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Salary Cuts | No to DOGE | Tacoma immigration judges

Friday, March 21, 2025

 

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — DOGE backlash has arrived at Elon Musk’s Seattle-area SpaceX outpost — Similar to the crowds that have gathered outside Tesla dealerships around the country, the group in Redmond hopes to send a message that they don’t want the billionaire involved in the federal government and don’t support recent moves from the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Organizer Michaele Blakely, 71, said she helped come up with the idea to protest outside Musk’s offices around the same time everyone else did. Blakely, who owns a farm in nearby Snoqualmie Valley, predates the black-and-beige office buildings on Redmond Ridge that now house SpaceX and Starlink.

► From the Seattle Times — Tacoma immigration judges are toughest in U.S. on bond, suit says — Three of four judges at the Tacoma Immigration Court, located within the jail-like Northwest ICE Processing Center, routinely contend they don’t have jurisdiction to issue bonds to immigrants who entered the country illegally, says the complaint…the Tacoma trio appear to be the only immigration judges in the country making this argument. And NWIRP claims the judges’ reasoning is wrong as it applies to immigrants who have already been living in the U.S. for a period of time. No meaningful recourse is available on such bond denials because of prolonged delays by the Board of Immigration Appeals, a violation of due process, the litigation also charges.

► From the Seattle Times — Seattle-area H-1B workers grapple with uncertainty over visa program — The Seattle-area economy has been undeniably shaped by the H-1B program. Over the past 15 years, thousands of employers in Washington have petitioned to hire H-1B workers, with Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile and Expedia among the program’s top employers.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Trump orders Education Department dismantled. How much money do Tri-City K-12 schools get? — Pasco, Kennewick and Richland together receive more than $73 million annually in federal funds to benefit public education and student welfare, according to what they reported to the state. That money pays for special education through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, vocational education, Title I assistance for low-income students, U.S. Department of Agriculture lunch and breakfast programs, summer food programs, the Migrant Education Program and for students struggling with math and English language learning.

► From the NW Labor Press — IBEW Local 48 member gets Red Cross lifesaving award — IBEW Local 48 electrician Bryan Barker received an American Red Cross Lifesaving award for his actions on a job site after a fellow worker fell 20 feet and suffered a life-threatening cut on his arm. Barker recalled the lifesaving efforts as “a chaotically smooth operation.” Everyone followed instructions and played their part, resulting in the best possible outcome: The carpenter recovered from his injuries and was able to return to work six weeks later.

 

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle — Malaysia Airlines orders up to 60 Boeing jets to revamp fleet — The airline has ordered 18 Boeing 737-8s and 12 Boeing 737-10s, with deliveries set to start in 2029, Chief Executive Officer Izham Ismail said on Friday. The carrier has options for 30 additional 737s, he said.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the NW Labor Press — Sweet contract at Nabisco — More than three years after a bitter 40-day strike, Mondelez-Nabisco seems to have decided it wants labor peace. In votes tallied Feb. 28, members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) ratified a new five-year national collective bargaining agreement. The agreement raises hourly wages $5.25 over five years, starting with an immediate raise of $1.25 on March 1 and followed by annual raises of $1. Most mixers and bake shop processors were making $31.82 an hour, so they’ll make $37.07 an hour by the end of the new contract.

 

NATIONAL

► From the People’s World — Protests demanding no privatization of Post Office sweep the nation — Just how much Wall Street would garner from privatizing the USPS—which would also endanger the jobs of its 640,000 unionized workers—was disclosed in a special study by Wells Fargo Securities, the bank’s investment arm, in late February. Try $81 billion, just from selling off “excess” buildings and land.

► From Washington Post labor reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley:

► From CBS News — Venezuelan migrant deported from U.S. to El Salvador has no criminal record, documents show — Franco José Caraballo Tiapa, 26, is from Venezuela and entered the U.S. in 2023, requesting asylum from persecution back home. A document from the Department of Homeland Security shows Caraballo is accused of being a member of the criminal gang Tren de Aragua but also specifies that he has no criminal history in the U.S. Venezuelan officials said he has no record there either. “He was not given due process,” attorney Martin Rosenow said. “He was not able to defend this allegation.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

► From the Seattle Times — WA lawmakers eye salary cuts for state employees amid budget crunch — Senate Democrats are proposing a 5% pay cut for nearly all state employees as the state grapples with an estimated $15 billion budget shortfall over the next four years. Under the proposal, state employees would receive their previously negotiated raises but almost all would take a significant cut to their base salary from July 1 through June 30, 2026. “We feel like it is legitimate to ask state workers to share in the reductions that we are going to see across the whole budget,” Robinson said Thursday.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA attorney general’s staff protest proposed furloughs, budget cuts — They say about $20 million in proposed budget cuts and furloughs will hurt consumer protection, antitrust and civil rights cases as well as litigation against the Trump administration. In a letter this week, members of the assistant attorneys general union pleaded with lawmakers to maintain the agency’s funding. They say it is counterintuitive to cut their budget when some of their litigation brings in money to the state’s coffers, like cases against opioid manufacturers and distributors. The attorneys also argue it could heighten the state’s liability risk.

► From the Seattle Times — Senate Democrats release tax proposals as budget debate heats up — Gov. Bob Ferguson, who previously expressed skepticism of a “wealth tax,” has proposed $4 billion in cuts over the next four years, including cuts to most state agencies and furloughs for state employees, while maintaining commitments the state has made in K-12 public education and sparing public safety programs from cuts. He has not said yet whether he would support any new taxes, which Republican lawmakers staunchly oppose.

► From USA Today — ‘See you in court’: Teachers union vows to fight Trump’s Education Department order — Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, vowed to sue the administration if it moved forward with a mandate to obliterate the agency’s limited federal role in the nation’s schools. The action is unlawful, she and others have argued, because only Congress has the power to close federal agencies. Still, the Trump administration has slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half, which is prompting widespread concern from students and schools about reductions in vital services.

► From Fox News — SCOOP: House Republican moves to codify Trump order to dismantle Department of Education — Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, who was at the White House Thursday for Trump’s announcement, told Fox News Digital minutes after the event he was working on the legislation. The Ohio Republican said he “will soon introduce legislation to codify the President’s agenda into law, ensuring that these essential reforms to our children’s education cannot be undone by future administrations.”

► From Common Dreams — Judge Blocks DOGE ‘Fishing Expedition’ in Sensitive Social Security Data Systems — “The DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” wrote Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander, who issued a temporary restraining order.

► From the Washington Post — DHS union-busting attempt sends message in and out of government — If successful, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem’s gutting of a contract with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) could set the stage for similar attacks on other federal labor organizations and embolden private sector efforts to thwart union power. Noem cited President Donald Trump’s executive orders for her action, demonstrating another example of his muscular attempt to expand his power to that befitting a “king,” as he has declared himself.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From Global Labor Justice:

 

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the LA Times — The National Labor Relations Act worked for 90 years. Suddenly, it’s in the crosshairs — Does all of this mean that organized labor law is a doomed dinosaur, irrevocably headed toward irrelevance? Not necessarily. First, as important as legal protections have been to organizing, law has proved to be a subordinate factor in union growth or decline. In the 1930s, union militancy was in place at least four years before the National Labor Relations Act became effective. The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the act placed restrictions on unions and workers, yet unions continued to grow for nearly a decade after its enactment. Labor won considerably more of its workplace elections in the George W. Bush era than under a more pro-labor board during the Obama administration.

 

JOLT OF JOY

Those three little words we all long to hear…that’s right, I’m talking “TAX THE RICH!”

You tell ’em Nebraska.

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