NWDC conditions | Cascade PBS union | Black lung

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Here’s what Tacoma’s U.S. Rep. Emily Randall saw in tour of ICE detention center — Her visit came in response to what she called a concerning increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting labor leaders in immigration raids, such as last month’s arrest of 25-year-old Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, a farming labor activist in Whatcom County. Randall was also concerned about the facility lacking compliance with medical and sanitary condition requirements.

► From Cascade PBS — How will tariffs impact WA’s trade-dependent agriculture industry? — At a town hall organized by the Washington State Democratic Party in Yakima earlier this month, former Gov. Jay Inslee said previous tariffs had resulted in massive losses in export volume for Washington. During the first Trump administration, the state’s apple market in India was hampered by a retaliatory tariff. By the time that tariff was lifted in 2023, Washington’s apple market in India was all but decimated. In 2019, the market brought in $120 million annually. After the tariff was imposed, that number fell to just under $3 million in 2022.

► From the Wenatchee World — More than 300 ‘Rally for Justice’ at Wenatchee’s Memorial Park — “Right here in little Wenatchee, Washington, in Chelan, Douglas counties, we have 70-plus local organizations communicating and working together,” Tigard said. “This is the most coordinated effort I have ever seen in Chelan, Douglas counties.”…Having grown up as a fundamentalist Christian, Tigard said she had to overcome internal biases. Because of this, she believes everyone can. “We all can, and we all do,” she said.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Current — Cascade PBS Union highlights salary disparities in campaign for higher wages — According to the station’s fiscal year 2023 990 form, the most recent available, Dunlop’s reportable compensation of $471,105 included $74,000 in bonuses. The union used Dunlop’s compensation to point to wage disparities during negotiations for its first contract. “Our board of directors sets his wages, and if they want to set it that high, that’s their prerogative,” Cohen said. “But a nonprofit public media entity that can afford to pay such high executive wages also needs to pay livable wages for all of its workers.”

► From Cascade PBS Union:

After the picket, a delegation from the unit went inside with the head of @MLKLabor to invite our CEO, Rob Dunlop, to join us at the table tomorrow and explain to our faces why he deserves a $74K bonus while @CascadePBSNews journalists are struggling to make rent. (2/3)

— Cascade PBS Union (@CascadePBSUnion) April 22, 2025

ORGANIZING

► From the Hollywood Reporter — Writers Guild West Staffers Launch Their Own Unionization Drive — While rank-and-file writers populated the picket lines and eventually voted through the strike-ending contract, much of the sturm und drang of that work stoppage was also facilitated by the work of internal union staffers in member organizing and legal departments (among others). Now, many of those staffers are attempting to organize their own workplace, citing a desire to have their voices heard. WGA West employees are launching an effort to join the Pacific Northwest Staff Union, which specializes in representing workers in the labor movement, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

NATIONAL

► From Reuters — As Trump eyes coal revival, his job cuts hobble black lung protections for miners — Josh Cochran worked deep in the coal mines of West Virginia since he was 22 years old, pulling a six-figure salary that allowed him to buy a home with his wife Stephanie and hunt and fish in his spare time. That ended two years ago when, at the age of 43, he was diagnosed with advanced black lung disease. His saving grace, he says, is that he can still earn a living. A federal program run by the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health called Part 90 meant he was relocated from underground when he got his diagnosis to a desk job dispatching coal trucks to the same company, retaining his pay. That program…is grinding to a halt due to mass layoffs and office closures imposed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to Reuters reporting.

► From the Washington Post — Her husband was mistakenly deported. Now she’s caught in a political frenzy. — The couple’s home was usually filled by the sounds of a burgeoning family, including pans clattering while her husband cooked, the three kids tumbling through the day, the TV humming in the background. Now, she is on her own with the children — one nonverbal and another prone to seizures — and their new home is uncomfortably silent. The laughter that used to fill the family’s home has been replaced by muffled crying — or the quiet murmur of her youngest son cuddling with the neon construction vest her husband left behind. The texts Vasquez Sura and her children still send to Abrego García go unanswered, marked only by a single gray check mark.

► From Yahoo Finance — Amazon faces NLRB complaint as Teamsters push for negotiation rights — The US National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Region 20 has filed a complaint against Amazon, accusing the company of unlawfully declining to negotiate. The federal agency is pursuing an order that would compel Amazon to engage in discussions after DCK6 warehouse workers in San Francisco, who are represented by the Teamsters union, sought recognition in October 2024.

► From Bloomberg Law — Google Dodges Joint Employer Bargaining Order Via Court Test — The NLRB case involving Google and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.’s shared responsibility to bargain was rendered moot when Google let its labor contracting deal with Cognizant run out, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday. Beyond vacating the board’s bargaining order, the court also voided the agency’s finding that the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary jointly employed the Cognizant workers. That holding could have helped the Alphabet Workers Union’s pending unfair labor practice charges filed against Google and Cognizant as joint employers that are related to the workers’ organizing.

► From Bloomberg Law — Punching In: 1,000 Lawyers to Help Federal Workers (Correct) — For federal workers looking to access the service, Deborah Greenfield, executive director of the legal network, said applicants will fill out a brief questionnaire online and then receive written materials explaining their legal rights. After a screening call, workers are then matched with a pro-bono attorney who can help them explore options to appeal their layoff. The network is actively recruiting attorneys, Greenfield said, with at least 1000 lawyers in 42 states participating so far.

► From KNSI — Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive Returns May 10th — The National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association are again hosting the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. It’s easy to participate. Postal customers are asked to leave a bag of nonperishable food items near their mailbox on May 10th. Letter carriers will pick up the bags during regular mail delivery times. Every item collected stays local.

► From the Seattle Times — The world’s biggest companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates — A Dartmouth College research team came up with the estimated pollution caused by 111 companies, with more than half of the total dollar figure coming from 10 fossil fuel providers: Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, National Iranian Oil Co., Pemex, Coal India and the British Coal Corporation. For comparison, $28 trillion is a shade less than the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States last year.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington Post — Justice Dept. allows DOGE staff to access ECAS immigration data — Representatives of the U.S. DOGE Service have received permission to access a highly sensitive Justice Department system that contains information including the addresses and case histories of millions of legal and undocumented immigrants, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post…Justice Department staff members were instructed to begin preparing ECAS accounts for the DOGE team, the documents show, including former hedge fund staffer Adam Hoffman as well as Payton Rehling and Jon Koval, both of whom work at a private-equity firm tied to Elon Musk.

► From Common Dreams — Trump Admin Will Garnish Struggling Borrowers’ Wages as Student Loan Payments Resume — The Trump administration on Monday announced that it will resume involuntary collection measures against defaulted federal student loan recipients, including garnishing wages, tax refunds, and Social Security benefits and “other actions to help borrowers get back into repayment,” as the U.S. Department of Education euphemistically said…Approximately 5.6 million student borrowers were in default at the end of 2024. The DOE warns that “there could be almost 10 million borrowers in default in a few months” after repayments resume. That’s roughly 25% of the current student loan portfolio.

► From the Los Angeles Times — Interior secretary gives DOGE member with oil-industry ties power to remake department  — Before joining the Trump administration, Hassen worked for Basin Energy, an oil field equipment manufacturer and services company. After the inauguration, he was embedded in Interior as a representative of DOGE, and since March he has been delegated the authority of assistant secretary of policy, management and budget.

► From Yahoo News — DOGE layoffs of federal mediators leave grocery chain talks and other labor disputes in limbo — Hermosillo is among 130 federal mediators who were fired on March 26 after the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), effectively shuttered a 79-year-old federal agency that mediates labor disputes. The terminations at the agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, have fueled concern among unions and employers alike about who will step in to help ease labor conflicts in Southern California and beyond.

► From Bloomberg Law — Labor Department to Lose 20% of Staff to Resignation Offers  — More than 2,700 of the DOL’s 14,578 employees agreed to voluntarily separate from the agency under the exit offer, which allows federal employees to receive pay and benefits through September if they resign, the employees said. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer reopened the program for DOL staff earlier this month after it was first launched in January, warning that reductions in force at the agency were forthcoming.

► From Bloomberg Law — Watchdog Bars Staff from Investigating Federal Staff Firings — Investigators and prosecutors at the Office of the Special Counsel, which prosecutes violations of civil service laws, should not communicate with federal agencies about dismissed employees, according to a memo Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer sent to the office’s staff on April 3. The order shuts down a key avenue for federal workers to challenge President Donald Trump‘s cuts to the public workforce.

► From the Washington Post — EPA to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice, DEI — EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles sent notices late Monday to staffers at agency headquarters who work in the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which the administration plans to close, as well as those who work on environmental justice in regional offices. The “reduction in force” would cut 280 employees and reassign about 175 employees to other offices, according to the spokesman.

► From the Seattle Times — Lawmakers debate closing WA facility for people with disabilities — Rainier School opened in 1939 as the Western State Custodial School, and at its peak in 1958, more than 1,900 people lived there. Now, 58 long-term residents and 13 short-term residents live on the campus in Buckley in a country setting with a view of Mount Rainier. Residents can access medical care on site, ranging from dental care to occupational and physical therapy. They also receive vocational training and paid employment in jobs on the campus and in local communities. Tamra and Ken Jennings say the facility has been “a savior” for their family. Their son Jacob first came to Rainier on respite before getting a permanent placement, and he’s been there for 17 years.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA bill to keep medical debt off credit reports signed into law — Senate Bill 5480, sponsored by Sen. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane, intends to mirror efforts at the federal level that have been thrown into question. It will prohibit collection agencies from reporting overdue medical debt to credit agencies. The bill will take effect on July 27.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.