‘Living in squalor’ | Lelo speaks out | Spokane educators TA

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

STRIKES

► From KOIN — ‘Living in squalor’: Evergreen support staff on strike — The union, which represents more than 1,400 specialized support staff including paraeducators, bus drivers, security officers and maintenance workers, told KOIN 6 News its members have been fighting for a fair contract since March 2025…The impending strike comes as the Evergreen Education Association, representing teachers, agreed to not cross the picket line in solidarity with support staff…“I make less than $20,000 a year. It’s not feasible,” said Derek Sytsma, a Special Education Paraeducator with the district. Sytsma said the discrepancy between support staff pay and the wages afforded to district administrators is another reason he is joining the picket line. “When we have people on the board that are making a quarter-of-a-million dollars and getting 4.5% raises, we’re fighting for pennies,” he said. “I can’t prepare the youth of tomorrow while living in squalor today.”

Editor’s note: Evergreen Education Association has shared this picket schedule for those able to join the workers.

► From STLPR — ‘No progress’ on Day 1 as talks restart between Boeing and union — “We’re hoping to meet more during the week. The ball is in the company’s court,” said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 in a statement. Keifer Beem, an assistant mechanic for Boeing who was on the picket line in Berkeley on Monday, said he is willing to keep striking as long as necessary to get the contract the union wants. “The best thing that we can do is just stand our footing, and just make it loud and clear we’re not going back to work until we can get ourselves a good, fair contract with better wages,” Beem said.

LOCAL

► From the Bellingham Herald — ‘Terrible place’: Local activist shares his story of 4 months in ICE detention –Juarez Zeferino remained in custody in Tacoma until opting for a voluntary departure from the U.S. to Mexico on July 14 — nearly four months after his arrest. He said he didn’t want to leave, but after dealing with the conditions of the detention center for nearly four months, he didn’t think he had any other choice…The three meals a day that they were supposed to receive were often late, with dinner sometimes coming as late as 1 or 2 a.m…He said there were still some feathers on the meat, so he lifted the skin up. There was blood dripping from it, and a pool of it had formed underneath the chicken on the tray. “It was very hard for us to get any sleep, especially when we were all very hungry,” Juarez Zeferino told The Herald. So they ate the often uncooked food, even if it made them sick sometimes.

► From the Seattle Times — Uber Eats agrees to $15 million settlement with Seattle — Uber Eats was hit with violations of two city laws. One, the Independent Contractor Protections Ordinance, requires entities like Uber and others that use independent workers disclose how much a job pays and the calculations behind that rate, in addition to timely payment. Under that law, a driver for Uber Eats complained that the company’s “boost” program — which offers higher rates in busy areas — implied higher possible earnings than were reality and therefore fell short of the city’s requirements…The second complaint resulted in a $1.5 million settlement and concerned the city’s minimum wage law for app-based workers. Several workers complained they were not being paid for trips that had been canceled for cause. The office additionally alleged Uber Eats was not including all relevant information on its daily and weekly receipts.

► From KUOW — As DACA recipients lose federal health benefits, Washington state offers immigrants an alternative — In Washington, hundreds of DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” will still be able to participate in the state’s health exchange. But they’ll lose out on about $350 per month of additional federal benefits, according to the state’s health benefits exchange. These benefits are federal tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies from the federal government that DACA recipients pay into with jobs they get with work authorization.

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Korean Air plans to buy more than 100 Boeing aircraft — Korean Air has announced a $50 billion deal to buy more than 100 Boeing aircraft and several spare engines and obtain engine maintenance for 20 years…The deal includes $36.2 billion for 103 next-generation Boeing aircraft; $690 million for 19 spare engines from GE Aerospace and CFM International; and $13 billion for the 20-year engine maintenance service contract with GE Aerospace, Korean Air said in a statement.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Spokesman Review — Spokane Public Schools district and teachers union reach tentative agreement on new contract — Union membership will vote on the bargained contract at a general assembly meeting on Tuesday. If membership approves the new terms and the contract is finalized, the district will release more information about the contract with staff and families, according to an email from district spokesperson Ryan Lancaster.

► From Front Office Sports — New WNBA CBA By Oct. 31 Deadline Appears Increasingly Unlikely — “The players are working diligently to achieve a transformational CBA that builds on the growth, momentum, and positive news surrounding women’s sports and the W,” WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said in a statement to FOS. “As we approach the 60-day mark, the league’s lack of urgency leaves players wondering if it is focused on making this work or just running out the clock. Fans do not want that. They are with the players in demanding a new standard for the W.”

ORGANIZING

► From WAVE — BlueOval SK battery plant workers begin vote on unionization — So far, nearly 1,500 of the expected 5,000 jobs the plant will create in Glendale have been filled. The UAW said that, currently, the BlueOval SK plant is the only battery plant involving the Big Three automakers that is non-union. The union said that votes will start being counted Wednesday.

NATIONAL

► From the Washington Post — Judge temporarily bars Kilmar Abrego García’s deportation to Uganda –Whether the government will succeed in deporting him remains unclear. Hours later, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily barred the administration from removing him until she can hold a hearing to ensure that the Trump administration is following the law. “Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,” she told Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign. She then pointedly asked whether her order was understood.

► From the Guardian — Greater risk of toxic derailments if $85bn railroad merger is approved, warn unions — “The entirety of the workers” is against the merger, claimed John Samuelsen, the president of the Transport Workers Union. “We’re hoping that the stakeholders in DC that are making determinations are going to listen and understand that when something like East Palestine happens, the chances of that happening under a mammothly merged new entity become greater and greater,” he said. “Anything that empowers the freight rail carriers makes them more profitable and just increases the levels of power that they can press is dangerous for workers, and actually dangerous for everybody,” Samuelsen added. “They’re already an incredibly difficult employer to deal with. And if they’re twice as big, they’ll be twice as difficult to deal with, and they’re going to move to reduce headcount.”

► From the AP — Expect health insurance prices to rise next year, brokers and experts say — Pricey prescriptions and nagging medical costs are swamping some insurers and employers now. Patients may start paying for it next year. Health insurance will grow more expensive in many corners of the market in 2026, and coverage may shrink. That could leave patients paying more for doctor visits and dealing with prescription coverage changes…“We’re in a period of uncertainty in every health insurance market right now, which is something we haven’t seen in a very long time,” said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president at the nonprofit KFF, which studies health care.

► From Wired — AI Is Eliminating Jobs for Younger Workers — Economists at Stanford University have found the strongest evidence yet that artificial intelligence is starting to eliminate certain jobs. But the story isn’t that simple: While younger workers are being replaced by AI in some industries, more experienced workers are seeing new opportunities emerge. The researchers discovered several strong signals in the data—most notably that the adoption of generative AI coincided with a decrease in job opportunities for younger workers in sectors previously identified as particularly vulnerable to AI-powered automation (think customer service and software development). In these industries, they found a 16 percent decline in employment for workers aged 22 to 25.

► From USA Today — Rural America braces for hospital closures after Medicaid cuts — Penny Blue was walking up the stairs of her Union Hall, Va. home in 2013 when a blood vessel burst in her brain. “I actually felt the pop in my head when it happened,” she told USA TODAY. After sitting down and calling an ambulance she was quickly on her way to the closest hospital 15 minutes away, where she was stabilized. She was flown by helicopter to Roanoke Memorial hospital and remained in intensive care there for 13 days. If the same thing happened again, Blue might not be so lucky. If the rural hospital down the road were to close, the closest hospital would be at least an hour away in Roanoke. The 65-year-old said she has looked at the statistics of what her chances of survival and quality of life would be if she had to go that far. They aren’t good.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Lisa Cook Defies Trump Bid to Fire Her as Fed Governor — Lisa Cook said that she would not step down from the Federal Reserve, hours after President Trump said that he was taking the extraordinary step of removing her from the central bank’s Board of Governors…In a statement released through her lawyer on Monday evening, Ms. Cook said that “no cause exists under the law” for Mr. Trump to fire her. “I will not resign,” she said. “I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”

► From the New York Times — DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says — Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer. The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.

► From Bloomberg Law — SpaceX’s Court Victory Paves Way for a Labor Movement Revival — Several commentators have claimed that this ruling will hinder efforts to protect workers seeking to organize. I have a different take. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling could lead to the labor movement’s revival by striking down the NLRA’s restrictions on secondary boycotts, refusals to handle “hot cargo,” and recognitional picketing. I have argued if the Supreme Court follows the Fifth Circuit’s example and rules that the president can fire ex-NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox without cause, despite the NLRA saying otherwise, then all of the law’s prohibitions on employer and union conduct must fall.

► From ABC News — Trump’s plan to create Guard units to quell civil unrest alarms experts — In an executive order signed Monday, Trump called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to designate Army and Air National Guard members in each state who could rapidly deploy to help federal, state and local law enforcement “in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, as appropriate under the law.”…Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, a former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau and vocal opponent of Trump’s reliance on Guard troops to aid law enforcement, said Trump’s orders were unnecessary and “100 percent political.” “The administration is trying to desensitize the American people to get used to American armed soldiers in combat vehicles patrolling the streets of America,” Manner said.

► From KREM — Spokane City Council passes “public dollars for public benefit ordinance” ordinance — “The labor movement has been at the forefront of fighting for better wages and working conditions for workers. I’m proud to co-sponsor this ordinance encouraging priority hiring practices for contractors to provide quality pay and benefits and making sure our public dollars benefit our local economy first and foremost,” said Council Member Zack Zappone, co-sponsor of the ordinance. “Dollars from these public works projects will provide Spokanites with living wages that reinvest in our local economy.”

► From the Spokesman Review — Icing out ICE: Spokane outlaws warrantless immigration enforcement at events on public property — “Words cannot fully describe the way your blood freezes or the way your entire nervous system becomes an active live wire when you think you may have to be the person who stands against injustice and holds federal agents accountable,” said Nicole Ruiz, an organizer for Nuestras Raíces Community Center – a nonprofit serving the Latino community in Eastern Washington that hosts events like Tacos and Tequila. “However, there is also something powerful when you know you are backed by the law,” Ruiz added. “Despite the fear, you stand a little straighter.”

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