WA Fed workers | OR, SW WA strike called | Civil rights

Monday, October 6, 2025

STRIKES

► From KSDK — Striking machinists hold the line as Boeing replacement workers begin training — “It’s a concern,” International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Business Representative John Fitts told 5 On Your Side. Fitts worked for Boeing during the last strike in St. Louis. “I was here in ’96 when we were on strike. And they brought in replacement workers at that time. And I know when we came back it was a mess in there and we had a lot of clean up work to do.”…Fitts said Boeing machinists take months to train, that the process starts with a four month course through St. Louis Community College, “and that’s just to get a basic concept of drilling holes and installing fasteners.”

► From KOMU — Hawley and Sanders question Boeing’s labor attorney about St. Louis strike — The nine-week strike at Boeing’s St. Louis-area defense plants is not settled because the company isn’t dealing fairly with the workers, Missouri Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Vermont Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday…“We’ve got 3,000-plus Missourians who are currently, effectively out of a job,” Hawley said to Mayer during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing. “They haven’t had a significant wage increase in years. They need to be able to afford to pay rent, to put food on the table for their families, and to get their health care. I mean, is your company going to do right by these workers?”

► From NBC Philadelphia — ‘We need a real raise’: Workers at Center City Philadelphia hotels go on strike — Room attendants, cooks, bartenders and other hospitality workers have begun strikes at two hotels in Center City Philadelphia with expired contracts. The strike started at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 5, 2025, with workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 274, walking the picket lines in front of the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, located at 17th and Race, and the Hampton Inn Philadelphia Center City-Convention Center, situated at 13th and Race…“We need a real raise.” Sheraton room attendant Francine Eason shared in a news release, “Inflation has eaten up our wages. We deserve to be able to take care of ourselves. We deserve to be able to take care of our families. It’s time for these companies to listen.”

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — The shutdown may strain WA’s federal workers. Here’s where they live — In Washington, the average number of federal workers was 79,637 for the first quarter of 2025, according to preliminary data from the state Employment Security Department…Two Washington counties stand out for the share of the workforce that is federal government employees: Kitsap and Garfield. The shutdown could have the biggest impact in these two counties. Kitsap County, where Bremerton is located, is home to the third largest Navy base in the U.S. In the first quarter of 2025, there was an average of 21,400 federal employees in Kitsap County, the highest number of any county in the state…Garfield County, a rural county in southeastern Washington, is the least populous county in the state, and it had a much smaller number of federal employees than Kitsap — just 121. But the total number of people employed in Garfield was just 642, meaning federal workers made up around 19% of the labor force.

► From the Seattle Times — OPINION: Starbucks’ challenges leave a bitter taste in its hometown — Finally, the company also faces a union problem, including some headquarters employees joining the Starbucks Workers United. Baristas at the Capitol Hill location voted to join the union, too. In May, about 2,000 employees at 120 stores staged a walkout to protest a dress code. And, in 2022, the company faced a decision by the National Labor Relations Board that it failed to bargain in good faith with the union. And the NLRB filed a demand in 2023 for the corporation to reopen 23 stores, including eight in Seattle. The current administration is mostly hostile to organized labor…Still, the company has yet to finalize a contract with the union. Until that happens, Niccol’s hopes will be left in ashes.

► From the Olympian — WA education ombuds logs record number of calls, most about special ed needs –The main category for callers’ questions continues to be special education, including families with requests related to their child’s Individualized Education Plan, the report says. Such parents and caregivers often expressed feelings of anxiety, stress and uncertainty about their kid’s disability being adequately supported by the school…The report also called federal-level changes about student protections and rights “concerning,” underscoring a need to focus on Black and Brown students, immigrants, students with disabilities and transgender and nonbinary students.

► From the Seattle Times — As Trump orders National Guard to Portland, what’s crime really like? — “It does appear that the violence, and the violent crime rates in Seattle are trending downward, like many other places, but it’s a little slower to get there” compared to other cities, said Ernesto Lopez, a senior research specialist for the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Council on Criminal Justice, which analyzes crime trends in major cities.

► From the Wenatchee World — Time-card investigation preceded immigration arrests at Bear Gulch fire –In a morning briefing days before the arrests, Scot Roeber, who was supervising one area of the fire, said he encouraged firefighters, which included Arden Solutions, to complete their time cards to reflect the terms in their contracts. That’s not an uncommon request on fires. He said Arden was not singled out. Arden updated their time cards that morning, according to a firefighter who requested not to be named for fear of retaliation. Firefighters and other fire personnel say such discrepancies pop up, and they are almost always corrected on-site.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From OPB — Kaiser Permanente union approves strike for later this month — Health care workers and nurses at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Southwest Washington are set to strike on Oct. 14 — that’s if they don’t reach a tentative deal with Kaiser. The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, which represents nearly 4,000 health care workers in four different bargaining units, made the strike announcement Friday morning. If the strike proceeds, it could last up to five days. Kaiser Permanente locations along the Interstate 5 corridor from Longview, Washington, to Eugene would be affected, including Sunnyside Medical Center and Westside Medical Center in the Portland area.

► From the NW Labor Press — Workers at Portland’s independent police review unit hope contract bargaining can save their jobs — On Aug. 19, the 11 unionized IPR workers voted unanimously to authorize a strike. The unit declared impasse and submitted their final offer to the Oregon Employment Relations Board on Sept. 12. They could go on a strike as soon as mid-October. Portland voters approved a ballot measure in 2020 that replaces the IPR program with a new Office of Community-based Police Accountability.  Voters approved plans to create an entirely new oversight system, not just expand the authority of the IPR. But union leaders say the city can’t lay off workers just to rehire for essentially the same positions.

NATIONAL

► From KUOW — Civil rights jobs have been cut. Those ex-workers warn of ICE detention violations — The Trump administration earlier cut hundreds of staff in these congressionally mandated offices in order to save money and because DHS argued they were “internal adversaries that slow down operations.” This included federal employees who conducted regular visits to detention centers, reviewed and investigated complaints about detention conditions, and prepared reports due to Congress…”More people are going to die in custody as a result because there are not going to be the same level of checks and balances internally. And the American public will not be able to be as outraged because there’s no one with whom to file these complaints,” the former employee added.

► From Time — ‘Military-Style’ ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building Shows Escalation in Trump’s Crackdown — At around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, armed federal agents rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of a five-storey residential apartment in the South Shore of Chicago. The agents worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties and arresting dozens, according to witnesses and local reporting…“They just treated us like we were nothing,” Pertissue Fisher, a U.S. citizen who lives in the apartment building, told ABC7 Chicago in an interview soon after the raid. She said she was then handcuffed, held for hours, and released around 3 a.m. This was the first time she said a gun was ever put in her face. Neighbor Eboni Watson, who witnessed the raid, also told the ABC station that the children were zip-tied—some of them were without clothes—when they were taken out of the residential building by federal agents. “Where’s the morality?” Watson said she kept asking during the raid.

► From People’s World — ICE attacks face judicial, union flak in Chicago, Oregon — And The Illinois Press Association, Local 41 of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, the Chicago Headline Club and the Block Club of Chicago also sued ICE on October 3 for its violation of the Constitution’s 1st Amendment freedom of the press, by beating, harassing and shooting tear gas and pepper balls at reporters covering arrests and follow-up protests at the ICE detention center in Broadview.  The Chicago Newspaper Guild is finalizing a statement supporting that suit, too.

► From the NW Labor Press — Union members have superior benefits — Union-represented workers are much more likely to be enrolled in employer-provided health and retirement benefits than non-union workers. According to the latest annual report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 82% of union workers are enrolled in an employer-provided retirement plan compared to 53% of non-union workers. And 72% of union-represented workers are enrolled in employer-provided health insurance compared to 45% of non-union workers.  More workers have “access” to employer-sponsored benefits than enroll. That’s because employees’ share of health premiums is sometimes unaffordable, and many workers must opt in to defined contribution retirement savings plans like 401(k)s. But the “uptake” rate is also higher for union workers than non-union workers.

► From the New York Times — Judge Finds ‘Likelihood’ That Charges Against Abrego Garcia Are Vindictive — The ruling was an astonishing rebuke of both the department and some of its top officials, including Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general. Mr. Blanche was called out by name in the ruling for remarks he made about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case on the same day in June he was returned to U.S. soil to face the charges in Federal District Court in Nashville. In a 16-page decision, Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. said there was evidence that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s prosecution “may stem from retaliation” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Common Dreams — Mass Firing Threat Proves Shutdown Is ‘Project 2025 in Action,’ Says Jayapal — “They have actually already fired at least 150,000 federal workers,” said Jayapal. “They’ve already slashed agencies across the board and [Office of Management and Budget director] Russ Vought does want to use the shutdown to inflict more pain on the American people, instead of addressing the healthcare crisis that we have—both from the Big Bad Betrayal Bill and from the upcoming crisis we have around the Affordable Care Act subsidies.”…”Donald Trump and Russ Vought of Project 2025 are using this shutdown to inflict as much pain as they can,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Saturday. “They’re withholding federal money that has already been approved by Congress to target and punish American communities. This is illegal.”

► From the Washington Post — Trump sees shutdown as tool to shrink government, target foes — Trump is shattering political norms by wielding the shutdown to advance his broader objective to shrink the federal bureaucracy and punish his foes by threatening layoffs, shuttering “Democrat agencies” he doesn’t like and promising to withhold billions of dollars in infrastructure funds intended for blue states. The shutdown is only the latest example of how Trump is barreling through traditional guardrails in his second term to pick fights with his perceived opponents and achieve policy objectives that eluded him the first time around.

► From the Washington Post — WIC funding could run out in weeks, as government shuts down — Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the National WIC Association, which advocates for WIC recipients, said once the estimated two weeks of funding are up, families could be put in a “really terrible position about having to figure out how to feed their kids.” More than 6 million Americans rely on WIC for food assistance, breastfeeding support and nutrition education. The program offers supplemental spending money for groceries and organizes trainings for young parents on how to feed their children. The federal government appropriates grants each year to finance state WIC programs.

► From the Federal News Network — Federal unions sue White House, demand immediate end to shutdown — Federal unions say the current government shutdown is like no other. The National Treasury Employees Union said poor communication around agencies’ shutdown contingency plans caused “upheaval” for federal employees. And after the new threat of reductions in force, the American Federation of Government Employees is now suing the Trump administration, calling the White House’s directive illegal, and raising concerns that it will “inflict further pain” on government workers. Both federal unions are demanding an immediate end to the shutdown.

► From the Washington Post — Trump plan would limit disability benefits for older Americans — The Social Security Administration evaluates disability claims by considering age, work experience and education to determine if a person can adjust to other types of work. Older applicants, typically over 50, have a better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a limitation in adapting to many jobs. But now officials are considering eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to age 60, according to three people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions…It is unclear exactly how many Americans could lose access to disability benefits under the proposed rule changes.

► From the Washington Post — Supreme Court and Trump are headed for a reckoning in new term — After months of terse emergency rulings that largely avoided major confrontations with the new administration, the justices will open their new term Monday faced with the need to render full, final verdicts on policies at the core of Trump’s presidency. “It really is going to be a showdown,” said Jennifer Nou, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “So many of the president’s big-ticket constitutional issues and policy initiatives are quickly coming up before the court. All of this is coming to a head.”

► From the AP — Newsom signs bill giving 800,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in California the right to unionize — Supporters said the new law will open a path for the largest expansion of private sector collective bargaining rights in the state’s history. The legislation is a significant compromise in the yearslong battle between labor unions and tech companies…The new law is part of an agreement made in September between Newsom, state lawmakers and the Service Employees International Union, along with rideshare companies Uber and Lyft. In exchange, Newsom also signed a measure supported by Uber and Lyft to significantly cut the companies’ insurance requirements for accidents caused by underinsured drivers.

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