ICE intimidation tactics | Tax the rich | Union clean energy

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman Review — Spokane mining safety lab loses staff as part of 10,000 federal health job cuts: ‘I don’t believe the administration understands the work being done at these sites’ — The wave of federal firings by the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday included workers at a specialized laboratory in Spokane that studies mining and wildland firefighting safety. Workers don’t have any guidance on whether they are supposed to continue research or work towards closing the facility. [AFGE Local #1916 Director Lilas] Soukup said the research is mandated by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 and should require congressional action to abolish.

► From the Seattle Times — WA Head Start staff locked out and let go due to Trump cuts — The Seattle Office of Head Start has been closed and all employees there have been placed on leave and notified they’ll be terminated, part of a massive wave of layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Seattle is home to the Region 10 Office of Head Start, which oversees the preschool program in Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Oregon. HHS has also closed regional offices in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, according to the National Head Start Association.

► From KUOW — Federal health office in Seattle closing, WA lawmakers say — Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced last week he’d be firing 10,000 employees and chopping half of the regional offices in the country…The Seattle regional office is apparently among them, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) said Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-WA) spokesperson confirmed the closure, but neither could say if all staff in Seattle or the region were being fired. HHS spokespeople, as well as regional leadership, did not respond to KUOW’s requests for comment.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Feds ask more workers overseeing Eastern WA nuclear cleanup, others to sign up for layoffs — Volunteering for a job cut could give the employee the time to plan while they are still being paid ahead of “potential involuntary separations,” the alliance said, quoting from the notice to employees. Agency heads were given a deadline of March 13 to develop reduction-in-force and reorganization plans. The federal government considers those plans exempt from public release because they are “pre-decisional” or documents prepared to lead to a decision and the Tri-City Herald has not obtained a copy.

► From Truthout — With Detention of Beloved Farmworker Organizer, ICE Comes for the Labor Movement — We believe his detention is politically motivated because of his organizing in the farmworker and immigrant community. We believe he was targeted. The way that ICE detained him was meant to intimidate. They hardly gave him any chance to defend himself or explain. He wasn’t resisting, and he just asked to see the warrant. They asked to see his ID, and right when he was reaching for it, they broke his car window. The ICE agents escalated really fast. From what we heard, it was less than a minute from the time he was pulled over to him being in handcuffs.

► From KUOW — Green card holders, travelers caught in Trump’s immigration crackdown — “Auntie Lynn has been the rock of our family,” said Cristobal, Dixon’s niece. “She has been what you would call an older sister to us, more than an auntie, because she’s been through our marriages, our divorce, our pregnancies, our children’s birth.” Dixon left the Philippines when she was 14, along with Cristobal and her siblings, helping them build a new life in the United States…Dixon was transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash., where she remains nearly a month later. Her next hearing in immigration court is scheduled for July.

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Yakima School District, teachers union hope for fewer layoffs in 2025-26 budget –Y akima Education Association President Frances Guerrero addressed the school board and reviewed spring 2024 cuts that affected more than 100 positions and the elimination of another 39 classified staff positions in October. Many teachers were able to remain with the district in other positions, and attrition helped lessen the blow. Guerrero said the district hopefully will not recommend such a large reduction in force this year, especially since enrollment figures appear to have declined only slightly in the past year.

AEROSPACE

► From Seattle Times — Boeing CEO’s message to Senate: We made mistakes and learned our lesson — Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and ranking member of the Senate Commerce committee, said in a statement ahead of the hearing that she planned to ask Ortberg about “Boeing’s work with employees” and its “robust” safety management system, an FAA-mandated system to address risks.

NATIONAL

► From SMART — SMART stands with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — On March 31, 2025, the Trump administration conceded in a court filing that it had mistakenly deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia…SMART General President Michael Coleman issued the following statement in response: “Kilmar, our Local 100 brother, is a resident of Maryland and a sheet metal apprentice who works full-time to support his wife and five-year-old son, who has autism and a hearing impairment…He did not have a criminal record and is, in fact, an example of the hard work that SMART members pride themselves on. And yet, the Trump Administration still — aware of his protected status — deported him to El Salvador, leaving his wife to discover that information from photographs in a news release.”

► From the Nonprofit Quarterly — How to Power Good Union Jobs in the Clean Energy Economy — When former Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su celebrated newly unionized workers on the floor of Alabama’s New Flyer bus manufacturing plant in June 2024, it marked one victory in a growing number of innovative efforts to ensure that no one is left behind in the South’s burgeoning clean energy economy. Today, the South is fast becoming the epicenter of a boom of clean energy jobs fueled largely by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, the single largest investment in clean energy in US history.

► From MSN — Amazon Spent Nearly $13 Million On Anti-Union Consultants Last Year — Disclosures that Amazon filed with the Labor Department on Monday show the company increased its anti-union spending significantly in 2024 as it faced organizing efforts from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other groups. Amazon had doled out $3.1 million to such firms in 2023. Companies like Amazon typically pay more than $3,000 per day for each persuader, which can lead to a significant tab when a large team works onsite for days or weeks. Employers also agree to pick up the tab on consultants’ travel, food and other expenses — money that many employees feel would be better put to raises and improved benefits.

► From Iowa City Starbucks Workers United:

Last week, our union sibling Rumeysa Ozturk was snatched by masked federal immigration agents after writing an oped. Another, Lewellyn Dixon, was detained earlier this month. We held a brief work stoppage today to demand their rights be honored. #4the1st @SBWorkersUnited pic.twitter.com/89DtA1isgw

— Iowa City Starbucks Workers United (@IowaCitySBWU) April 1, 2025

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• Federal Judge Pauses Firing of Probationary Workers, But Not Nationwide
• Widespread layoffs, purge of leadership underway at U.S. health agencies

► From the Seattle Times — Gov. Ferguson says he won’t sign a WA budget with a new ‘wealth tax’ — Speaking at an afternoon Capitol news conference — one of the few he has had since taking office — Ferguson said neither of the budgets approved by the state House or Senate, which each rely a wealth tax, “is close to one I can sign.” While Ferguson credited lawmakers with adopting many of his proposals to cut state spending, he said they have not yet gone far enough. “If the Legislature wishes to complete our work on time, they need to immediately move in another direction,” he said.

► From the Seattle Times — Tax the rich? UW economist calls WA a ‘tax haven like the Cayman Islands’ — Vigdor said Washington’s tax system is dilapidated for the times because it’s reliant on the population booming. It’s overly dependent on taxing things like construction and consumer purchasing, while it tends to miss lots of corporate profits and wealth. So it’s poorly adapted to what’s really driving the economy now — tech. He also pushed back on the notion that companies are moving jobs out of Seattle en masse due to the city passing its “Jumpstart” payroll tax in 2020…“In the economics world, you just don’t see 40% increases in a revenue stream like this if there’s been a devastating effect on jobs in the city, as you heard people claiming in that public hearing,” he said. “The evidence I see is a tax that has been a success.”

► From the Olympian — WA lawmakers unveil capital budget ideas. Here’s some of the major project proposals — The capital budget, unlike its operating-budget counterpart, is mostly funded via bond sales rather than tax revenue. It appropriates dollars for enduring assets like critical infrastructure, parks, housing, behavioral-health facilities and schools. Each budget proposal will receive a public hearing before heading for committee votes on April 3. The upper chamber’s version is slated for a full Senate vote on Saturday. Next, House and Senate lawmakers will negotiate on a compromise that will need to clear both chambers ahead of April 27, the end of the legislative session.

► From the Tacoma Weekly — Streets initiative on the ballot this month — Lawver said the Pierce County Central Labor Council supports Prop. 1 as a jobs generator, noting that the last Streets Initiative created more than 40,000 hours of apprenticeship training. “It’s not just about building our roads; it’s about building our community and our workforce. That was a big driver to why we wanted to get behind this initiative. There is the intent and goal to make sure that it is local hires for these projects.” The City of Tacoma’s Local Employment and Apprenticeship Training Program prioritizes having contractors look at local employment out of specific zip codes, Lawver said. “This about improving quality of life of the people that are doing this work.”

► From US News & World Report — Major Job Cuts at NIOSH Pose Risks to Worker Safety, Critics Warn –About two-thirds of NIOSH staff — roughly 875 people — may lose their jobs as part of a larger restructuring ordered by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The move is part of a federal plan to cut 10,000 jobs across HHS this year. Created by Congress in 1970, NIOSH studies how to keep workplaces safe. Companies and governments use the agency to investigate serious events, such as the fungal outbreak that shut down a Michigan paper mill in 2023, CBS News said. In Pittsburgh and Spokane, where nearly 200 employees work, most jobs are expected to be cut.

► From Common Dreams — ‘It Can’t Be Business as Usual’: Cory Booker Praised for Historic Stand Against Trump-Musk — “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis—and I believe that not in a partisan sense, because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office in pain, in fear, having their lives upended, so many of them identify themselves as Republicans,” the senator continued…As The Associated Press reported: “Democratic aides watched from the chamber’s gallery, and Sen. Chris Murphy accompanied Booker throughout his speech. Murphy was returning the comradeship that Booker had given to him in 2016 when the Connecticut Democrat held the floor for almost 15 hours to argue for gun control legislation.”

► From WMTW — Rep. Golden, of Maine, seeks to overturn Trump executive order — “I think it’s important to support unions, whether they be public or private sector,” he said. “Wherever we see unions, in the history of the country, we have seen higher wages gained, better work conditions, safer work conditions, things like the weekend and time off with your family. These are all the result of union organizing. I’ve always called myself a labor Democrat, and I’m just not going to ever support any effort to undermine these rights.” U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced this bill, the “Protect America’s Workforce Act,” with Golden.

► From the AP — Democrats’ win in Wisconsin court race also is a big loss for Elon Musk — Musk’s court race defeat wasn’t only because of crushing Democratic margins in deep blue cities such as Madison and Milwaukee. Crawford’s margins were higher in places where the Musk-backed group America PAC had been active. That included Sauk County, just north of Madison, which Crawford was carrying by 10 points after Trump won it by less than 2 points in November.

Editor’s note: feels kind of like a special edition Jolt of Joy.

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