U is for UNION | Hospital staffing | Kroger overcharging

Friday, May 16, 2025

STRIKES

► From Starbucks Workers United:

The SoDo Reserve store in Seattle – Starbucks’s flagship location inside their corporate headquarters – has WALKED OUT ON STRIKE! ✊ https://t.co/zoHHuXJqQd pic.twitter.com/QtOj5oEx65

— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) May 15, 2025

► From the AP — New Jersey Transit strike disrupts travel — The walkout comes after the latest round of negotiations on Thursday didn’t produce an agreement. It is the state’s first transit strike in more than 40 years and comes a month after union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management. “We presented them the last proposal; they rejected it and walked away with two hours left on the clock,” said Tom Haas, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.

LOCAL

► From NW Public Broadcasting — Are Washington hospitals ready for the state to enforce their staffing plans? — Washington nurses have consistently called on hospitals to set maximum nurse-to-patient ratios in their collective bargaining agreements. Among the hospitals represented by the Washington State Nurses Association, only Tacoma General Hospital has done so. NWPB reached out to PeaceHealth Southwest to ask what the hospital’s priorities were in creating its staffing plan and how it responded to the claim that the hospital was more concerned with profits than patients. In an email, a spokesperson declined to participate, simply saying: “We will continue to uphold the staffing law.”

► From Cascade PBS — WATCH: The Nosh: What’s cooking at Seattle Firehouse 27? — Shared meals build trust and create a sense of family and a home away from home. But for folks who’ve spent their careers serving the community, the dinner table is also a natural place to get support and work through a tough or traumatic workday. What is a firehouse kitchen called? Who pays for the kitchen equipment? Let’s go behind the scenes and find out!

► From KREM — ‘If you lose the hospital, you kill the town’: WA leaders warn Medicaid cuts could devastate rural communities — The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) is sounding the alarm as the Trump administration proposes a budget that would cut billions of dollars in funding to Medicaid. The association says the loss would decimate hospitals, especially in rural areas. “This bill just takes money out of the system. It just makes cuts,” said Jacquelin Barton True, the vice president of advocacy and rural health with the WSHA…The Idaho Hospital Association echoes WSHA’s concerns and says it finds itself in a position to be hurt more than other states as it works to transition its Medicaid program.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Nation — Sesame Street Workers Say, “U Is for Union” — While many of the puppeteers, actors, and crew members on the show have long been represented by entertainment unions, the new union covers the employees who bring Elmo and friends to life: artists, early-childhood experts, fundraisers, and more. Organizers see their campaign for dignity and respect at work as a natural continuation of Sesame’s mission to teach children to grow “smarter, stronger, and kinder.” “Workers at Sesame are deeply committed to doing things that are kind and fair,” said Phoebe Gilpin, a senior director of formal learning at the Workshop. “These are the same values that bring Sesame into so many people’s homes. And we weren’t seeing consistency in that in our workplace itself.”

ORGANIZING

► From the Washington Post — Kennedy Center employees announce plans to unionize — Staffers at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said Thursday that they plan to form a union in response to several waves of layoffs and what they describe as a lack of transparency from leaders at the arts institution, which President Donald Trump took over in February. The union, which they’re calling the “Kennedy Center United Arts Workers,” would be in partnership with the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, commonly known as the UAW.

NATIONAL

► From the Seattle Times — Amazon claims warehouses are getting safer. Critics say progress is too slow — The [Strategic Organizing Center] report maintains Amazon’s efforts aren’t solving the problem fast enough. It found that while the overall serious injury rate decreased, 4 out of 10 Amazon workers are in facilities where injuries increased between 2023 and 2024. “What we’re seeing is that rather than face the crisis head on, management has largely stopped talking about it and when it does it uses misleading comparisons to deflect attention and minimize the problem,” said David Rosenblatt, a deputy director strategic research and campaigns at SOC.

► From My Northwest — Report: Kroger stores overcharging consumers on discounted or ‘for sale’ items — Consumer Reports said it began checking grocery prices after learning that Kroger workers in Colorado—who are currently in labor union negotiations with the company—were alleging widespread errors on price labels. “We found expired sale tags on more than 150 different grocery items that actually led to overcharges at the checkout counter, everything from beef, salmon, coffee, juice, vegetables, even cough medicine and dog food,” Consumer Reports reporter Derek Kravitz said.

► From On the Line:

A new investigation shows customers are being robbed by Kroger owned grocery stores through rampant price mismatches. Grocery monopolies always manipulate prices to drive up their profits, at the same time their own workers can’t afford to shop where they work. pic.twitter.com/2fsxrhUAkr

— On the Line (@laborontheline) May 14, 2025

Editor’s note: support UFCW Local 367 grocery workers currently bargaining for a fair contract, 2025 Grocery Community Support Letter 

► From CBS News — Most Americans don’t earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds –The analysis, from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), looks beyond whether people can afford daily necessities like food and shelter to consider whether they have the means to pay for things like the technology tools necessary for their jobs, higher education, and health and child care. LISEP tracks costs associated with what the research firm calls a “basket of American dream essentials.” The group says its Minimal Quality of Life index provides a truer picture of how Americans are faring than standard economic data, such as the nation’s gross domestic product and jobless rate.

► From the New York Times — Opinion | I Came to Study Aging. Now I’m Trapped in ICE Detention. — When I moved to America from Russia to join a biology lab at Harvard Medical School in 2023, it felt as if I found my dream job. America was a paradise for science. Everything was flourishing. There was freedom of discourse; conferences, seminars. It was nothing like the environment I had left behind in Russia, where international sanctions meant there weren’t enough supplies to do experiments and I once declined a job offer that was contingent on me no longer protesting the war in Ukraine. After I was arrested for taking part in a protest, I fled the country, knowing that I could not continue to live or work as a scientist there.

► From the Daily Beast — Kristi Noem Wants Migrants to Compete for Citizenship on New Reality Show — The program pitch reportedly starts with 12 pre-vetted contestants arriving at Ellis Island in New York City aboard “The Citizen Ship.” The losing contestants will go home with “iconically American” prizes, including a million American Airlines points, a $10,000 Starbucks gift card, and a lifetime supply of 76 gasoline. They will also have a leg up as they undergo the traditional citizenship process. The big winner, meanwhile, will get sworn in as an American citizen on Capitol Hill by “a top American politician or judge.”

Editor’s note: The Hunger Games is supposed to read as a dystopian nightmare, not a how-to manual. 

► From the Denver Post — Denver air traffic control went dark for 90 seconds, FAA confirms — Pilots flying near Denver International Airport lost communication with air traffic control for almost two minutes on Monday because of equipment failures. It is the most recent in a series of problems plaguing the country’s aviation infrastructure that have sparked widespread concern.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — Supreme Court unravels ‘absurdity’ of Trump birthright ban, says AG Brown — In a phone interview from Washington, D.C., after the arguments concluded, Brown said the justices didn’t necessarily signal exactly how they’ll rule. But he said their questions suggested that several are deeply skeptical of overturning the long-standing principle — as stated in the 14th Amendment — that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” “I really think today was an unraveling of the absurdity of some of the arguments the Trump administration is making,” said Brown, who filed the first lawsuit challenging the birthright citizenship order.

► From Cascade PBS — Proposed state and federal budget cuts threaten WA abortion access — While services at Mount Baker clinics have not been interrupted, the organization noted that uncertainty is affecting decision-making for patients. “The chaos at the federal level has a chilling effect on patients seeking essential reproductive and sexual health care,” Savela said. “People don’t know what services are still available or are covered by their insurance or are safe for them to access if they are undocumented immigrants.”

► From the Washington State Standard — Tesla, Netflix, Philip Morris among those pushing WA governor for tax vetoes — Corporate titans. Bank executives. Restaurant operators. Airplane owners. They’re all trying to convince Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson that there are problems with the tax bills on his desk, and they are suggesting vetoes as a fix. He can sign or veto them entirely. He could veto a part, then sign what’s left into law. If the governor fails to act on a bill by the deadline, it would become law without his signature. Whether he’ll wield the veto pen with such force as to require summoning the Legislature into special session is unknown. Rejecting the entire operating budget certainly would.

► From the AP — Conservatives block Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill in a stunning setback — In a massive setback, House Republicans failed Friday to push their big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee, as a handful of conservatives joined all Democrats in a stunning vote against it. The hard-right lawmakers are insisting on steeper spending cuts to Medicaid and the Biden-era green energy tax breaks, among other changes, before they will give their support to President Donald Trump’s “beautiful” bill.

► From Fed Scoop — National Labor Relations Board watchdog investigating DOGE, potential data breach — In April, an IT staffer named Daniel Berulis filed an official whistleblower disclosure with Congress highlighting concerns over DOGE’s practices at the NLRB and data that may have been removed from the agency. In response to the disclosure, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, requested an investigation in a letter to Luiz A. Santos, acting inspector general of the Labor Department, and Ruth Blevins, inspector general at the NLRB.

► From the Guardian — Trump pick for workplace safety agency sparks fears heat protections will be derailed — Trump in February nominated David Keeling to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). Keeling formerly served as an executive at the United Parcel Service (UPS) and Amazon – both of which have faced citations from Osha for worker injuries and deaths amid heat exposure. The companies deny the deaths were heat-related. Under Keeling, Osha is expected to thwart heat protections.

► From Bloomberg Law — Fired Officials Go Before D.C. Circuit Judges Who Backed Trump — National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris—both of whom prevailed in district court—will press their cases during oral argument Friday at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The hearing marks the latest stop for the linked cases pitting the president’s power to remove agency officials against Congress’s ability to limit that authority. Axed members of the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Labor Relations Authority have also sued to enforce explicit firing shields.

JOLT OF JOY

Happy Birthday to icon and barrier-breaker Janet Jackson. In her words: “no struggle, no progress”

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