Today's AFL-CIO press clips
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Forward Kentucky story about the postponed Paducah "Hands Off!" rally on Saturday is in today's press clips. Check out the speech by Brian Courtney, Paducah Plumbers and Steamfitters 184 BA.
POLITICS
Republicans Clash Over Medicaid in Hunt to Pay for Trump’s Agenda
The New York Times
By Catie Edmondson and Michael Gold
April 11, 2025
Noting that the budget plan that Republicans were considering could lay the groundwork for sweeping cuts to Medicaid, Mr. Moran warned that such reductions might threaten struggling rural hospitals and, by extension, the future of the rural American heartland. “I want to make certain that my colleagues know, in my view, the value of making certain we do no harm to those in desperate need of health care in Kansas and across the country,” Mr. Moran said.
Trump plan would eliminate NOAA climate research, slash agency budget
The Washington Post
By Scott Dance
April 11, 2025
Project 2025, a playbook for a second Trump administration spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, had drawn attention for a call to privatize many of the functions of the Weather Service. So far, the administration has not taken such steps, though its efforts to reduce the federal workforce and review agencies’ spending have left many Weather Service offices more strapped than usual. “The Weather Service is flat funded, but it is not held harmless,” Spinrad said. Project 2025 also called for the dismantling of NOAA, an agency the report called “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” The proposal comes as the Trump administration made separate recent cuts to a NOAA research partnership with Princeton University, citing a need to combat “climate anxiety,” and to a government office tasked with a report released every four years detailing the ways climate change is affecting the country.
UAW Demands Reinstatement of NIOSH Job Cuts
Michigan Public
By Zena Issa
April 11, 2025
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has joined other critics in speaking out against job cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH is a research agency that focuses on preventing work-related injuries and illnesses. It's the only federal agency responsible for researching ways to improve worker health and safety in the United States. In a written statement, the UAW said that the work done by the agency is “absolutely critical in advancing rules that protect workers on the job.”
Education Department Is Threatening to Cut All Federal Funding for Maine Schools
The New York Times
By Jenna Russell and Dana Goldstein
April 11, 2025
The Department of Education said on Friday that it was moving to cut off all federal funding for Maine’s public schools because the state had ignored President Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports teams. The agency also said it had asked the Justice Department to pursue “enforcement action” against Maine, which the Trump administration has been targeting since the president picked a fight with the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, over transgender athletes in February.
DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions
The Washington Post
By Dan Diamond, Hannah Natanson and Carolyn Y. Johnson
April 11, 2025
U.S. DOGE Service employees have inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation. The changes to the process — which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities across the federal government — threaten to further delay or even halt billions of dollars that agencies usually make in federal awards, the people said. The moves come amid the Trump administration’s broader push to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that DOGE and other officials say conflict with White House priorities.
Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead
The Washington Post
By Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Meryl Kornfield
April 12, 2025
Two days after the Social Security Administration purposely and falsely labeled 6,100 living immigrants as dead, security guards arrived at the office of a well-regarded senior executive in the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters.
'Welcome to the Oligarchy Era': Social Security Administration Switches Communications to Musk's X
Common Dreams
By Jessica Corbett
April 11, 2025
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees president Lee Saunders said in a Friday statement that "retirees, disabled individuals, and the millions of beneficiaries who rely on Social Security should not need an X account to receive updates on the program." "Moving all Social Security communications to Elon Musk's personal social media platform is a blatant effort to gain more users and pad X's profits," the union leader charged. "This move should ring alarm bells everywhere. Social Security belongs to the hardworking taxpayers who have paid into the program, not an unelected billionaire like Musk."
Newark teachers rally to denounce Trump’s education and research cuts
NJ Today
By Staff
April 11, 2025
Civil rights activist Larry Hamm and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka drew parallels to Jim Crow-era attacks on education, urging unions to unite against what American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called a “full-scale assault on the mind of America.”
West Kentucky says ‘Hands Off’
Forward Kentucky
By Berry Craig
April 13, 2025
More than 225 people — including Kentucky State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Wiggins and several other active and retired union members — showed up for Saturday’s one-week-later rally in the sunwashed parking lot of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 184. Four Rivers provided music, skits, poetry written by veterans, speakers, and a pair of Four Rivers members dressed in bright yellow chicken suits, another jab at Republican First District Congressman James Comer for refusing to hold a town hall. One of the fuzzy fowls had a sign around its neck identifying the big bird as “Rep. James Comer 1st Congressional District.”
OPB
By Katie Campbell
April 12, 2025
Among its membership, the union — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — represents about 45,000 cultural workers, including Seattle Public Library workers who are members of AFSCME Local 2083. Local 2083 President Jessi Lucas said having the American Library Association and national union leaders step up to support members means a lot, but the full reality of what these cuts could mean to librarians’ livelihoods and communities hasn’t fully set in yet.
Fortune
By Irina Ivanova
April 13, 2025
The Trump administration has eliminated an office within the Department of Health and Human Services that calculates the federal poverty guidelines every year. That figure, required by law, helps determine eligibility for dozens of safety-net programs, including Medicaid and food, heating and legal assistance. “This is the worst possible time to be dealing with that vacuum,” said one economist.
IMMIGRATION
Small airline faces boycotts over deal to run deportation flights for ICE
The Washington Post
By Andrea Sachs
April 11, 2025
On April 5, AFA-CWA issued a broad resolution supporting immigrant rights. In the document, the union noted that some of its members are undocumented immigrants and labeled recent ICE measures as “extreme and unlawful.” AFA-CWA also said it will press airlines not to work with immigration enforcement.
Trump administration contends it has no duty to return illegally deported man to US
Politico
By Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney
April 13, 2025
The Trump administration insisted Sunday that it has no legal obligation to arrange for the return of a Maryland man illegally deported from the United States, arguing that a Supreme Court ruling last week only requires officials to admit him into the country if he makes it back from a high-security prison in El Salvador. Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge that they don’t interpret the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling — that the administration “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release — as obligating the administration to do anything more than adjust his immigration status to admit him if El Salvador’s government chooses to release him.
No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found
The Washington Post
By John Hudson
April 13, 2025
Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.
ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE
Eliminating clean energy investments would be a waste (Opinion)
Chicago Sun-Times
By Pat Devaney
April 11, 2025
America stands at a crossroads: We can either build a stronger, cleaner and more resilient energy economy, or we can allow short-sighted political decisions to cut funding for federal clean energy incentives that have produced some of the most transformative job-creating policies and major energy investments in a generation.
ORGANIZING
Toledo Art Museum Workers Move to Unionize
Hyperallergic
By Rhea Nayyar
April 11, 2025
Staff members at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) in Ohio are unionizing after 86% of workers voted in favor on Wednesday, April 9. The effort comes amid the museum’s ongoing, multi-year collection reinstallation effort and in light of the challenging political climate and its consequences for the arts and culture sector. Organizing under the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), some 100 workers will form the new union, which emerged after TMA’s glass technicians came together under Teamsters in 2007. The new unit will include staff from the visitor services, glass studio, research, education, curatorial, and library departments, among other eligible sectors, and is expected to grow upon selecting a representative.
Over 200 Hennepin County physicians certified as first to unionize in Minnesota
CBS News
By Nick Lentz
April 13, 2025
Around 250 doctors at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) have been certified as the first unionized resident and fellow physicians in Minnesota, according to union officials. The physicians are represented by the Committee of Interns and Residents, a local of the Service Employees International Union (CIR/SEIU), who said the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services made the certification on April 3.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
Cascades East Transit workers, supporters hold rally as union negotiates for new contract
KTVZ
By Tyson Beauchemin
April 11, 2025
On Friday morning, a group gathered just outside the Hawthorne Transit Station in Bend to rally for workers. Cascades East Transit is currently negotiating with the workers' union, Local 757 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. On the table: wages, benefits and more.
Mayo Clinic and SEIU reach agreement on new union contract
KTTC
By KTTC Staff
April 11, 2025
Members of SEIU Healthcare MN & IA at Mayo Clinic St. Marys are celebrating “huge gains” for about 1,600 frontline healthcare workers. Healthcare workers within the union had been fighting over the past year for fair contracts. SEIU represents workers in areas like maintenance, housekeeping, and central services.
Geisinger, nurses union reach contract agreement after months of negotiating
Times Leader
By Sam Zavada
April 12, 2025
After months of negotiating — and a five-day strike in February that caught national attention — over 800 unionized Geisinger Wyoming Valley nurses have reached a contract agreement with Geisinger executives. According to a release from SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, the contract covers nurses at Geisinger Wyoming Valley, Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre and Geisinger Healthplex CenterPoint in Pittston.
SEIU members celebrate success in arbitration ruling
KAALTV
By Alex Karwowski
April 13, 2025
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members at Mayo Clinic’s Saint Marys campus are enjoying a victory after months of ongoing contract negotiations and arbitration. Those frontline healthcare workers have long bargained for what they call a fair contract.
San Diego County workers rally for a new contract
The San Diego Union-Tribune
By Rob Nikolewski
April 12, 2025
With contract negotiations looming, San Diego County union workers held a rally Saturday morning on the west side of the County Administration Center. “Many of our departments are still understaffed and it’s important that the communities get what they need,” said Crystal Irving, president of SEIU Local 221, which represents about 11,000 members who work in county health services, social welfare, clerical, registered nursing and other jobs.
SAG-AFTRA and Advertisers Reach Tentative Agreement on Successor Contracts
The Hollywood Reporter
By Carly Thomas
April 12, 2025
SAG-AFTRA and advertisers have reached a tentative agreement for successor commercial contracts. “SAG-AFTRA and The Joint Policy Committee, LLC (JPC) have reached a tentative agreement on terms for successor Commercials and Audio Commercials Contracts, subject to approval by the SAG-AFTRA National Board, which will meet on April 26, and ratification by the membership. The specific details will not be released in advance of the board’s review,” the performers’ union wrote in a statement.
Wyoming Valley nurses reach labor deal with Geisinger
WVIA
By Lydia McFarlane
April 12, 2025
Unionized nurses at Geisinger’s Wyoming Valley facilities settled with the company late Friday after months of negotiations. Nurses are calling the contract a victory. It addresses their priorities of higher pay, more affordable healthcare and stronger workplace safety. “Going into this contract, we were completely worn down from severe understaffing, turnover and having to be constantly on-call,” union member Chrissy Minet said. “With better wages, benefits and safety, we can start to rebuild our local nursing workforce here.”
JOINING TOGETHER
Union members protest WKU construction project
Bowling Green Daily News
By David Horowitz
April 11, 2025
Members of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO and the regional bricklayers union on Thursday protested how work on Western Kentucky University’s under-construction Hilltopper Fieldhouse and Press Box was being handled.
Piedmont workers protest alleged unfair labor practices
The Red and Black
By Sebastian Baggett
April 11, 2025
Around 30 people from a variety of organizations led by the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 926 gathered outside of Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital Friday afternoon. Accompanied by large inflatables, they protested unfair labor practices maintenance workers claim to have experienced after voting to join a union last August. The protest follows months of negotiation between Piedmont and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 926, which the workers voted to join. The union said the hospital has broken federal labor law seven different times as they continue to stall negotiations with the union and retaliate against their own maintenance workers.
STATE LEGISLATION
WA House OKs unemployment benefits for striking workers, but adds four-week limit
Washington State Standard
By Jerry Cornfield
April 12, 2025
Organized labor secured a major win Saturday as Democrats in the state House pushed through legislation to provide striking workers in Washington with unemployment benefits. But union leaders were not all smiles afterward. The bill was amended on the floor to impose a four-week limit on receiving benefits, eight weeks less than the version approved in the Senate. Senate Bill 5041 passed the House on a 52-43 vote with seven Democrats joining Republicans in voting against the measure.
IN THE STATES
South Florida lawmakers join rally with federal government workers in West Palm Beach
WLRN
By WLRN News Staff
April 11, 2025
Two Democratic lawmakers from South Florida are joining American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley on Saturday in West Palm Beach to denounce the Trump administration’s “attacks on the federal workforce.” U.S. Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Miramar, and Lois Frankel, D-Boca Raton, will be among the speakers at the planned rally by the unionized federal workers. “Since President Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, federal workers have been disrespected, demeaned, and degraded by Elon Musk and the Trump administration,” said the union in a statement announcing Saturday’s rally.
Arkansas protestors speak out Saturday against Trump administration
KARK
By Chris Counts
April 13, 2025
A crowd gathered Saturday at the Arkansas State Capitol to continue protests over actions taken by the Trump administration. The American Federation of Government Employees said they organized Saturday’s protest on behalf of Social Security Administration employees.
Labor unions, grassroots activists fueling Maine protests against ultra-rich takeover
Maine Morning Star
By Nathan Bernard
April 13, 2025
Like a pot boiling over, more than 10,000 Mainers took to the streets last weekend to protest the dismantling of the federal government by President Donald Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk. But that day of mass action was fueled by weeks of local demonstrations that have united a diverse coalition of people who say they are energized to take a stand.
Progressive Power Gathers in Los Angeles
LA Progressive
By Mark Friedman
April 13, 2025
California AFL-CIO president Lorena Gonzalez rallied the crowd of more than 40,000 to defend unions and to support union organizing drives. Los Angeles Police Department now puts the crowd size estimate at 60,000. “Which side are you on is the call of the labor movement. Are you with working people or the greedy corporations like SpaceX, Amazon, making billions off our labor and who are now trying to take away our rights? When they come for us, we respond: I am sticking with the union. Are you on the side of workers fighting to organize unions? When we exercise our power, use it collectively in our workplaces and our country. When we fight we win.”