Union buster @ NLRB? | Trash strike | WNBA CBA

Friday, July 18, 2025

STRIKES

► KOMO — Garbage strike continues as Kent, Bellevue offer new trash drop-off sites for residents — Just outside the school grounds, Teamsters members held picket signs. They didn’t interfere with any customers during the drop-offs but were there to answer questions from the community. The picketers told KOMO News they were being prevented from entering the school site by Kent police. Several officers could be seen sitting in patrol vehicles that were parked a short distance away. “They are hiding the scabs from us, and then we’re trying to find where they go so we can cut it off at the head. It’s not right to take it out on the community, and this is Republic that’s doing this,” said Brandy Harris, an organizer with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

► CBS Boston — 6 Massachusetts communities impacted by trash strike file lawsuit against Republic Services — The complaint included Canton, Danvers, Gloucester, Beverly, Peabody and Malden. Thursday marked 17 days since the communities received regular trash removal services after union workers walked off the job July 1, demanding better pay and benefits from Republic Services. “Residents can’t do this any longer. Our cities and towns can’t handle this any longer,” said Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. “It’s a public safety issue. Republic’s got to get back to the negotiating table.”

LOCAL

► From the Tri-City Herald — Over 1200 attend Good Trouble Lives On protest in Tri-Cities — The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action is described as a response “to the attacks on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration.” It was the latest in a series of demonstrations since President Donald Trump began his second term. The protest have often drawn hundreds in the Tri-Cities, with at least two others involving more than 1,000 demonstrators.

► From the Seattle Times — UW study: ICE hasn’t sanctioned WA facility over documented abuses — Researchers with the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights have documented numerous health and safety issues at the immigration facility in recent years, including severe medical neglect, unsafe food, dirty water, the overuse of solitary confinement, sexual abuse and assaults and excessive uses of force. Many of these are prohibited under the contract terms between GEO Group, which operates the jail-like facility, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, researchers said. Despite the violations of published standards, the federal agency has taken no action to enforce the terms of its contract, researchers found. “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are serious abuses happening there, so where’s the gap?” said Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, who led the research.

► From the Spokesman Review — The vague appearance of ICE agents could create problems for local police. Spokane’s police chief is trying to prevent that. — According to a July 15 Spokane Police Department training bulletin obtained by The Spokesman-Review, Hall raised an urgent concern he wanted to address: that anyone could call local police to respond to a kidnapping, police would respond with guns drawn, the situation would escalate and an officer or bystander could get hurt. He also noted that because ICE agents sometimes arrest in plainclothes, masks and unmarked cars, a citizen could replicate the behavior with little effort to hurt or harm someone.

► From Working to Live in SW Washington — Why Are Over 300 MORE Union Members Headed To Vancouver Next Week? — Washington State Labor Council Communications Director Sarah Tucker sits down with Harold to talk about what happens at the WSLC Convention, what bringing it to Vancouver means for working people there (whether they’re in a union or not) and what a COPE barbecue is!

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the New York Times — WNBA, players’ union have ‘spirited conversations’ in next step toward CBA –Weeks removed from receiving a counterproposal from the WNBA that frustrated players, WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson said that players “had spirited conversations” with the league about revenue sharing, among other topics. When asked if the meeting was successful, Jackson said, “Negotiations are hard. They have hard conversations. … That’s what today was, no different from any other negotiation.” Jackson said another meeting is scheduled “soon,” though she did not specify a date or location. Thursday’s meeting lasted a couple of hours, and Jackson said that players sacrificed opportunities for paid appearances to be in attendance.

NATIONAL

► From FOX 5 Vegas — Ripple effects of immigration fears being felt across Las Vegas hospitality industry — Las Vegas runs on tourism, and the people behind that industry are overwhelmingly immigrants. But as immigration enforcement ramps up across Southern Nevada, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 leaders say workers are feeling the pressure and fear. “Immigrant workers are a big part of this, this is the biggest economy in the world and we need workers – they’re a key part of that,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary treasurer of Culinary Workers Union Local 226. The Culinary Union represents 60,000 workers and says 45% of its members are immigrants, with more than half identifying as Latino.

► From Portside — From Workplace to Wall St – UMWA Addresses Technologies Impacting Mine Workers — The situation can appear bleak when the speed, method, and degree that technologies shape our workplaces seem beyond our control. However, the UMWA’s concerted efforts to simultaneously advocate for, on one level, stricter enforced workplace health and safety regulations and, on another level, human intervention in increasingly AI-driven decisions on Wall Street underscore the fact that technology itself is never determinate. Instead, workers across diverse employment sectors can and must assert collective agency in shaping the role of technology and sharing its benefits.

► From the AP — Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern discuss merger to create transcontinental railroad, AP source says — Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are in merger talks to create the largest railroad in North America that would connect the East and West Coasts. The merger discussions began during the first quarter of this year, according to a person familiar with the talks who isn’t authorized to discuss them publicly. It would combine the largest and smallest of the country’s six major freight railroads…To be approved, any major rail merger must show it will enhance competition and serve the public interest under the 2001 rules.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From People’s World — Trump pushes for control of NLRB by Morgan-Lewis union-buster — Crystal Carey, a top attorney at the anti-union law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, and now Donald Trump’s nominee as General Counsel of the NLRB, ran into flak from senators who questioned her yesterday. Worker rights advocates note that her conformation and placement in the position of General Counsel will severely weaken the ability of workers everywhere in the country to unionize.

► From KUOW — Congress rolls back $9 billion in public media funding and foreign aid — The House has approved a Trump administration plan to rescind $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — a move that cuts all federal support for NPR, PBS and their member stations — and about $7 billion in foreign aid. The vote of 216-to-213 included all but two Republicans in favor of the cuts…North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams was among the Democrats who rose to defend public broadcasting. “When Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last year, public broadcasting was there when traditional communications failed,” she said. “Widespread power, cellular and internet outages meant that for thousands of North Carolinians, public radio was how they received their news.”

► From Reuters — US court seem poised to lift block on Trump curbing union bargaining for federal workers — Judges on a U.S. appeals court on Thursday said they likely lacked the power to second-guess President Donald Trump’s decision to strip hundreds of thousands of federal employees of the ability to unionize and collectively bargain. A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco heard arguments on whether to pause pending an appeal of a judge’s ruling that temporarily blocked 21 agencies from implementing an executive order that said many union contracts could interfere with national security.

► From Reuters — Democratic attorneys general sue to block HHS changes to ACA health insurance marketplaces — They argue that the department’s actions illegally change the rules governing state and federal health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act and therefore will push more healthcare costs onto the states. The final rule creates barriers to enrollment for health insurance sold on marketplaces and will increase insurance premiums, co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs they claim. The Trump administration has said that up to 1.8 million people could lose their health insurance as a result, according to the lawsuit.

► From the AP — Civil rights work is slowing as Trump dismantles the Education Department, agency data shows — The Education Department’s civil rights branch lost nearly half its staff amid mass layoffs in March, raising questions about its ability to address a deep backlog of complaints from students alleging discrimination based on disability, sex or race. Pressed on the issue in June, Education Secretary Linda McMahon denied a slowdown..By several measures, however, the output of the Office for Civil Rights appears to have fallen sharply in comparison with previous years. A public database of the office’s resolution agreements — cases in which schools or universities voluntarily agreed to address civil rights concerns — suggests the office’s work has slowed.

JOLT OF JOY

It’s a bittersweet one this week. Poet Andrea Gibson died Monday after a four-year fight with ovarian cancer. Gibson had this incredible ability to transform grief into hope in their poetry, a transformation increasingly important these days. Today I’m sharing a recording of them reading “Love Letter From the Afterlife:”

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