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NEWS ROUNDUP

Evergreen strike | Brother Kilmar detained | Ntl Nordic Museum workers

Monday, August 25, 2025

 

STRIKES

► From KOIN — Evergreen Public Schools delay first day of school amid ongoing union negotiations — “Evergreen Public Schools may have pushed the first day of school to September 2nd, but make no mistake — it’s the strike that delayed the start, not the calendar. We are officially on strike August 26th and will be rallying and marching every day until we win a fair contract. Our fight isn’t postponed, and neither is our power,” the union said in a statement. In support of the union, the Evergreen Education Association representing teachers agreed to show their support by not crossing the picket line…“They do the hardest work. They’re caring and keeping our children safe. Majority of the time, they spend more time with our children than we do, and they need to be treated fairly,” Sarah Burton, a family member of an Evergreen student.

► From Teamsters Local 58:

► From KSDK — WATCH: Boeing, machinists union to return to contract negotiations Monday amid ongoing strike — “Everybody stand strong, we’ve got full strength with our union and we back our bargaining committee.”

 

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — Protesters call for release of U.S. Army veteran, held in ICE detention — Before he went into his naturalization meeting Thursday, Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry told his wife, Melissa, he’d be back in 10 minutes as an American citizen. The next time she saw her husband was in a visiting area within the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Chaudhry, 52, a U.S. Army veteran, activist and community leader, was taken into custody after arriving for his citizenship interview in Tukwila…Melissa Chaudhry said her husband fell in love with Washington state while visiting his uncle as a boy. Eventually, around 1998, he moved to the U.S. and built a life. He served in the Army from 2001 to 2005 before being honorably discharged due to an injury he sustained while training. The injury left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

► From KUOW — Secrecy and enforced disappearances: WA human rights group sounds alarm about ICE — The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights is warning that federal immigration action has crossed a new boundary and is now breaking international humanitarian law. “What I’m talking about is cases where days or even weeks go by that families still don’t know where their loved one is,” said Center for Human Rights Director Angelina Godoy. “The level of secrecy is what’s different in these cases,” Godoy said…While visiting family from Canada at Peace Arch Park on the U.S.-Canada border, a woman from Honduras and her U.S. citizen children were taken into Customs and Border Patrol custody in Ferndale. Meanwhile, her husband was arrested in Portland and held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. They were held for an estimated two weeks without the ability to contact lawyers and obtain legal help. “The case raises obvious concerns about forced disappearance,” the report said. “The family did not appear in the ICE Locator, they appear to have been moved to avoid detection.”

► From the Olympian — Hundreds march in support of immigrant rights in downtown Olympia Saturday evening — Janet Waggoner, lead pastor and evangelist at St. John/ San Juan Episcopal Church in Olympia, spoke in support of another area man named Fernando Rangel Saucedo, who she said has been in detention since early June. “He’s somebody who’s been in this country, a faithful husband and father and lead construction worker for 20 years,” she said. “And so we are just hoping that he can continue to parent his daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.”

 

ORGANIZING

► From the Seattle Times — National Nordic Museum workers launch union effort — The National Nordic Museum Workers United — which would represent 21 employees working across operations, marketing, visitor, retail, curatorial education, fundraising and special event departments — requested voluntary recognition from leadership at the nationally designated museum in Ballard. It is the only U.S. museum solely focused on the arts, culture and history of immigrants from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Organizers are still collecting signatures, but 16 eligible employees have signed union authorization cards, per a union spokesperson.

► From Wyo File — ​Laramie cement plant workers buck Wyoming’s anti-union politics, vote to organize –Nearly 80 workers at the Mountain Cement Company plant will join the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers after a 40-26 vote and years of indecision about organizing amid a staunchly anti-union cultural and political environment in Wyoming. Only 5.6% of wage and salary employees in Wyoming last year were union members, down from a high of 13.4% in 1990, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 2024 rate was well below the national average of 9.9%.

 

NATIONAL

► From Common Dreams —  ‘Malicious Abuse of Power’: Trump Slammed for New Arrest of Ábrego García and Deportation Threat — A crowd of community members who had gathered outside an immigration office in Baltimore on Monday chanted, “Shame!” as a lawyer for US resident Kilmar Ábrego García announced that he had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents once again—days after he was finally released from prison after a monthslong ordeal. Attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told the crowd that assembled to show support for Ábrego García that ICE had ordered the Maryand father and sheet metal worker to report to its offices for an interview on “false” pretenses and said his legal team is filing a habeas corpus petition to challenge the administration’s plan to deport Ábrego García to Uganda.

► From SMART:

► From the Huffington Post — Starbucks CEO Tops List Of Sky-High Executive Pay Packages — Niccol’s $96 million pay package for 2024 was 6,666 times larger than that of Starbucks’ median employee ― the most lopsided CEO-to-worker pay ratio in a new analysis of “low wage” employers by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank…The companies analyzed in the report collectively spent $644 billion on stock buybacks over a five-year period, “siphon[ing] resources out of worker wages and productive long-term investments.”

► From People’s World — Postal Workers, Rural Letter Carriers campaign against postal privatization — Both unions stressed that the USPS not only provides universal service, but also “good, union, living-wage jobs with fair hiring practices and equal pay for equal work for workers from all walks of life,” as the Postal Workers put it. “Let’s not sugarcoat it: The threats we face are real and unlike anything I’ve seen in my career,” Maston said in his keynote address to NRLCA delegates before the group set off on its march. “But we’ve shown strength this year—House Resolution 70 now has a bipartisan majority of cosponsors because of the pressure you helped build.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the AP — HHS moves to strip thousands of federal health workers of union rights — HHS officials confirmed Friday that the department is ending its recognition of unions for a number of employees, and are reclaiming office space and equipment that had been used for union activities…Some CDC employees said the union has been a source of information and advocacy for the agency’s employees during layoffs this year and in the wake of the Aug. 8 attack at the CDC’s main campus in Atlanta. Since then, the union has been trying to advocate for a better emergency alert system and better security.

► From the Pittsburgh Union Progress — Trump budget cuts benefit corporations that value profits over worker lives and health — An explosion earlier this month at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works killed two workers and injured a number of others. Friday’s rally was planned before that disaster, but the tragedy could not be ignored. The agency investigating the explosion – the U.S. Chemical Safety Board – won’t even exist if Trump’s budget becomes reality. Its already modest budget will be zeroed out…Two workers at the head of the parade carried a sign bearing a statement that very closely resembled a remark earlier by Sullivan. It noted the stark difference in the manner in which the United States and Canada treat corporate leaders whose workplaces kill employees. The sign also served as an indictment of our country’s dismaying obsession with profits, no matter the costs to people and communities. “U.S. Worker Dies, CEO pays a fine,” it read. “Canadian Worker Dies, CEO goes to jail.”

► From the AP — Trump halts work on New England offshore wind project that’s nearly complete — Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80% complete, with 45 out of its 65 turbines already installed…“This arbitrary decision defies all logic and reason — Revolution Wind’s project was already well underway and employed hundreds of skilled tradesmen and women. This is a major setback for a critical project in Connecticut, and I will fight it,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in a statement.

► From NABTU:

► From Reuters — Trump’s redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule to the US House — President Donald Trump’s push for Republican-led states to redraw their U.S. House of Representatives districts to protect their majority in next year’s midterm elections could set the stage for Republicans to dominate the chamber in decades to come, political analysts and experts said. Republicans hold a 219-212 House majority and Trump is looking to break the streak of midterm House losses for the sitting president’s party — as happened to him in 2018 and to Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 — by pushing states starting with Texas to aggressively redistrict.

► From the AP — Some FEMA staff call out Trump cuts in public letter of dissent — “Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the letter states. The statement in it is noteworthy not only for its content but for its overall existence; a fierce approach toward critics by the Trump administration has caused many in the federal government to hesitate before locking heads with the White House. The letter coincides with the 20th anniversary week of Hurricane Katrina, when more than 1,800 people died and profound failures in the federal response prompted Congress to pass the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006.

► From the Washington State Standard — Match-ups for legislative seats set for Washington’s November election — With Washington state’s primary in the books, the focus shifts to the November general election for nine Democratic state lawmakers seeking to keep seats to which they were appointed. Each of them won Aug. 5, some more easily than others, in results certified Wednesday by the secretary of state’s office. In the closest primary contest, Democratic state Sen. Deb Krishnadasan beat Republican state Rep. Michelle Caldier by 1,158 votes in the 26th Legislative District that spans parts of Pierce and Kitsap counties. It is expected to be tight when they face off again this fall.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From the Independent — TikTok accused of ‘union-busting’ after laying off hundreds of staff — TikTok’s Chinese owners have been accused of “bare-faced union busting” by announcing hundreds of layoffs just a week before staff were due to vote on unionisation…CWU national officer John Chadfield told The Independent: “The timing is deliberate… and it is deliberately cruel. “It is bare-faced union busting, leaves the members who have organised facing massive uncertainty and, from what we can see, they are just going to be offshoring these jobs to a third-party in Lisbon.”

 

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From In These Times — Immigrant Subway Cleaners in New York Win Millions — One of hundreds of immigrant workers hired to disinfect New York’s subways at the height of the pandemic, the 48-year-old from the Dominican Republic couldn’t ignore such a stark disparity between extraordinary needs of the moment and the low pay. “I always asked myself the question,” he said. ​“Why so little money for such a risky job?”…Now, he’s one of a largely immigrant workforce of about 450 contracted subway cleaners who will share in a more than $3 million settlement recouped by City Comptroller Brad Lander…Reyna is now a union member with 32BJ SEIU cleaning buildings in midtown Manhattan and writes in Spanish over text that ​“there are many benefits in the workplace that I have never had in any other job.”

 

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