PeaceHealth picket | Medicare data | Farmworkers

Thursday, April 17, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — International students in WA sue Trump administration for revoking legal status — “Nothing in (federal) regulations authorizes termination based solely on an arrest without a conviction or a mere allegation of wrongdoing,” one Washington student’s lawsuit states. Last week, the Trump administration canceled the visas of at least 15 current international students and recent graduates of Washington universities. Four additional students, two each from UW Tacoma and Central Washington University in Ellensburg also had their records terminated, the universities said this week.

► From the Spokesman Review — The government is terminating Washington State University students’ records that allow them to reside in U.S. legally, school says — The federal database known as “SEVIS,” the student exchange visitor information system, holds the students’ records and visa information when they are accepted to study in a college program. That program allows the student to remain in the U.S. When it’s terminated, it creates an “unlawful presence” in the U.S., Hellmann said. “The record termination puts them at risk because if they don’t self-deport, they are subject to being picked up and put into detention or going to immigration jail,” she added. “And the students aren’t aware that it’s happened to them.”

► From KUOW — ‘Please don’t tax the rich.’ Seattle crosswalks hacked with audio deepfake of Jeff Bezos — The recording went on to sarcastically lament the possibility of wealthy residents moving out of Seattle. “Otherwise, all the other billionaires will move to Florida, too….then normal people could afford to live here again,” it said. The hacker behind the prank appeared to use AI to impersonate Bezos and satirize the tech industry’s opposition to new wealth taxes that have been proposed in Olympia.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Up to $590 billion still needed to clean up toxic nuclear site near Columbia River in WA — The report plans for most cleanup to be completed in 2086, with additional activities to manage the site, including environmental monitoring, continuing until 2100. To date $65 billion has been spent since the end of the Cold War on environmental cleanup of the Hanford site.

► From My Northwest — Study: WA one of the 10 most dangerous states for public transit safety — Between 2021 and 2023, Washington had 97 reported violent incidents, including five fatalities and 95 injuries. The study analyzed violent incidents (including bombings, robberies, and non-physical assaults on workers) across all states through data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. King County Council members and members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the union that represents King County Metro bus drivers, met in January to discuss potential safety improvements to better protect drivers and riders using public transportation. 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Cascadia Daily News — PeaceHealth nurses announce picket — The union’s previous contract expired March 31, freeing members from its “no strike” clause which also forbade pickets. WSNA began collecting “picket pledges” — a gauge of members’ interest in a potential picket — in early April, said Kelly Skahan, the union’s labor counsel. She said the union has not had a bargaining session with the hospital since mid-March, before the contract vote. The next bargaining sessions will be held April 17 and 18. The picket could be avoided if the hospital and union come to an agreement on those dates.

► From the Olympian — Union, Intercity Transit reach tentative deal on new contract — The tentative agreement was reached on Tuesday, said IT General Manager Emily Bergkamp prior to Wednesday’s gathering of the authority, which is similar to a board or commission. Meanwhile, about 30 rank-and-file union members picketed outside the authority meeting for about an hour on Wednesday. “This is an informational picket for the purpose of truthfully informing the public of a dispute with our employer,” he said. “Our dispute is that they have unfairly terminated two of our bargaining committee members without establishing just cause. We reject the legitimacy of those firings.”

NATIONAL

► From the Nation — How to Fight Trump’s Attack on Farmworkers — The sharp increase in detentions and deportations raises big questions: Will unions be able to organize in this political environment? And can they protest the raids and displacement of immigrant workers who are already residents (including their own members), and at the same time organize and defend the rights of H-2A workers brought by growers to replace them? Roman Pinal, UFW’s organizing director, says it will take a lot of work to build unity between immigrant workers residing in the country and the H-2A workers being brought here. “I’ve heard workers living here say their shifts are being cut from five, six days to two, three days a week, as growers use more H-2A workers. At the same time, H-2A workers have a lot of issues of their own. Growers threaten one group with being replaced, and the other with being sent back to Mexico. We have to help them stick together. And we have to stick together with unions like FUJ as well.”

► From SMART:

Bring Kilmar home.

Write to Congress today: https://t.co/bUsXn5uw3v pic.twitter.com/TZtfHve0BG

— SMART Union (@smartunionworks) April 16, 2025

POLITICS & POLICY

Federal updates here, local news and deeper dives below:

• Judge says labor unions’ lawsuit over DOGE access to Labor Department systems can move forward (AP)

► From the Washington Post — ICE, DOGE seek sensitive Medicare data as immigration crackdown intensifies — The database, which is managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and includes reams of health and personal information, contains addresses sought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to the person and documents reviewed by The Post. Current and former health officials said they were deeply concerned by what appears to be an unprecedented use of the Medicare database as part of immigration enforcement efforts, and they were unsure whether it was legal.

► From the Washington Post — Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards — Six percent of White males who serve on boards were fired, compared with half of Black and Hispanic females and a quarter of all females, according to the analysis. Of 36 Black and Hispanic board members, close to 40 percent were fired, compared with 16 percent of White board members. The chairs’ analysis calculated the likelihood that this would have happened by chance as 1 in 300.

► From NPR — DOGE assigns staffers to work at agency where it allegedly removed sensitive data — The ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency team is assigning two staffers to work at the independent agency where a whistleblower alleged Tuesday DOGE may have already removed sensitive labor data from its systems. It’s unclear why DOGE would need access to agency files that contain personally identifiable information to complete its mission of improving efficiency, outside of employment records for potential reductions in force. The agency publishes publicly available annual performance and accountability reports and budget justifications that former NLRB members told NPR would likely be sufficient in looking for ways to cut costs.

► From the Washington State Standard — Washington AG defends state’s ‘sanctuary’ policy amid congressional scrutiny — “In Washington,” [WA AG Nick] Brown wrote, “we know the community is not well served when people become frightened to report crime or to cooperate as witnesses because they fear that they or a family member may be deported if they contact the police.”

► From the Washington State Standard — Washington takes ‘historic’ step toward full funding for special education — On a 97-0 vote, the House amended, then passed Senate Bill 5263 on Wednesday to put Washington, for the first time, on a course to fully fund special education in its public schools. It also adjusted two other funding levers in the bill to drive more dollars for special education to the state’s 295 school districts. All told, roughly $870 million more will be sent out over the next two budgets. That sum is a compromise with the Senate, which wanted to spend closer to $2 billion.

► From Cascade PBS — WA lawmakers propose closing schools for people with disabilities — If the facilities close, the state estimates that about 17% of residents would transition to state-operated group homes, 17% would move to supported living settings and 66% would relocate to one of the state’s other residential habilitation centers, like Fircrest School or Lakeland Village. Willis McNabb, a member of the Washington State Federation of Employees who’s worked at Rainier School for almost 34 years, said he does not believe residents receive the same quality of care in a community setting that they would at a state facility, in part because of a lack of oversight in private settings. If the state is going to transition residents into the community, he said, it needs to do better.

► From the Salt Lake Tribune — ‘You made this possible’: Labor organizers submit twice the signatures needed to put bargaining ban to voters — Labor groups submitted more than 320,000 signatures Wednesday, more than double the number required, in their effort to repeal an anti-union bill passed by the Republican-led Legislature this year. “They said we couldn’t do it, but more than 320,000 people just proved them wrong,” said John Arthur, a Salt Lake City School District elementary teacher, on Tuesday as organizers delivered boxes of signature packets to the Salt Lake County clerk’s office.

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