Farmworkers | Sine die in sight | 55k may strike in LA

Monday, April 21, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Tri-City Herald — Harvest time for WA asparagus crop. Will immigration fears keep workers away? — “Immigrants feed us and without immigrants, we will not have a food supply,” [Farm owner Alan] Schreiber said. “Anyone who eats food or drinks beer and wine should not be advocating for the deportation of farm workers.” Across the country, farm labor is already scarce — for nearly two decades, there’s been a trend of fewer domestic workers available…[Farm manager] Arturo said that since the start of the year, workers are now more informed and feel less intimidated about immigration policies affecting their ability to work.

► From the Olympian — Washington is home to many bikini barista coffee stands. Why? — A lot of baristas also carry pepper spray, bear mace or baseball bats in their stands to defend themselves against aggressive clients. Mason, for instance, carries a gun…Although most bikini baristas work alone, the state’s isolated worker law — which seeks to protect employees who spend a majority of their working hours alone or without another coworker present from sexual harassment and assault — doesn’t apply to bikini baristas or coffee-stand workers, Lorraine said. That law only applies to employees working as security guards, commercial janitors, hotel or motel housekeepers and room service attendants, she said.

► From Teamsters 117:

END THE 🔒LOCKOUT🔒Mauser Packaging Solution’s lockout of 20 members of #Teamsters 117 continues. Support workers fighting the ugly intimidation tactics of a greedy multinational‼️💪 #MauserPackagingMisery pic.twitter.com/qmk7NZRbJV

— Teamsters 117 (@teamsters117) April 21, 2025

Editor’s note: rally with the workers tomorrow, Tuesday, at 9:30 a.m. in front of the Mauser/ICS facility at 7152 1st Ave S, Seattle.

► From the Seattle Times — Anti-Trump protests build momentum in WA: ‘We’re just getting louder’ — Sarah Brenner, 37, a stay-at-home mom from Snohomish, said Trump administration officials “want us to feel alone. They want us to feel isolated.” Large rallies like this, she said, “show everyone else who might be feeling alone that there are people who feel the same as them and are feeling brave enough to speak out.”

► From KUOW — 34 international students in Washington state deleted from federal database — State Department officials have accused the affected students of breaking the law and said, as a result, they could be subject to visa revocation and/or deportation. Federal officials did not provide specific examples or cite evidence to back up those claims. In terms of what that means for students, Hellmann said it turns their whole lives upside down. “You could be deported at any time,” she said. “So beyond being able to go to class or make use of any kind of benefits related to immigration status, you could be deported.”

AEROSPACE

► From MSN — How China’s Boeing Ban Threatens to Backfire on Its Own Plane Maker — Now, China’s airlines have been told to withhold new orders for Boeing aircraft and seek approval before taking delivery on plane orders, people familiar with the situation told The Wall Street Journal this week. Nevertheless, Comac’s slow plane production means it is in no position to fill order books quickly, and if anyone benefits from the U.S.-China spat it will likely be Airbus.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Spectrum News — LA County employee union announces strike — The union representing 55,000 Los Angeles County employees announced on Friday an unfair labor practice strike that is set to begin April 28 at 7 p.m. If a deal is not reached, thousands of county employees will walk off the job. The SEIU local 721 union members include health care professionals, social workers, parks and recreation staff, public works personnel, clerical workers, custodians, coroner personnel, and beaches and harbor staff.

► From Simple Flying — Hawaiian Airlines Flight Attendants Extend Contract — Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants have voted to extend their labor agreement with the airline, aligning the amendable dates for Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants as the combined company will work on a joint agreement in the future. The union said that the extension includes pay increases, retirement improvements, better profit sharing and inclusion in Alaska Airlines’ profit sharing program, and a strong foundation to build upon as negotiations for a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) begin soon.

NATIONAL

► From the Labor Tribune — AFL-CIO: Why unions observe Workers Memorial Day — We must protect the rights we have won and keep fighting for safer working conditions. Our nation’s job safety laws are dangerously weak, allowing scores of employers to violate the law without consequence or repercussion. OSHA penalties still are too low to be a deterrent. Employers retaliate against workers who speak out against unsafe working conditions. Workers still cannot freely join a union without retaliation threats from their employers. Black, Latino and immigrant workers are killed on the job at higher rates than others. Heat, workplace violence, infectious diseases and chemical exposures are dangerous and uncontrolled hazards that need to be addressed.

► From Supermarket News — Colorado union sues King Soopers and City Market for violating agreement that ended strike — According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday, following an 11-day strike at 79 King Soopers by some 10,000 UFCW Local 7 workers in February, King Soopers had agreed to a 100-day pause on implementing any contract changes as part of an agreement to end that strike. Violations of that agreement, according to the union, include King Soopers issuing ultimatums before the 100-day grace period, as well as a failure by the Denver-based retailer to consider the union’s proposals, including issues of staffing, safety, raises, and benefits.

► From the New York Times — ‘Shame!’ Protesters Nationwide Rally Again to Condemn Trump Policies. — Many demonstrators berated the administration for not bringing Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who the courts have said was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, back to the United States. Waving upside-down American flags, they marched along the eight-lane Constitution Avenue, chanting “Bring Kilmar home.” Julia Fine, a Maryland resident who was holding a sign at the protest by the White House that read “free Garcia,” said the prison in El Salvador where Mr. Abrego Garcia is being held reminded her of “concentration camps.”

► From KUOW/NPR — House Democrats land in El Salvador, demand Abrego Garcia’s return — The group — Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., and Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore. — said in a statement they hope “to pressure” the White House “to abide by a Supreme Court order.” “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Rep. Garcia said. “That is why we’re here — to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Cascade PBS — The Washington Legislature’s final week brings long to-do list — Much more of this back-and-forth could be ahead. If lawmakers can’t reach a deal by Sunday, they will likely have to enter a special session to finish their work. The budget must be finalized by June 30 or the state will run out of funds. With just seven days left of the legislative session, here’s a look at where things stand in Olympia.

► From the Seattle Times — Renters call on Washington lawmakers to approve rent-control bill — The bill would be one of the first rent stabilization laws in the nation if passed, and add Washington to states like Oregon and California that have turned to such policies in an attempt to curb rampant homelessness. Supporters say the recent changes gut the proposed law — especially by cutting out rent caps for single-family homes — in a state where 40% of the population rents. “This strategy helps to make sure that people don’t get priced out by excessive rent increases,” said Sen. Emily Alvarado, a Democrat from Seattle who authored the bill.

► From the Seattle Times — WA Sen. Bill Ramos dies suddenly at 69 — As a vice chair of the House Transportation Committee, he helped craft a nearly $17 billion transportation funding package in 2022, providing large-scale investments for Washington’s highways, ferries and infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians. Ramos’ connection to the land and people were foundational for his career as a public servant, [wife Sarah] Perry said. In a statement Sunday, she said Ramos “died doing what he loved — running on one of the many trails near our Issaquah home.”

► From Common Dreams — Trump Advances Plan to Fill Federal Government With ‘Political Cronies’ — “President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” said [Everett Kelley, AFGE President]. “Politicizing the career civil service is a threat to our democracy and to the integrity of all the programs and services Americans rely on.”

► From Axios — What to know about Trump’s efforts to replace federal workers under Schedule F — The new rule, dubbed “Schedule Policy/Career,” will reclassify many career civil servants as “at will” employees, making them easier to remove from their posts. As many as 50,000 federal workers — about 2% of the federal workforce — could be affected by Schedule F reclassification.

► From the Government Executive — VA is selectively enforcing Trump’s order stripping workers of union rights — VA Secretary Doug Collins this week issued a notice allowing employees at the department whose unions have not been involved with lawsuits against the Trump administration to retain their collective bargaining rights…The American Federation of Government Employees said these exemptions are further evidence that the edict was retaliation for unions suing the administration to block various workforce policies and actions, from the Deferred Resignation Program and the mass firing of probationary workers to legal challenges seeking to block the closure of the U.S. Agency for international Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as the reinstitution of Schedule F.

► From the Washington Post — U.S. intelligence contradicts Trump rationale for mass deportations — The determination is the U.S. government’s most comprehensive assessment to date undercutting Trump’s rationale for deporting suspected gang members without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, the 1798 law last used during World War II that laid the foundation for the incarceration of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From Capital & Main — The Crackdown on Campuses Is a Crackdown on Unions — Allie Wong, a graduate student at Columbia University, a U.S. citizen and a member of Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers Local 2710, has experienced that pressure firsthand. Last month, she accompanied fellow union member Ranjani Srinivasan as she fled to Toronto fearing deportation. Wong remembered the relief she felt after she and Srinivasan, who is also a doctoral student at Columbia University, crossed the border into Canada…When Wong returned to New York she learned that U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had posted a video of them in the airport on X Twitter, calling them “terrorist sympathizers.” Wong, who is pursuing a PhD in urban planning, has since been doxxed and inundated with threats. “I’ve received death threats, rape threats, messages of folks saying they hope I’m beheaded by Hamas,” she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The first organizing drive the Entire Staff of The Stand worked on was at Seattle University, a Jesuit institution. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, was an outspoken supporter of unions, and of working people. (The ESotS was actually at St. Peter’s square to watch him make his first address after being elected in 2013, remarks centered on the poor, migrants, and workers.) One of our actions at SU to pressure the university to recognize the union was to plaster the campus with posters of Pope Francis’ face and a quote: “Trade unions have been an essential force for social change, without which a semblance of a decent and humane society is impossible under capitalism.”

It was incredibly powerful as young whippersnappers to have the Pope on our side. May he rest in peace.

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