Controllers ‘mentally drained’ | SNAP rulings | Shutdown deal?

Friday, November 7, 2025

STRIKES

► From the St. Louis Business Journal — Union sends Boeing new contract offer to end 95-day strike at St. Louis defense plants — IAM leaders said they haven’t received a counteroffer from Boeing. “In case it was not clear, this is an official offer from the union to settle the strike,” IAM Resident General Vice President Jody Bennett wrote in a Nov. 5 letter to Robert Joga, Boeing’s director of labor relations. “We are hopeful that this will resolve the strike; however, should Boeing not accept the IAM’s reasonable offer to settle the strike, please send us a counter proposal for consideration.”

LOCAL

► From KREM — Thousands of Washingtonians face losing health insurance as federal subsidies set to expire — Jessica Elston, a single mother of two from Richland, represents one of thousands of Washingtonians facing difficult decisions. After losing her job over the summer, she enrolled in ACA coverage. When she went to renew for 2025, she discovered her monthly premium would increase from $93 to $624 for the same plan if the subsidies aren’t extended. “I’m actually really anxious about what it looks like to not have my mental health medication because I can’t afford the $600 a month — that’s half my rent,” Elston said. Unable to afford the increased cost, Elston said she plans to drop her coverage and may join a medical sharing program in case of a catastrophic health emergency. She’s already begun tapering down her medication in preparation for losing coverage entirely.

► From the Seattle Times — The WA counties hit hardest by SNAP lapse — More than half of Washington residents receiving food stamps are in families with children. More than a third are in households with older adults or people with disabilities, and more than a third are in working families…Of the state’s 39 counties, Yakima was the most dependent on SNAP benefits. About 22% of Yakima County residents — more than 57,000 people — relied on SNAP to help pay for food. Neighboring Ferry and Okanogan counties showed similarly high reliance, with about 21% of residents enrolled in the program. Grays Harbor and Pend Oreille counties rounded out the top 5, both at about 20%.

► From the Seattle Times — Live: Flight cancellation updates: impact on Sea-Tac Airport, Alaska Airlines –Friday’s cuts focused primarily on smaller domestic and regional flights, largely sparing international service and flights between hub airports. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, one of the 40 “high-volume” markets affected, had nearly 30 cancellations as of Friday at 6:20 a.m. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that flights will be reduced until the government shutdown ends…Alaska Airlines in a statement Thursday said it expects most guests to be reaccommodated to other flights with “as little disruption as possible” as most cancellations are on routes with a higher frequency of flights.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Daily Bruin — UPTE-CWA 9119, AFSCME Local 3299 to strike Nov. 17-18, backed by CNA — Over 80,000 workers may strike across the UC on Nov. 17 and 18. The University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119 – which represents researchers and technical workers – and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 – which represents service, patient care and skilled workers – decided to strike in response to the University’s alleged failure to settle for a fair contract. Members of the California Nurses Association who work at UC hospitals will also strike in solidarity with the two unions.

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — Odd Jobs and DoorDash: How Air Traffic Controllers Are Surviving — “I’m broken down. I’m sore. I’m mentally drained,” said one controller at an airport in the Southeast, who has spent nearly all his free time this week — almost 40 hours — hanging Christmas lights for pay. “There’s some times where I felt like just going into the corner and crying because it’s been pretty tough to push through the physical pain, the tiredness and waking up the next day having to do it all over again.” The controller, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern that making frank comments about the Federal Aviation Administration could get him fired.

► From KUOW — Is the job market getting worse? As the shutdown continues, this is what we know — “October’s decline in employee confidence reflects how quickly economic uncertainty can ripple through the workforce,” said Glassdoor’s chief economist Daniel Zhao. “The government shutdown and mounting layoff fears have clearly shaken employee sentiment.” A number of high-profile companies such as Amazon and UPS have announced widespread layoffs in recent weeks, which likely weighs on workers’ confidence. The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas says U.S. businesses announced plans to cut 153,074 jobs last month — the worst October in more than two decades.

► From Semafor — Condé Nast abruptly fires 4 staffers after HR confrontation — On Wednesday, more than a dozen employees gathered outside the office of Stan Duncan, Condé Nast’s head of human resources, demanding to speak with him about the Teen Vogue decision, and other recent cuts at the company. Duncan told staff that they could not be congregating outside his office, and asked them to return to work. When he tried to leave, one employee asked Duncan if he was running away from the unionized employees…A member of the union implied that the decision to fold Teen Vogue into its parent magazine would impact the company’s political coverage; one of the fired employees asked Duncan what he planned on doing to stand up to the Trump administration. “We’d like you to move forward,” Duncan said. “We’d like you to answer our questions,” one employee who was later fired said.

► From Variety — SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin on Jimmy Kimmel Suspension, Tilly Norwood AI Controversy, Microdrama Boom and More — Sean Astin came into his new role as president of SAG-AFTRA with a big agenda. Days after he was elected in September, his to-do list got even longer when the Jimmy Kimmel-ABC crisis erupted, followed by the arrival of AI ingenue Tilly Norwood and the Sora 2 flap involving Bryan Cranston…In his first extended interview since taking the SAG-AFTRA reins from Fran Drescher, Astin dove in with candid responses to questions including the overarching question about next year’s negotiations on a master contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

► From Workday Magazine — “An Optimistic Book for Horrifying Times”: An Interview with Labor Writer and Historian Dave Kamper — Kamper is a senior state policy strategist for the Economic Policy Institute, and began organizing on the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign campus as a graduate student in the 1990s. He argues that the current era of unionism presents a historical high and a changing tide filled with hope following a few decades of losses stemming from the 1980s. The pandemic blew everything apart, Kamper says, in order for new strategies to emerge.

► From the UAW:

FROM UAW PRESIDENT SHAWN FAIN:

“The auto industry should be a pathway to a decent life for the blue collar worker. But now Elon Musk, who doesn’t build the product, wants a trillion dollars while autoworkers fall behind. That’s everything that’s wrong with this industry and this… https://t.co/cPPXeYe5l9

— UAW (@UAW) November 6, 2025

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the AP — Trump administration seeks to halt SNAP food aid payments after a court order — President Donald Trump’s administration asked a federal appeals court Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly SNAP food benefits amid a U.S. government shutdown, even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people. The judge gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.

► From the New York Times — Democrats Mull Shutdown Deal as Thune Plans a Spending Vote — Republicans and Democrats on Thursday stepped up their efforts to find a way out of the government shutdown, eyeing a weekend session as the funding impasse threatened to snarl flights across the country and stretched into a 37th day. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, told G.O.P. lawmakers that he planned to call yet another vote on Friday to advance the House-passed stopgap spending bill, as Senate Democrats gathered behind closed doors discussing what it would take to win their votes to reopen the government…Democrats huddled in a closed-door luncheon for nearly two hours on Thursday to discuss potential offramps from the shutdown stalemate. It was the first time the party had met as a caucus to discuss a path forward on the matter after they posted election victories in New York, New Jersey and Virginia.

► From the Guardian — Workers decry Trump officials as ‘out of control’ as longest shutdown drags on — As the US federal shutdown enters its second month, government workers are accusing the Trump administration of being “out of control” and bullying people who are “simply trying to do their best”…“I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever thought that we would have our government attacking government employees,” said Omar Algeciras, who works at the Department of Labor. “ I think this is the epitome of harassment, bullying and attacks on people that are simply trying to do their best to provide a service or services to American workers.” The Trump administration’s treatment of federal workers and their unions has put significant pressure and mental health burdens on federal workers who provide services to the American public, said Algeciras, vice-president of AFGE Local 2391.

► From the Seattle Times — Krishnadasan keeps WA 26th District Senate seat as Caldier concedes — In a statement from Krishnadasan on Thursday, she said her campaign focused on issues facing communities instead of partisan fights and believed voters saw through the “wave” of expensive corporate-funded campaign attacks. “They chose partnership over partisanship and substance over cynicism,” she said, before adding that she remained committed to working with Caldier and the district’s other lawmaker, Rep. Adison Richards, D-Gig Harbor.

► From the Spokesman-Review — Governor tours Western State Hospital as state looks to improve staff safety — Gov. Bob Ferguson worked from the campus of Western State Hospital in Lakewood this week and toured the construction site of the new 350-bed forensic hospital, which is slated to open in 2028. The extended tour comes amid concerns for staff and patient safety and staffing shortages at the 800-bed psychiatric facility. During the visit, Ferguson met with officials from the Department of Social and Health Services, patients and staff.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Washington submits $1 billion plan for federal rural health-care funding — Of Washington’s 39 counties, 29 counties — which are home to more than 1 million residents — have been deemed rural. The controversial Rural Health Transformation Program was established under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or H.R. 1, the far-reaching federal tax and spending legislation signed by President Donald Trump on July 4. The program will offer $50 billion for rural health care to approved states over five years. That leaves $10 billion available annually from fiscal years 2026 through 2030…But health experts fear that the program won’t be nearly enough to make up for Medicaid losses. KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group, expects federal Medicaid spending in rural areas to drop by $155 billion over a decade.

► From the Washington State Standard — Money crunch puts kibosh on WA state lawmakers’ wish lists — Early each session, lawmakers typically submit requests to budget writers for new or additional funding for programs and services. Wish lists are the product of legislators’ conversations with a wide berth of individuals and interests. Robinson, an Everett Democrat, said in an interview Wednesday she reached out before any submissions arrived in hopes of tamping down expectations. “We don’t have money to pay for what is needed, let alone new spending that members might request,” she said.

JOLT OF JOY

No politician is perfect. Who knows what the future holds. But axioms aside, it is pretty fricking cool that the next mayor of NY is a guy so dedicated to supporting working people that he joined a 15 day hunger strike. Here’s how Zohran Mamdani lent his voice to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance’s fight to end the manufactured debt crisis wrecking the lives of cab drivers.

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