Today's AFL-CIO press clips
POLITICS
Top Senate Official Rules Against Several Key Provisions in G.O.P. Policy Bill
The New York Times
By Catie Edmondson and Margot Sanger-Katz
June 26, 2025
A top Senate official on Thursday rejected a slew of major provisions in Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill, sending party leaders rushing to salvage the legislation a week before the July 4 deadline President Trump set for its enactment. Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the chamber’s rules, said several of the measures in the legislation that would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form. They include one that would crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers.
Medicaid changes don't meet Senate rules in 'big, beautiful bill' says parliamentarian
NPR
By Deirdre Walsh and Claudia Grisales
June 26, 2025
Senate Republicans hit a major setback in their race to pass a massive tax and spending package on Thursday, as a chamber official ruled against a key Medicaid provision, putting in doubt plans for a vote by the end of the week. The nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian, who plays a key role in determining what provisions can stay in the fast-tracked bill, said the GOP change to how states can tax Medicaid providers does not adhere to rules for passing the bill with a simple majority. This was a key provision to help offset the costs of the bill's tax cuts.
New AFL-CIO report shows Medicaid cuts will spike health care costs for everyone
Labor Tribune
By Staff
June 26, 2025
The AFL-CIO’s research shows that if it becomes law, the bill would result in higher premiums, less access to emergency rooms and fewer providers available to provide care—not only for people who use Medicaid, but for millions more working people across the country. “This budget reconciliation bill makes it seem like cutting Medicaid is going to save taxpayers money when it’s really going to cost all of us more—all to give tax breaks to the rich,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “We’re not going to let the Republican-controlled Congress make our health care more expensive and less accessible for working people.”
Key Medicaid provision in Trump’s bill is found to violate Senate rules. The GOP is scrambling
AP
By Lisa Mascaro
June 26, 2025
The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the chamber’s procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow as Republicans rush to finish the package this week. Guidance from the parliamentarian is rarely ignored and Republican leaders are now forced to consider difficult options. Republicans were counting on big cuts to Medicaid and other programs to offset trillions of dollars in Trump tax breaks, their top priority. Additionally, the Senate’s chief arbiter of its often complicated rules had advised against various GOP provisions barring certain immigrants from health care programs.
Senate parliamentarian blocks Medicaid changes in Trump's bill -- a blow to GOP
ABC News
By Allison Pecorin
June 26, 2025
The Senate's rule enforcer dealt a major blow to Senate Republicans Thursday morning by ruling a key Medicaid provision in the megabill that advances President Donald Trump's legislative agenda is out of order. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough found that a provision that cracks down on states' use of health care provider taxes to help collect additional Medicaid funding is not in keeping with the rules governing a package like the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which senators are making changes to as Republicans work to meet Trump's Fourth of July deadline for passage.
Trump’s Bill Slashes the Safety Net That Many Republican Voters Rely on
The New York Times
By Jason DeParle
June 26, 2025
From the start of his second term, President Trump has bet that he can appeal to low-income voters while slashing safety net programs on which many of those voters depend. The enormous tax-and-spending bill he is trying to push through Congress is a high-stakes test of that proposition, a gamble that Mr. Trump can retain the loyalty of his blue-collar supporters despite moves that could harm their immediate economic self-interest.
'Victory for Working People': Judge Blocks Trump Attack on Public Employee Unions
Common Dreams
By Eloise Goldsmith
June 26, 2025
"This executive order is a direct effort to silence federal workers' voice on the job—an essential freedom that helps maintain the integrity of our democracy," wrote Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the unions that brought the lawsuit.
Senate must reject job-killing cuts. Union jobs are on the line (Opinion)
Labor Tribune
By Jimmy Williams, Jr.
June 26, 2025
As the general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), I represent 140,000 proud workers across the finishing trades. Our vital work includes our country’s industrial, commercial and decorative painters. Because we spend our careers ensuring that our vital infrastructure works well and looks good, we know a thing or two about making things beautiful. Right now, Republican senators are working overtime to pass Trump’s budget bill by July 4. As it stands, this bill is an outright attack on every family in this country. It would slash critical funding for programs like Medicaid and SNAP, ripping health care away from millions of people, and denying food assistance to millions of children and families in need—all to hand massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Senate Republicans explore tweaks to pension plan after parliamentarian ruling
Politico
By Lawrence Ukenye
June 26, 2025
Senate Republicans are considering a tweak to their pension reform plan that would hike how much federal employees need to contribute to their retirement, in order to pay for the GOP megabill. Lawmakers are looking to hike federal employees’ retirement contributions to 15.6 percent of their salary — compared with the 9.4 percent required in the initial version of the bill — while carving out an exemption for members of Congress and their staff, according to draft reconciliation text from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that was obtained by POLITICO.
At odds over Trump's tax bill, some Senate Republicans turn on chamber's referee
Reuters
By Bo Erickson and David Morgan
June 26, 2025
Struggling to agree on a path forward for President Donald Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill, some U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday turned their anger on the referee charged with ensuring that lawmakers follow their own rules. That pushback came in response to Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's ruling that some Medicaid policies Republicans are trying to include in the bill do not align with the special budget process the party is using to bypass the chamber's regular vote threshold, which requires 60 of the 100 senators to agree on legislation.
CNN
By Lauren Fox, Manu Raju and Morgan Rimmer
June 26, 2025
The timeline to pass President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill by July 4 could slip as Republican lawmakers scramble to retool their bill to meet Senate rules and garner enough support in a deeply divided GOP conference. Senate GOP leaders had hoped to move Trump’s massive agenda in their chamber by Saturday morning, giving it to Speaker Mike Johnson to jam it through the House by Tuesday — so the president could sign it by the Fourth of July. But Thursday morning, the Senate’s rules referee, parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, struck down key provisions, saying they don’t meet the chamber’s strict budget rules that must be followed so the bill can be approved by a simple majority of 51 votes – or just GOP support.
House GOP holdouts threaten revolt over Trump and Senate’s tax bill
The Washington Post
By Jacob Bogage, Marianna Sotomayor and Theodoric Meyer
June 26, 2025
As Senate Republicans eye the finish line on President Donald Trump’s massive tax and immigration proposal, there may be one more obstacle standing in the way of what they hope to be era-defining legislation: their GOP colleagues in the House. The Senate has transformed key provisions from the House-passed version of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a measure that would extend trillions of dollars in tax cuts, spend hundreds of billions on immigration enforcement and defense, and cut spending on social benefit and anti-poverty programs.
Parliamentarian requests AI moratorium rewrite
Politico
By Anthony Adragna
June 26, 2025
The Senate parliamentarian is asking the Senate Commerce Committee to rework its 10-year moratorium on enforcing state artificial intelligence laws, according to ranking member Maria Cantwell. The parliamentarian had asked Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to rewrite the language in the GOP megabill to make clear it wouldn’t impact $42 billion in broadband funding, Cantwell (D-Wash.) told POLITICO.
Senate parliamentarian requests AI moratorium be rewritten in ‘big, beautiful bill’
The Hill
By Miranda Nazzaro
June 26, 2025
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has asked Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to rewrite the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) provision in President Trump’s tax package, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told reporters Thursday. Cruz and Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, met with the Senate parliamentarian Wednesday night, a source familiar with the conversations confirmed. During this conversation, the parliamentarian expressed concerns the provision may violate the Senate’s reconciliation procedural rules, Cantwell said.
How the Senate Parliamentarian Tripped Up Trump’s Tax Bill
Bloomberg
By Maeve Sheehey and Lillianna Byington
June 26, 2025
For Republicans racing to pass President Donald Trump’s mega-bill, the devil is in the procedural details. After passing in the US House of Representatives, Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax-and-spending package is under negotiation in the Senate. With a slim majority in both chambers, Republicans can only pass the legislation through a process called reconciliation, which limits the components of a legislative package to those related to the federal budget.
IMMIGRATION
Justice Department Says the Trump Administration Plans to Re-Deport Abrego Garcia
The New York Times
By Alan Feuer
June 26, 2025
Less than three weeks after Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was brought back from a wrongful deportation to El Salvador to face criminal charges in the United States, the Trump administration indicated on Thursday that it planned to deport him again — this time to a different country. Jonathan Guynn, a Justice Department lawyer, acknowledged to a judge that there were “no imminent plans” to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia. Still, the assertion that the administration intends to re-deport a man who was just returned to the country after being indicted raised questions about the charges the Justice Department filed against him.
Trump administration will put Abrego on trial before deporting him again
Reuters
By Andrew Goudsward
June 26, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Abrego for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday. The deportation will not happen until after Abrego is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said.
SUPREME COURT
Supreme Court allows states to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood
The Washington Post
By Ann E. Marimow
June 26, 2025
A divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against Planned Parenthood, saying Medicaid patients do not have a right to sue to obtain non-abortion health care from the organization’s medical providers. The decision allows South Carolina to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. It also has implications for patients in other states at a time when Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are separately trying to defund even non-abortion health care offered by the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Supreme Court clears way for states to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid
Politico
By Alice Miranda Ollstein, Josh Gerstein and Lauren Gardner
June 26, 2025
The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for states to exclude Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. In a 6-3 decision divided along ideological lines, the court’s majority concluded that federal law doesn’t allow health care providers or patients to sue if a state violates a provision of federal law guaranteeing that Medicaid patients can visit their preferred provider.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
US labor market losing steam; economic outlook uncertain
Reuters
By Lucia Mutikani
June 26, 2025
The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, but work opportunities are becoming scarce as businesses remain hesitant to hire because of an uncertain economic outlook, raising the risk of the unemployment rate increasing in June. The weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday, the most timely data on the economy's health, also showed state unemployment benefit rolls in mid-June increasing to the highest level in 3-1/2 years. Though layoffs remain historically low, hiring has been tepid, with economists saying President Donald Trump's broad import tariffs are making it difficult for businesses to plan ahead.
ORGANIZING
Machinists file with labor board to unionize West Virginia Pratt & Whitney workers
Reuters
By Reuters
June 26, 2025
North America's largest aerospace union has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent workers at a Pratt & Whitney engine repair shop in West Virginia, as organizers try to make inroads across southern U.S. states and elsewhere where aerospace companies are growing production. RTX enginemaker Pratt, rival GE Aerospace, and planemakers Boeing and Airbus are expanding operations in southern U.S. states, such as South Carolina and Alabama. Aircraft startup JetZero recently pledged to open a factory in North Carolina in a $4.7 billion deal backed by big state incentives.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
NHL, NHLPA agree to 84-game schedule, playoff salary cap, other key elements of new CBA: Sources
The New York Times
By Chris Johnston and Pierre LeBrun
June 26, 2025
The NHL and NHL Players’ Association have agreed upon key elements of a new collective bargaining agreement, including an 84-game schedule starting in 2026-27, according to league sources. The sides had not signed a memorandum of understanding as of Thursday early afternoon but were meeting about it Thursday and, barring any last-minute snags, plan to announce a new four-year extension before Friday’s NHL Draft.
Report: NHL, NHLPA close to agreeing on a new collective bargaining agreement
NBC Sports
By Associated Press
June 26, 2025
The NHL and NHL Players’ Association are close to an agreement on an extension of the collective bargaining agreement, two people familiar with negotiations told The Associated Press on Thursday. The people spoke to the AP on condition on anonymity because the deal had not yet been finalized. The league and union have been in talks since April and are on the verge of a memorandum of understanding done more than a year before the current CBA expires. The extension would provide extended labor peace in the sport that has had multiple work stoppages, including the 2004-05 lockout that wiped out an entire season, over the past three decades.
Staffing and wage disputes put Kaleida Health at risk of strike authorization vote
WGRZ
By Alissa Clausell
June 26, 2025
Healthcare workers at Kaleida Health, Western New York’s largest healthcare employer, are preparing for a possible strike as union leaders say contract talks have stalled over unresolved staffing and wage concerns. Negotiations between Kaleida Health and healthcare workers—represented by CWA Local 1168 and 1199SEIU—have been ongoing since March. While progress has been made in some areas, union leaders say key issues remain on the table.
Philadelphia's largest city workers union could strike soon
6ABC
By Annie McCormick
June 26, 2025
Inside the headquarters for Philadelphia's largest blue-collar workers' union, District Council 33, members are ready for a strike on Tuesday. Their one-year contract expires Monday at the stroke of midnight. The union represents about 9,000 city employees. President Greg Boulware spoke to Action News on Thursday. He says talks with the city broke down Wednesday, but they plan to return to the negotiating table on Friday. "We feel the city has consistently balanced the budget off of the backs of our members," said Boulware. "Our members are increasingly having difficulties day by day with the rising cost of everything."
Health care workers at Stillwater clinic gives notice of intent to strike
Pioneer Press
By Mary Divine
June 26, 2025
Health care union members at HealthPartners’ Stillwater Medical Group could conduct a four-day unfair labor practice strike as early as July 8 if an agreement with HealthPartners isn’t reached by then. The union that represents the members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa on Thursday notified HealthPartners officials that they had filed an intent to strike with the state Bureau of Mediation Services. That action triggers an automatic 10-day cooling-off period, which is required under state law.
Voices Of Ascension And AGMA Reveal New Three-Year Agreement
Broadway World
By Chloe Rabinowitz
June 26, 2025
Voices of Ascension and The American Guild of Musical Artists have ratified a new three-year collective bargaining agreement, effective July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028. The agreement was overwhelmingly approved by AGMA members in the shop, and ratified by the AGMA Board of Governors on June 23.
WROC workers press Nexstar to join union talks
Rochester Beacon
By Narm Nathan
June 26, 2025
Though Bridget Harry, a news producer, has been employed at WROC TV-8 for just over a year, she joined her coworkers as they picketed this week. “We’re fighting for fair contracts, fair wages,” Harry says. “We want Nexstar, our parent company, to come to the bargaining table because, thus far, they’re just being tied up with legal fees and kind of stalling things so that they don’t have to come to the bargaining table with us.” Following a successful election (with 48 votes cast, 29 were in favor of a union) in February 2023, the National Labor Relations Board certified NABET-CWA Local 22 as the bargaining representative for WROC. This certification has been contested by Nexstar Media over the eligibility of employees to be represented. A refusal-to-bargain case was brought by the NLRB in August 2024, which ultimately ordered Nexstar to bargain with the unit.
Actors' Equity Association Celebrates Final California Budget Agreement Including Arts Funding
Broadway World
By A.A. Cristi
June 26, 2025
Actors' Equity Association and California Arts Advocates released the following statements regarding the fact that California lawmakers have reached a deal on the state budget. It includes $11.5 million in arts funding for the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund (PAEPF), a program dedicated to funding arts workers in small nonprofit arts organizations, including theatres, orchestras and dance organizations.
JOINING TOGETHER
Hyatt hotel workers gather to demand back pay for contract violations
Denverite
By Juanita Hurtado Huérfano
June 26, 2025
Workers at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Denver say the hotel broke a promise and owes them back pay for an unfulfilled contract requirement. More than 20 workers, along with Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Guttierez, gathered outside the hotel to demand thousands of dollars in wages they say they were promised. “We are here because Hyatt refuses to pay the dollar above the minimum wage, like the contract says,” said Grace Jencks, an organizer with Unite Here Local 23. “But we know our worth. We know the value of our labor, and we know when we support one another, we will see the justice we deserve.”
Unions representing laid off UC San Diego Health employees push back
KPBS
By Heidi de Marco
June 26, 2025
UC San Diego Health laid off 230 employees this week, including pharmacists, respiratory therapists and social workers. The health system cited rising costs, low reimbursements and uncertainty around federal funding as the reason. Union leaders responded to the layoffs saying the cuts target essential frontline staff and could put patients at risk. “The clinical lab scientists prior to these layoffs were saying that their staffing was critical to the point where they felt like they were at risk for making errors, because they didn't have enough staffing,” said Jonathon Sunada, a physical therapist and a University Professional and Technical Employee Union representative.
CIVIL, HUMAN, & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Pride and progress: How Rhode Island unions helped win LGBTQ+ rights
Boston Globe
By Karen Hazard and Denise Robinson
June 26, 2025
When we were beginning our journeys in union leadership, being “out” at work was still risky. Domestic partnership benefits were controversial. Pension plans still had names like the “husband and wife pension” and “widow’s benefits,” which made it painfully clear who was seen, and who wasn’t. It’s been 30 years since Rhode Island passed its first anti-discrimination law on the basis of sexual orientation. What we – as union leaders, queer women, and parents – have learned through the years is that the laws protecting us and our families are tools that could have just as easily been left unused if it wasn’t for the tireless and sometimes unseen advocacy of union members.