Declared dead | Unions sue over funding | The American Dream

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

STRIKES

► From the Pittsburgh Union Progress — ‘Victory’: Federal judges award rare injunction to striking Pittsburgh journalists, who are mulling what happens next — Newsroom workers on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for more than 29 months solidified their place in labor history Monday when a federal court issued a rare injunction ordering the newspaper to restore the health care it illegally took from its employees and return to the bargaining table. The order from the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals represents a major victory for workers engaged in what is now the longest ongoing strike in the United States.

LOCAL

► From KUOW — How do you convince Social Security you’re alive after the agency declares you dead? Seattle couple says it’s far from easy — Pam Johnson of Seattle found out her husband, Leonard or “Ned,” had been declared dead when she got a letter from Bank of America on Feb. 19 offering condolences. The note said more than $5,000 in Social Security benefits had been reclaimed from the couple’s joint account. “I thought it was a scam at first,” she recalled. “…They had several attachments of things we had to fill out, which made me even more suspicious.” “We” as in Pam and Ned, because Ned was sitting right next to his wife, and he was very much still alive. “Ned took it from there, since he’s the undead,” Pam Johnson recalled.

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Prominent Bellingham immigration activist detained by ICE — In a social media post, the [Community to Community] wrote [Lelo] Zeferino was “detained violently by ICE” while dropping his partner at work. Agents broke Zeferino’s car window “when he tried to exercise his rights,” the post continued, adding leaders believe the detention is “a targeted attack on Farmworker leadership.” In a news release, the organization noted “several other workers” were taken into custody as well. Liz Darrow, with Community to Community, said the group sees Zeferino’s detention as “political retaliation for the work that he’s doing.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Railway Age — NCCC, IBEW Vote to Ratify National Agreement  — The National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC) and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have voted to ratify a national collective bargaining agreement. This ratified national agreement is the seventh of the 2025 bargaining round, following the successful contract ratification by BMWED members last week.

ORGANIZING

► From the NW Labor Press — NIETC apprenticeship instructors join union — Sixteen instructors at the NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Center in Portland have joined Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 11. NIETC voluntarily recognized the unit Feb. 25 after all the instructors signed a petition seeking recognition over several weeks.  Local 11 also represents clerical support staff at NIETC’s two sponsoring organizations, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 48 and the local chapter of National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).

NATIONAL

► From USA Today — Federal jobs were seen as a gateway to the middle class for Black America, then came DOGE — “We were able to buy a house, raise five kids, send three of them to college and live a very comfortable life,” said Denise Smith, 73, and now retired, noting that she worked under seven different presidential administrations. “The federal civil service gave us opportunities to live out our American Dream.”

► From 19th News — Women already earn less. Trump’s labor cuts could make the pay gap easier to hide. — Trump’s latest attempts to reshape and freeze agencies like the EEOC and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which handles unionization processes, are yet another step away from addressing wage discrimination complaints from the nation’s workforce. “If you don’t have the ability to track or try to prove or enforce non-discrimination laws, that’s going to be worse,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank.

► From the Seattle Times — Half of American Households Hold 97.5% of the National Wealth — The lower 50% of the distribution saw their wealth share improve marginally during President Joe Biden’s term in office, climbing from 2.2%. The 66.6 million households in that group collectively owned about $4 trillion in net wealth at the end of last year, an increase of $1.25 trillion from four years earlier.  Over the same period, America’s richest households — the 133,000 that make up the top 0.1% — gained more than $6 trillion in net wealth, mainly thanks to a surge in the value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares.

► From NW Public Broadcasting — These churches offer shelter and sanctuary to vulnerable migrants. Here’s why — During the 1980s when the Sanctuary Movement started, it was reported that there were more than 400 congregations involved, according to Rabben. The term “sanctuary” has often meant that the person or family being housed is under immediate threat of deportation. “So if they (houses of worship) give shelter to somebody, they are not protected by the law to do that,” said Rabben. Under the Trump administration, churches are now thinking more expansively about the concept of sanctuary to include migrants who fear that new policies could suddenly make them vulnerable to arrest or deportation.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Common Dreams — ‘The Privatizers Are Coming’: DeJoy Is Gone, But US Postal Service Not Safe From Trump and Musk — “Make no mistake,” said American Postal Workers Union president Mark Dimondstein in a statement, “Louis DeJoy was forced out by a presidential administration that is intent on breaking up and selling off the public Postal Service. Reports from last month made clear that the White House has plans for a hostile takeover of the Postal Service.”

► From NBC News — Democrats grill Social Security nominee over disruptions as Republicans defend Trump — “It’s bedlam out there in Social Security,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Finance Committee. “The urgency for today’s hearing couldn’t be greater. Since Donald Trump took office, Social Security has experienced the most chaos in its history,” he said. “Mass personnel layoffs, eliminating phone service for basic help, sending seniors to overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure, political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information.”

► From CNN — Educators’ unions sue Trump administration over revocation of $400 million in funding to Columbia University — “This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students,” a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers in US District Court for New York’s Southern District said.

► From Reuters — In about-face, US judge says unions can sue over Trump’s mass firings — A federal judge in San Francisco has changed his mind and ruled that unions representing federal workers can sue over the Trump administration’s mass firings of recently hired government employees in court rather than challenging them before federal agencies. U.S. District Judge William Alsup in a written order late Monday said two federal labor boards have no particular expertise on whether the U.S. Office of Personnel Management violated the U.S. Constitution by directing agencies to fire roughly 25,000 probationary employees, the central issue in the lawsuit.

► From Bloomberg Law — Trump Taps Morgan Lewis Attorney for NLRB General Counsel Post — President Donald Trump is nominating Crystal Carey, a partner at large management-side law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, to be National Labor Relations Board general counsel. Morgan Lewis has been at the heart of prominent modern labor disputes, representing Amazon.com Inc., SpaceX, Apple Inc., and Tesla. The firm’s attorneys have advanced emerging arguments that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional.

► From the Seattle Times — Ferguson’s ‘impossible’ choice as state worker raises clash with budget  — Rep. Shaun Scott, D-Seattle, said Washington needs to live up to its reputation as a progressive state. “We didn’t elect a Republican governor and we didn’t elect Republicans to majorities in the state Senate,” he said. “It’s time for us to affirm our commitment to fully funding the public sector, and for us to stop behaving like the other Washington.” Scott and state employee unions share the view that Washingtonians, especially the state’s wealthiest residents, need to pay their fair share.

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