could jeopardize their case. In May, the couple was four days from getting married when immigration agents arrested the woman during a raid at a beverage company in Kent, where she’d worked for years. ICE arrested 17 workers during the raid; a search warrant shows officials had probable cause to search 41 workers suspected of presenting false green cards or work authorizations.

AEROSPACE

► From NW Public Broadcasting — 58 laid off Boeing employees return to work — [SPEEA’s] Plunkett said the union continues to look into whether there could be other contract violations that may have impacted other members, including using people in purchased services positions to perform laid off employee work. “ We are continuing our due diligence to uncover who may have been harmed by the retention of somebody we believe is a contractor by another name,” Plunkett said. “And if so, we’re gonna pursue it with the same vigor to see about getting these people their jobs back.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the AP — Video game actors are voting on a new contract. Here’s what it means for AI in gaming — An 11-month strike by video game performers could formally end this week if members ratify a deal that delivers pay raises, control over their likenesses and artificial intelligence protections. The agreement feels “like diamond amounts of pressure suddenly lifted,” said Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor and chair of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ interactive branch negotiating committee. Union members have until Wednesday at 5 p.m. Pacific to vote on ratifying the tentative agreement.

► From the New York Times — NHL players react to new CBA terms, from ‘slight’ concessions to ‘contentious’ changes — For a league with several lengthy work stoppages in its not-too-distant past, the NHL is now entering an unprecedented time of labor peace between owners and players. The speed and ease of this week’s ratification of a new four-year collective bargaining agreement signaled as much…Several common observations emerged, from noteworthy wins to lingering concerns over concessions. Early reviews were on the positive side, though not everyone was wholly pleased with the final document, which has yet to be publicly released. But even those with dissenting opinions agreed on one thing: The path here could’ve been far more contentious.

► From Grocery Dive — Kroger, Albertsons reach tentative pact with Southern California labor groups — Labor unions representing more than 45,000 employees for Kroger and Albertsons in Southern California have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the grocers, the United Food and Commercial Workers locals bargaining on behalf of the workers announced last week. The deal, which is subject to approval by the workers, includes higher pay, larger pension contributions, health benefit and welfare improvements, and other changes. Workers will vote on the proposal over a three-day period that begins Wednesday.

NATIONAL

► From the Guardian — Undocumented builders face unchecked exploitation amid Trump raids: ‘It’s more work, less pay’ — When Donald Trump returned to office in January, Rogelio said his employers cut their rates by 30% to 40%. Other laborers told him they had endured similar treatment. “They decreased the pay by piece because they know most of the tile setters don’t have social security numbers, so they take advantage of that. We are in their hands,” Rogelio told the Guardian. “It’s more work, less pay. We have no choice right now.

► From Labor Notes — Fight ICE. Build the Union. — Facing an emboldened Trump administration, union members across the country are in an intensifying battle to keep their members—and all workers, whether or not they are in unions—free and safe from federal immigration authorities. They are holding emergency rallies, organizing in their workplaces, knocking doors in their communities, using contracts to defend members, and building coalitions that can respond rapidly to detentions and raids..SEIU, for example, is calling for an end to “the brutal ICE raids terrorizing our neighborhoods and tearing families apart.” This points to the underlying reality: Whether the Trump administration is targeting labor leaders or workers who are perceived to be powerless and unable to fight back, their attacks intimidate workers and undermine their fights for better wages and conditions.

► From Portside — Workplace Mental Health at Risk as Key Federal Agency Faces Cuts — The workplace is the new ground zero for addressing mental health. That means companies — employees and supervisors alike — must confront crises, from addiction to suicide. The two seemingly unrelated advances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania have one common factor: They grew out of the work of a little known federal agency called the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. It’s one of the key federal agencies leading workplace mental health efforts, from decreasing alarmingly high rates of suicide among construction workers to addressing burnout and depression among health care workers. But after gaining considerable traction during the covid-19 pandemic, that work is now imperiled.

► From the Washington Post — D.C. hotel housekeepers will receive $215,000 in unpaid overtime settlement — Two related D.C.-area cleaning companies must pay $290,000 to resolve allegations that they sometimes failed to provide full overtime pay to hundreds of housekeepers since 2021, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said Tuesday. In a statement, Schwalb’s office said it launched an investigation into Cuzco Facilities Services and Mardone Inc., which does business as J&B Cleaning Services, after receiving a tip about suspected wage theft from the union that represents the region’s hotel workers, Unite Here Local 25.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Politico — Supreme Court green-lights Trump’s order for mass firings across federal government — A judge in California had blocked the layoffs, finding that they would likely violate federal law. But the justices granted an emergency appeal from the administration seeking permission to enforce a Feb. 11 executive order that instructed agencies to carry out dramatic “reductions in force.” In an apparent 8-1 ruling, the high court said it was not assessing the legality of any particular agency’s layoff plans, nor any moves taken so far to implement those plans. Litigation over the downsizing efforts is sure to continue. But for now, the justices said, the administration can enforce the executive order and a memo from the Office of Management and Budget implementing that EO…Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the court to record a dissent.

► From the New York Times — Trump Got the Green Light to Fire Federal Workers. Now, They Wait. — The coalition behind the court challenge said it would continue to fight the case, arguing that the layoffs would threaten critical public services. “This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,” the groups and local governments said in a statement.

► From the AP — Trump appointees have ties to companies that stand to benefit from privatizing weather forecasts — As commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick oversees the U.S. government’s vast efforts to monitor and predict the weather. The billionaire also ran a financial firm, which he recently left in the control of his adult sons, that stands to benefit if President Donald Trump’s administration follows through on a decade-long Republican effort to privatize government weather forecasting.

► From the Huffington Post — EPA Workers Suspended By Trump Face ‘Frivolous Investigation’ — Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents 8,000 agency employees, said the union was still waiting for the agency to provide a full list of the workers placed on leave. He called the administration’s move “retaliatory in nature” and a possible violation of federal whistleblower rights. “We believe this is a frivolous investigation and have demanded that these individuals be returned to regular [work] status,” Chen told HuffPost.

► From the Contrarian — OPINION: United Steelworkers pledge to hold Trump, Nippon, U.S. Steel accountable — The future of U.S. Steel’s facilities and the fate of thousands of union jobs remain more uncertain than ever following Nippon Steel’s takeover of the Pittsburgh-based company for $14.9 billion..Our contract with U.S. Steel expires next year. At that point, we face the unusual prospect of bargaining a new agreement with an untested, foreign-owned juggernaut combining U.S. Steel’s longtime animus toward workers and Nippon’s repeated efforts to subvert America’s economy, with a divisive and mercurial president in the background.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the AP — Indian workers go on a daylong nationwide strike against Modi’s economic reforms — A coalition of 10 major trade unions that represent laborers and several other groups that speak for farmers and rural workers called for the one-day industrial action, dubbing it Bharat Bandh,” Hindi for “Shut Down India.”…In New Delhi, protesters carried placards demanding scrapping of the labor laws and chanted slogans like “Stop selling our railways” and “Don’t infringe upon trade unions rights.” “You can be fired any day from work. Your labor has no value in this country and in this society,” said Aishe Ghosh, a student activist.

TODAY’S MUST-LISTEN

► From WIRED — Uncanny Valley: The 911 Calls Inside ICE Detention Centers — Leah Feiger speaks with WIRED’s Dhruv Mehrotra about an exclusive WIRED investigation into how serious medical incidents are increasing at some of the country’s largest immigration detention centers.

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