VA union busting | ICE in WA | Merger ‘meltdowns’?

Thursday, August 7, 2025

STRIKES

► From the Missouri Independent — ‘Give us something fair’: Workers picket outside Boeing facilities near St. Louis — Democratic state Rep. Doug Clemens, who represents a district that partially includes St. Louis Lambert International Airport, visited with the workers on the picket line on Tuesday afternoon…He told them that his father worked for McDonnell Douglas, which was a major aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor headquartered in St. Louis and was later acquired by Boeing in 1997. His father retired shortly after Boeing took over, he said, and the first thing the company did was cut health-care benefits to retirees. “As far as the strike goes, it’s high time to have a strike,” Clemens said. “It’s high time that Boeing is put in its place when it comes to supporting its own workers.”

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — Data show how Trump has changed WA immigration enforcement — The data shows immigration enforcement has indeed scaled up in Washington. Arrests have climbed, most sharply in June, but not as much as they have nationwide. Most of those arrested in Washington and nationwide do not have a criminal record. Perhaps even more noteworthy, immigrant advocates say, 100% of those arrested in Washington are now spending time detained in jail-like conditions, whereas some used to be released into the community with a form of monitoring, like ankle bracelets or periodic ICE check-ins.

► From Cascade PBS — Sheriff declines to investigate WA teen worker’s amputation case — The Clark County Sheriff’s Office has declined to criminally investigate a Vancouver-based company that, state officials concluded, had violated youth labor laws, resulting in the permanent disability of a teenage employee in 2023. The sheriff’s office cited a lack of victim and witness cooperation as the reason for not investigating, according to a June 11 letter…“Having reviewed the records, I found there was a factual basis for the allegation that a felony crime had occurred in this case; however, further investigation would be required,” a Clark County detective sergeant wrote in the June 11 letter.

► From the Washington State Standard — At Washington Health Care Authority, workers are warned of layoffs — Employees at one of Washington state’s largest health agencies are bracing for layoffs due to ongoing funding challenges. Though how many could lose their jobs and when aren’t known, the leader of the Washington Health Care Authority told workers in a Wednesday email that she “didn’t want to wait to let you know that layoffs will be part of our path forward.”…Mike Yestramski, president of the Washington Federation of State Employees, said the union had not received formal notice of layoffs as required in collective bargaining agreements. The union represents 54,000 state government, higher education and public service workers including ones at the Health Care Authority.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Tri-Cities largest employer plans voluntary layoffs amid federal budget uncertainty — Given federal budget uncertainty, it is preparing for cuts in some of its research programs, said PNNL Laboratory Director Steven Ashby in a memo to staff Wednesday morning obtained by the Tri-City Herald. The Department of Energy lab operated by contractor Battelle is the largest single employer in the Tri-Cities with 6,400 employees, the majority of them based at its Richland campus.

► From Working to Live in Southwest Washington — LISTEN: Ground Zero For Worker Protections: Voices From The 2025 WSLC Convention — The 2025 Washington State Labor Council Convention took place July 22nd – 24th at the Vancouver Hilton. As The Stand put it those three days “strengthened bonds of solidarity, grew skillsets, and celebrated the powerful resiliency of a movement by and for working people.” Over the course of those three days Harold hit the Convention floor and talked with other Delegates about the big moments that stood out to them during the event, their impressions of Vancouver, and why working people who aren’t in a union (yet) should care about what happens at state Labor Federation Conventions.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From ESPN — WNBA’s CBA negotiations: From rev sharing to potential lockout — “The players are still adamant that we get a percentage of revenue that grows with the business, which perhaps includes team revenue, and that’s just a part of the conversation,” WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike told ESPN…The players see the astonishing leap in franchise valuations — the Las Vegas Aces, for example, were purchased for $2 million in 2021 but are now valued at $310 million, and the New York Liberty were purchased for between $10 million and $14 million after being for sale for more than a year and now have an estimated valuation of around $450 million — in the past couple of years and question if they are getting their proper share of that growth.

ORGANIZING

► From the Nation — Under Trump, Student Labor Organizers Face New Challenges — Since the decision, unions have spread like “wildfire” thanks to the younger generation’s accessibility on social media and the constant demands of an RA role, according to Nick Galipeau, secretary-treasurer of Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 153, which has organized many of them. “The social network among students across campuses is incredible,” Galipeau said. “When we ratify contracts at one university, we almost immediately get leads from other university groups and, at this point, we don’t have enough capacity to organize the amount of workers that want to be in the union.”

► From Fortune — For the first time ever, all major casinos on the Las Vegas strip are unionized — For 25 years, her employer, the Venetian, had resisted organizing efforts as one of the last holdouts on the Strip, locked in a prolonged standoff with the Culinary Workers Union. But a recent change in ownership opened the Venetian’s doors to union representation just as the Strip’s newest casino, the Fontainebleau, was also inking its first labor contract. The historic deals finalized late last year mark a major turning point: For the first time in the Culinary Union’s 90-year history, all major casinos on the Strip are unionized. Backed by 60,000 members, most of them in Las Vegas, it is the largest labor union in Nevada. Experts say the Culinary Union’s success is a notable exception in a national landscape where union membership overall is declining.

NATIONAL

► From CNBC — From jobs to safety, biggest railroad union fears ‘meltdowns’ from Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger — SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) has already stated its intention to petition the government to block the deal, with Union Pacific’s safety record among its primary concerns. “Without labor at the table from the start, management’s making a very, very serious mistake,” Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART-TD, told CNBC. “They need our input. Our members are professionals, whether it be yard masters, whether it be conductors, engineers or the foreman in the yards. We know how to move the freight…”

► From NPR — Trump’s immigration policies are having an impact in our workforce — Torres says he’s been working these long hours ever since the plant lost workers due to new immigration policies. President Trump has taken steps to expel a number of immigrants who had legal status under former President Biden. Kraft-Heinz says six employees out of roughly 300 at the Holland plant have been impacted. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union believes it’s more. Torres, who serves as the local union president, says he’s sat in on more than a dozen HR meetings where employees have been told they’re no longer eligible to work. He’s seen people in the company struggle to deliver the message.

► From Scalawag Magazine — Musk’s Memphis xAI data center and the making of a ‘Digital Delta’ — As Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson recently put it, “Southwest Memphis has been treated like an extractive colony for far too long.” But AI data centers also represent a troubling new frontier in the fight against environmental destruction, corporate exploitation, and state repression. The market for AI infrastructure is wrapped up in key strategies of the second Trump regime: disinformation, political surveillance, and the massive deregulation and resource extraction that’s accelerating the climate crisis.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Trump Administration Begins to Strip Federal Workers of Union Protections — The Department of Veterans Affairs said on Wednesday that it had moved to strip labor protections for more than 400,000 of its workers — most of whom are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal employees. The department’s announcement included attacks on union activities and leadership…Everett Kelley, the president of the A.F.G.E., said in a statement that the V.A.’s decision was “another clear example of retaliation” against unions that have opposed Mr. Trump’s plans to slash the federal bureaucracy.

► From AFGE:

Does this also include the tens of thousands of veterans who work at the VA…whose First Amendment rights you are clearly violating? https://t.co/GXVjNBd2cT

— AFGE (@AFGENational) August 7, 2025

► From People’s World — Labor movement rallies as Texas Democrats fight GOP’s redistricting power grab — On Tuesday, the national labor movement entered the struggle. State AFL-CIO leaders from eight states—Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Missouri, Florida, Ohio, and Washington state— issued a joint statement vowing that they will fight back against the Republicans’ anti-democratic and anti-worker scheme. “We are at a pivotal moment—the future of our unions, our democracy, and our freedoms is at stake,” read the labor leaders’ declaration. “Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig the rules in his favor by demanding a corrupt, rigged redistricting process in Texas, and he won’t stop there.”

► From CNN — Weather Service is now hiring back hundreds of positions that got cut in the DOGE chaos –Agency employees are greeting the news, unveiled at an all hands meeting on Monday, with guarded optimism and relief. Current employees have been working additional hours with additional responsibilities since the layoffs and retirements earlier this year, trying to maintain the 24/7 posture US extreme weather requires. The agency has also been functioning with less data from fewer, less frequent weather balloon launches. The announcement was also met with frustration over the people the agency lost in the failed attempt at government savings. “How much time/money is it going to cost to train a bunch of new people when we had already-trained people in place?” asked another NOAA official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

► From the New York Times — Why the B.L.S. Regularly Revises Jobs Data — Economists across the political spectrum decried Dr. McEntarfer’s firing, and dismissed the notion that she would, or even could, meddle with the monthly jobs figures. They said that while it was understandable that revisions — especially large ones — could foster skepticism, the data produced by the agency remained reliable. The challenges facing the agency, they added, long predate Dr. McEntarfer’s leadership and will be difficult for her successor to address without increased funding. Instead, the Trump administration has proposed further cuts to the agency’s budget.

► From the Guardian — The full list of Trump’s new tariffs – from India to Taiwan — “Reciprocal” tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on imports into the US from dozens of countries have come into effect, as part of Donald Trump’s accelerating trade war. The new rates – announced by the White House a week ago, just before a previous 1 August deadline was due to elapse – were in place as of a minute past midnight Washington time on Thursday.

► From NPR — 60 years later, Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters face new threats — The legal path that allowed Wilson to fight against the dilution of his and other Black voters’ collective power at the ballot box, however, may be ending soon, as a novel legal argument makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Contrary to decades of precedent, Republican state officials in at least 15 states contend that private individuals and groups do not have the right to sue to enforce Section 2 because they are not explicitly named in the landmark law’s text. Only the head of the Justice Department, they argue, can bring this kind of lawsuit.

► From the Washington State Standard — New leader in electoral battle for WA state Senate seat — A marquee primary for a Washington state Senate seat had a new leader following Wednesday’s tally of ballots. Democratic state Sen. Deb Krishnadasan led Republican state Rep. Michelle Caldier by 157 votes in their duel in the 26th Legislative District that spans parts of Pierce and Kitsap counties. Caldier, a six-term state representative, was ahead by 89 votes on Tuesday. Krishnadasan was appointed to the seat in December. More votes will be counted in the days ahead. As the only candidates, the two lawmakers will move on to face each other in the general election.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Worker’s bill of rights likely to appear on Tacoma ballot, but timeline is unclear — City and county officials validated the signatures by July 10, leaving the initiative in the hands of the City Council for another 30 days, according to the city charter. The council has until Aug. 9 to approve the initiative outright, in which case it wouldn’t appear on the ballot. It also could vote to reject the measure or could choose not to take any action. In either of those cases, the council would be required to submit the proposal to voters.

► From the Brown Daily Herald — With GLO push, RI becomes first state to explicitly codify student unionization rights in state law — A new law signed by Gov. Dan McKee has made Rhode Island the first state to explicitly protect graduate student workers’ right to unionize if the National Labor Relations Board declines to do so. McKee signed House Bill 5187 on July 2, capping off a monthslong effort by Brown’s Graduate Labor Organization to codify federal labor organizing protections in state law. GLO leaders had worked with the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and state legislators to advocate for the bill’s passage since its introduction in January.

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