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REPUBLICANS SNEAK NONPROFIT KILLER BILL INTO THE TAIL END OF TRUMP’S 389-PAGE TAX PLAN
theintercept.com/2025/05/12/trump-nonprofit-killer-tax-cuts/
It would give the Trump administration the power to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems a “terrorist-supporting organization.”
Noah-Hurowitz-Photo.jpeg
Noah Hurowitz
May 12 2025, 7:31 p.m.
TOPSHOT – US President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, DC, on May 5, 2025. Trump signed several health care-related executive orders, according to a White House statement. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski / AFP) (Photo by ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump signs executive orders in the White House, in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2025.Photo: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images
TO ADVANCE PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cuts, House Republicans on Monday unveiled a proposal that could hand him a powerful new tool to go after his political enemies.
The House Ways and Means Committee will meet Tuesday for a mark-up session of the 389-page draft plan, a massive bundle of draft amendments central to the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” that aims to cut trillions of dollars in government spending.
Among those amendments, buried on page 380 of the draft, is a section that would enable Trump’s secretary of the Treasury to denounce any nonprofit as a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip it of its tax-exempt status.
“This seems to just give the president a tool to go after his political enemies and fulfill some of the darker elements of the Project 2025 agenda,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council.
House GOP Moves to Ram Through Bill That Gives Trump Unilateral Power to Kill Nonprofits
A previous version of the clause — dubbed the “nonprofit killer bill” — was introduced in 2023. Critics viewed that legislation as a bipartisan expression of pro-Israel policy and opposition to pro-Palestinian speech.
The first version of the bill passed the House easily, before languishing in the Senate. But when it reappeared in November — following Trump’s reelection — many Democrats who had backed the bill dropped their support in the face of reporting from The Intercept and a flurry of anger from the party’s base.
President Donald Trump speaks before Steve Witkoff is sworn as special envoy during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, in Washington, with a portrait of former President Ronald Reagan in the background..jpeg
“I Don’t Know.” Trump’s Go-To Response to All Sorts of Questions
Nick Turse
A prison officer guards a cell at maximum security penitentiary CECOT (Center for the Compulsory Housing of Terrorism) on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador..jpeg
CECOT Is What the Bukele Regime Wants You to See
Jonah Valdez
At the time, the ACLU and other civil liberties groups warned that the bill would be used by Trump to make good on his campaign promise to crush his political enemies.
Among House Democrats, opposition was marshaled by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.
“Authoritarianism is not born overnight — it creeps in,” Doggett said during a discussion on the House floor on November 21. “A tyrant tightens his grip not just by seizing power, but when he demands new powers and when those who can stop him willingly cede and bend to his will.”
“Authoritarianism is not born overnight — it creeps in.”
That bill, known as H.R. 9495, or the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, ultimately passed the House 219 to 184, with just 15 Democrats voting in favor. The bill moved on to the Senate, then under Democratic control, where it sat until the end of the lame-duck term.
The language included in the House Republicans’ tax package closely mirrors H.R. 9495.
In the months since inauguration, Trump and his Cabinet have found other means of cracking down on political speech — particularly speech in favor of Palestinians — by deporting student activists and revoking hundreds of student visas. He has already threatened to attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, part of his larger quest to discipline and punish colleges.
But the nonprofit clause of the tax bill would give the president wider power to go after organizations that stand in his way.
Republicans control the House and hold the Senate by a narrow margin. Democrats will have the opportunity to attach amendments in committee, giving them a shot to nix the nonprofit clause. But so long as the Republicans remain unified in supporting Trump’s tax plan, they can strike down objections from the opposition.
The reconciliation process is often used as a vehicle for bringing to life policy objectives and previously stalled zombie legislation while sidestepping a potential filibuster in the Senate. The current draft includes a number of clauses intended to offset tax cuts while also securing key policy objectives, such as a provision allowing the taxation of the endowments of private universities and a rollback of access to tax breaks by undocumented immigrants.
Once the Ways and Means Committee settles on an amended version of the current draft, it will move on to the House for debate, further amendment, and a vote, before heading to the Senate.
Republicans Sneak Nonprofit Killer Bill Into the Tail End of Trump’s 389-Page Tax Plan
theintercept.com
It would give the Trump administration the power to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems a “terrorist-supporting organization.”This could be the end of the League of Women Voters.
LaborNotes & Jane Slaughter Defend Bureaucratic Liquidation Of UAWD
UAW Reformers Close Caucus, Launch New Organization
www.labornotes.org/2025/04/uaw-reformers-close-caucus-launch-new-organization
April 29, 2025 / Jane Slaughter, Keith Brower Brownenlarge or shrink textlogin or register to comment
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View from back of an auditorium at UAW convention. People in red shirts sit in rows; one red hoodie front and center has UAWD logo on the back. Onstage, Shawn Fain is at the podium, someone in a suit stands near him, and other people mostly in red shirts sit arrayed at long tables on the dais. A big blue screen behind them has UAW logo and intials repeated, and some other images not clearly visible..png
UAWD members were at the 2023 UAW Convention right after electing their slate to the international executive board. Photo: Jim West / jimwestphoto.com
Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the reform caucus in the Auto Workers, voted to dissolve at its quarterly online membership meeting April 27.
“It was a heartbreaking decision to come to,” said UAWD founder and chair Scott Houldieson, a 36-year electrician at Ford. “UAWD had become a caucus that is ‘resolutionary,’ and focused more on caucus discipline than on actually organizing workers. Meetings had become dreadful. We can have differences as long as we make a decision and move on.”
A majority of the group’s steering committee had brought a resolution calling for the dissolution. It was hotly debated. About half of the caucus membership attended the meeting.
Two days later the steering committee majority announced plans to start a new network of reform activists, to be called UAW Member Action. “The energy of the membership has been unleashed in so many recent contract campaigns,” said Stephen Hinojosa, a 12-year Stellantis worker in Toledo, in a press release. “We want to bring these member leaders together to learn from each other for the fights to come.”
SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO?
The resolution to dissolve, which passed by a vote of 160 to 137, stated, “It is clear to us that the coalition of members that came together to achieve UAWD’s greatest successes can no longer work together toward common goals… There are two different visions for the kind of organization we need to build to advance a more militant union.”
Opponents said the majority group should work through the internal conflicts or leave, rather than close the caucus. “These have been tensions since the beginning, and we worked through them,” said Jeremy Bunyaner, a tenant attorney and longtime caucus activist. “Do you not believe we can work together? Then leave, don’t shut it down.”
Hinojosa had joined UAWD after attending the 2022 Labor Notes Conference. “I assumed UAWD was like Labor Notes—getting activists together,” he said, describing the competing visions. “They treated it more like a political party.”
EVOLVING GOALS
UAWD was formed by a few dozen members in 2019 with a singular purpose: to change the union’s constitution to give rank-and-file members, rather than convention delegates, the right to vote on top officers. Activists argued the reform was needed to end years of international officers ramming through concessionary contracts and divisive tiers.
Then the U.S. Justice Department dropped a bomb: it was investigating, and eventually indicting, top UAW officials for corruption, including colluding with employers. Thirteen went to jail.
To end corruption under the old guard, UAWD pushed for direct elections as a needed reform. The Department eventually mailed ballots to members to decide whether they wanted the right to vote.
UAWD attracted members energized by the democratic opening. Its volunteers made thousands of phone calls, convincing rank and filers to hand out flyers at plant gates and in the break rooms. They had a simple ask: vote yes.
Turnout was low (owing to cynicism, bad addresses, retirees a majority of the voting pool) but a 63.6 percent majority voted for the right to vote in fall 2021.
SEIZED THE MOMENT
Some predicted that once given the right to vote, members would simply mark ballots for incumbents. In the Laborers (LiUNA), where one-member-one-vote was imposed in 1996 by a government settlement, challengers have been few and the old guard has stayed in.
That’s not what happened in the UAW. Though still a small movement, UAWD managed to cobble together a partial slate for the International Executive Board, seven out of 14 slots (including regional directors). Again members and volunteers hit the ground running with calls, flyers, and road tours by candidates. In March 2023, after run-offs, again with low turnout, the UAWD-backed slate squeaked outa sweep, winning every position it ran for, including the presidency.
That victory suddenly changed the role of the caucus. Until then UAWD had been asking fellow members for one simple act: to mark their mail ballots. That didn’t require long-term base-building, running for local office, or confronting management.
Almost all auto locals were still run by officers who had come up in the era of boss-friendly politics and a view of the union as a patronage machine. Daily local union functioning—members’ involvement and interactions with management—could not be transformed top-down from the president’s office. UAWD would need to dig in to convince members their locals could be different, which would take new skills and staying power.
“The two campaigns we carried out, we were trying to build much broader than we actually were,” said retiree Dianne Feeley of Detroit, a UAWD member and a veteran of earlier UAW caucus-building. “We were forced to be far more national… That’s different from trying to build authority in the local, to lead the civil rights committee, to become a [steward].”
POST-STRIKE BLUES
UAWD pushed for the union to organize a contract campaign that summer, which it did, followed by the Stand-Up Strike against the Big 3 automakers, which won huge raises, especially for those in the lowest tiers. Members were enthusiastic about the strike, their new president Shawn Fain, and the chance to finally hold their heads high as auto workers and UAW members, after decades of shame and cynicism.
The ink was hardly dry on the three contracts, though, when the old skepticism came roaring back. Big raises for veteran workers weren’t as large as those for the so-called temps who had started at $15.78 an hour. Pensions for those hired after 2007 were not achieved. “Work-life balance” was not addressed; onerous overtime was as bad as before. At Stellantis, the new contract even went backward on the attendance policy; the vice president who had negotiated it was removed by Fain for dereliction of duty.
After the heady days of September-October 2023, when the whole world was watching and public support for the Stand-Up Strike was 78 percent, rolling layoffs and temporary shutdowns at Big 3 auto plants pushed many members back into pessimism about their union. Victory in the organizing drive at Volkswagen in Tennessee, in April 2024, lifted spirits among activists, but could only go so far for members at older plants worried about a pink slip.
TWO COMPETING VISIONS
The headwinds from the union’s largest employers came just as UAWD faced tougher choices about how to focus the reform project for the long haul. At the caucus’s convention last September in Detroit, two different visions were tested in a vote for leadership, which the UAWD Strong slate won with two-thirds of the vote.
RECRUITMENT PLUMMETED
The 2026 UAW international officer elections loomed as another point of tension. Fain is expected to stand for re-election, but other candidates and slates have not announced. While the caucus had yet to take up an endorsement, leaders from the minority group warned that Fain might run on a slate with past adversaries from the old guard, and accused the majority of supporting “a new left labor bureaucracy.”
Aims for the caucus often overlapped with sectoral differences. The UAW is 75-80 percent manufacturing workers. About 12 percent are in higher education, legal services, and nonprofit work. Academic workers are often short-term members; they provided just above 2 percent of the votes in the election that brought Fain to office.
But about half of UAWD’s members came from outside manufacturing. The majority leaders drew their strongest support from the plants, and the minority from legal aid and higher ed workers in the Northeast, though both camps included members across sectors. Of those who signed a petition against dissolution, 70 percent were from Region 9A in the Northeast and 80 percent were from academic or legal services locals.
The majority argued that fights over resolutions, in heated chats and quarterly meetings sometimes three hours long, had stifled action, discouraged manufacturing workers from participating, and led recruitment to “plummet” since the convention last fall. “Both UAWD meetings and the listserve have become toxic, with various people accused of being ‘reformists,’” Feeley wrote in a message to the caucus. “Without building activist and militant locals, we cannot develop the democracy the union needs. ”
“After they lost at the UAWD convention, everything in that chat got toxic,” Hinojosa said. “People started leaving the chat en masse. Most of their political stances I agree with them on. But they were not about building bridges, they were about taking a hard stance and dying on every hill.”
DIVIDING
Dissolution, the Steering Committee majority proposed, would allow each group to organize for its own caucus vision, instead of staying stuck in infighting. The proposal allowed leaders from all camps to use UAWD member contact lists going forward, and donated remaining caucus funds to caucuses in other unions, immigrant aid, and peace nonprofits.
The minority leaders and some supporters termed the dissolution a “coup.”
On April 29, majority leaders launched the UAW Member Action group, aimed at “helping members stand up to bosses and win strong contracts… including by running for office.” Meanwhile, the minority group encouraged supporters to “reach out to us so we can plan this future together.”
At the big Jeep plant in Toledo, supporters of UAWD and now Member Action have been brewing reform on the ground—putting on a recent workshop on what to do when you’re harassed by management, and another on fighting back on job overload. They’re running for shop committee, the UAW version of full-time stewards.
“UAWD was a ground-up organization,” Hinojosa said. “That’s what we’re trying to get back to and focus on—bring in new leaders, help educate a worker-driven workforce and union. I’m looking forward to the new organization.”
Movement Ebbs and Flows
Reform movements in the UAW have a history; they’ve risen in response to different challenges in different decades, and dissolved.
In 1968 the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement mobilized Black workers at a big Detroit assembly plant to oppose racist foremen and the white union establishment.
In the 1970s two groups existed: the United National Caucus, which stayed small, and the Independent Skilled Trades Council, which advocated for skilled workers’ conditions.
In 1986 the New Directions Movement was formed, starting in the Missouri-Oklahoma-Texas region and spreading to Michigan. It opposed the union’s policy of preemptive concessions to the automakers, labor-management cooperation, and pitting locals against each other to “bid” for work. Caucus members led several successful work-to-rule actions, held annual conventions, and were elected convention delegate.
Victor Reuther, a UAW founder, came out of retirement to help lead; Jerry Tucker from St. Louis was elected to the union’s executive board. New Directions faced heavy repression from top officials.
Soldiers of Solidarity was formed in 2005. It had several sizable meetings but never developed action on the shop floor, despite an expressed desire to do so.
When bankruptcy loomed for Chrysler and General Motors in 2008, a caravan of Michiganders went to Washington to make pro-worker demands. The Autoworker Caravan came out of that. It published helpful analyses of subsequent auto contracts but its small membership was mostly retirees.
Unite All Workers for Democracy was founded in 2019 by current auto workers, with one goal: changing the UAW constitution to allow one-member-one-vote for top officers. When the Justice Department found endemic corruption at the union’s top levels, UAWD seized the opportunity to push for elections—and then won them.
USPS’ new postmaster general is a FedEx board member and former Fortune 500 CEO. But union leaders say he’s the ‘last type of person’ who should be in charge
fortune.com/article/usps-postmaster-general-steiner-fedex-fortune-500/
BYSUSAN HAIGH AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 9, 2025 at 2:36 PM EDT
David Steiner is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation’s 76th postmaster general.
David Steiner is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation’s 76th postmaster general.
JOSHUA ROBERTS/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
David Steiner, a former CEO of the nation’s largest waste management company who currently serves on the FedEx board of directors, is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation’s 76th postmaster general.
The announcement of Steiner’s appointment, which heightened concerns from postal unions over possible efforts to privatize the USPS, was made Friday by Amber McReynolds, chairperson of the USPS’ Board of Governors, during a meeting of the independent group that oversees the service.
“We anticipate that Mr. Steiner will join the organization in July, assuming his successful completion of the ethics and security clearance processes that are currently underway,” McReynolds said.
Friday’s announcement by the the Board of Governors comes as President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have raised the idea of privatizing the nearly 250-year-old Postal Service, which has faced financial challenges amid a changing mail mix and other issues.
The choice of Steiner has been seen by the postal unions as a harbinger for possible privatization of some or all of the venerable quasi-public institution, which is largely self-funded and has a mission to serve every address in the country — nearly 167 million residences, businesses and post office boxes.
Postal unions have held protests throughout the country over potential privatization, job cuts and possibly ending the universal service obligation.
Brian L. Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said Steiner is not just any executive from the private sector but someone who sits on the board of one of the Postal Service’s top competitors.
“His selection isn’t just a conflict of interest — it’s an aggressive step toward handing America’s mail system over to corporate interests,” Renfroe said in a statement. “Private shippers have been waiting to get USPS out of parcel delivery for years. Steiner’s selection is an open invitation to do just that.”
Renfroe’s union represents 205,000 active city letter carriers and around 90,000 retirees.
Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 220,000 USPS employees and retirees, likened the appointment of Steiner to a fox guarding a hen house.
“FedEx has a very different agenda than the public postal service. And they’re a major competitor of the United States Postal Service,” he said. “I’m not talking about any attributes of an individual, but to me, that’s the last type of person you will put in charge of the public institution as the anchor of the mailing package industry in the country.”
Steiner, who will leave the FedEx board, said in a written statement that he admires the public service mission of the USPS and called it “an incredible honor to be asked to lead the world’s greatest postal organization.”
“I believe strongly in maintaining its role as an independent establishment of the executive branch,” said Steiner, who served as CEO of Waste Management Inc. from 2004 through October 2016.
In a written statement, McReynolds called Steiner “the right person to lead the Postal Service at this time to ensure this magnificent and historic organization thrives into the future.”
“Dave is a highly regarded leader and executive with tremendous vision, experience and skill that can be applied to the long-term mission and business needs of the Postal Service,” she added. “Our Board looks forward to working with Dave as he takes on the core mandates of providing universal and excellent service for the American public and doing so in a financially sustainable manner.”
The Postal Service is in the midst of a 10-year modernization and cost-cutting plan that began in 2021 under Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who resigned in March. The plan is an attempt to stop losses at the agency, which has a budget of about $78 billion a year and is mostly self-funded, including through stamps and packages.
Known as “Deliver for America,” the initiative has received markedly mixed reviews. While postal officials contend it has led to major efficiency improvements, some members of Congress have criticized it for leading to mail delays, unsustainable postage increases and declines in business.
Besides privatization, there’s also been talk of possibly moving the USPS under the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The choice of Steiner was first reported by The Washington Post.
fortune.com
David Steiner is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation’s 76th postmaster general.
The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes
www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/business/first-driverless-semis-started-regular-routes?Date=20250501&Profi…
By Alexandra Skores, CNN
Updated 8:41 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2025
Washington, DCCNN —
Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.
On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed “Aurora Driver.”Aurora’s new commercial service will no longer have safety drivers.
Driverless rides on Uber now challenging Elon Musk’s Tesla in its backyard
“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly, said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora, in a release on Thursday. “Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads.”
The trucks are equipped with computers and sensors that can see the length of over four football fields. In four years of practice hauls the trucks’ technology has delivered over 10,000 customer loads across 3 million miles with human supervision. As of Thursday, the company’s self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck.
Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.
One of Aurora's trucks on the road.
Self-driving technology continued to garner attention after over a decade of hype, especially from auto companies like Tesla, GM and others that have poured billions into the tech. Companies in the market of autonomous trucking or driving, tend to use states like Texas and California as their testing grounds for the technology.
California-based Gatik does short-haul deliveries for Fortune 500 retailers like Walmart. Another California tech firm, Kodiak Robotics, delivers freight daily for customers across the South but with safety drivers. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, had an autonomous trucking arm but dismantled it in 2023 to focus on its self-driving ride-hailing services.
However, consumers and transportation officials have raised alarms on the safety record of autonomous vehicles. Aurora released its own safety report this year detailing how its technology works.
Unions that represent truck drivers are usually opposed to the driverless technology because of the threat of job loss and concerns over safety.
Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rejected a petition from autonomous driving companies Waymo and Aurora seeking to replace traditional warning devices used when a truck broke down with cab-mounted beacons. The Transport Workers Union argued the petition would hinder safety.
The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes | CNN Business
www.cnn.com
Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.
NJ Transit and IBT BLET train engineers union say strike is imminent as two sides bicker over wages
newjerseymonitor.com/2025/05/06/nj-transit-and-train-engineers-union-say-strike-is-imminent-as-tw…
BY: SOPHIE NIETO-MUNOZ – MAY 6, 2025 5:43 PM
An NJ Transit train pulls into Newark Penn Station on May 6, 2025. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
With 10 days to go before NJ Transit train engineers potentially walk off the job, the CEO of the state’s transit agency again traded barbs with the engineers union, and both sides are predicting that a strike will begin next week.
Appearing at Newark Penn Station on Tuesday, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the latest offer from the union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, would give the average engineer a $90,000 salary hike, to $225,000. A union spokesman fired back by saying its offer differed from NJ Transit’s demands by only 2 percent, and he called Kolluri’s criticism of the union “fiction.”
When NJ Transit averted its last potential strike in 2016, the two sides did not agree to a new contract until the day before a planned walkout. But Kolluri said the union’s latest offer, which he said would give engineers a larger raise than they would have received under the union’s previous proposal, does not give him hope that a deal will emerge before the deadline, 11:59 p.m. on May 15.
“I think it is a clear signal that they intend on striking and not seeking a solution,” he said.
Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, also predicted a work stoppage, but pinned the blame on NJ Transit rejecting the union’s latest offer.
“This sets the stage for an expected lockout of locomotive engineers by NJ Transit,” Haas said.
NJ Transit and its roughly 420 train engineers have been feuding over a new contract since 2020, and federal rules over railroad strikes have delayed any work stoppage.
The union has said big salary hikes are needed to prevent NJ Transit from losing engineers to higher-paying jobs for New York-based railroads.
Kolluri said the average NJ Transit engineer earns an annual pay of $135,00. A tentative contract agreed to in March would have raised that to $172,000, but union members overwhelmingly rejected it. Kolluri said Tuesday that the union’s suggested salary hike to $225,000 came after it had suggested a raise to $190,000.
“I will never leave the bargaining table. I’ll always meet them, but they have to understand that in a negotiation you don’t go from trying to meet somebody halfway to even worse than they were before they started the negotiation,” Kolluri said. “If that is their tactic, I’m not sure if they understand how to negotiate.”
Haas said the union remains willing to negotiate for a fair agreement.
“Despite the BLET presenting a new proposal, that included new concessions to NJT, wage increases that differ from NJT’s demands by only two percent, and an additional three years to provide stability through June of 2030, NJT management rejected the offer and declined to continue bargaining,” he said in a statement.
The union has argued that Kolluri’s salary statistics are skewed by overtime pay. Kolluri scoffed at the union’s claim that they offered concessions, saying one of them was that if an engineer trainee quit within a year, they’d have to pay back $9,300 to NJ Transit.
The strike threatens to strand many of the nearly 200,000 commuters who use NJ Transit trains to get to and from work daily. The agency has said it is prepared in the event of a strike, though it has cautioned that planned extra bus service would handle just a fraction of the number of people who use its trains every day. Last week, transit officials urged commuters to consider working from home if a strike happens.
newjerseymonitor.com
Both NJ Transit’s CEO and an official with its train engineers union predicted on Tuesday that a strike will begin next week as the two sides bicker over wages.
THE WAR ON THE VA! Workers, Veterans, Community Speak Out at SF VA Hospital Against Cuts & Privatization
youtu.be/72uJUfTHIhk
VA workers and veterans are growing increasingly angry about the continued assault on the VA by the Trump Musk government. Participants said there are more proposed cuts of another 80,000 workers. They and also community supporters spoke out at a weekly rally on Wednesday at the San Francisco Veterans hospital. They also reported there will be a national march and rally of Veterans on June 6, 2025 in Washington DC.
Additional Media:
STOP The Layoffs! Fed Workers Rally Against Musk & Trump & Speak Out At Tesla SF
youtu.be/YQodycfTXjk
Tesla Fremont Auto Worker Quits In Protest Of Racist & Fascist Musk & Trump
youtu.be/__SK3Sz2f1U
Hundreds Protest Fascist Musk At Berkeley Tesla Dealership-Time To Fight Back
youtu.be/t2A7BHTnYuU
Tesla Fremont MLK Rally Protesting Elon's Racism, Union Busting &Supporting Swedish Tesla Mechanics
youtu.be/bPkRwH2Amb0
Musk, Sign A Contract Or Get Out! Nordic Workers To Elon Musk On Tesla Swedish Mechanics Strike
youtu.be/UKwj4k0j7P0
Swedish Dockers Blockade Tesla Cars In Solidarity With Striking Tesla Mechanics-No Union Busting
youtu.be/6BQ-HN0eu_4
Elon Musk Union Busting & Swedish Tesla Mechanics Fighting For A Contract
youtu.be/U-A46C55LWQ
Musk's Tesla Plantation With Nooses & Lynching
www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/02/10/noose-drawing-lynching-reference-left-up-for-months-at-teslas-fre…
Musk's Criminal Workers Comp Fraud Scam
www.revealnews.org/article/how-tesla-and-its-doctor-made-sure-injured-employees-didnt-get-workers… Musk Twitter Moderation?
www.theverge.com/2022/5/16/23076428/buffalo-shooting-video-elon-musk-twitter-content-moderation
I Was Illegally Fired By Elon Musk For Trying to Unionize Tesla
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt0aCuN1BFc&t=14s
JAIL Tesla Billionaire Elon Musk & Defend Health & Safety: Workers Speak Out On At Tesla
youtu.be/GBB5y5Q6cZI Musk's Systemic Racist Discrimination www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-02-11/la-fi-tesla-race-discrimination-lawsuit
Silencing Black Twitter
www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-25/elon-musk-buying-twitter-will-silence-black-twitter
Musk Above The Law-Tesla Stayed Open During Covid Shelter In Place Order
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/13/tesla-alameda-reopen-plant/
Some Tesla factory employees say they’re being coerced and pressured to return to work by Elon Musk
www.cnbc.com/2020/05/13/some-tesla-factory-employees-say-theyre-being-pressured-to-return-to-work…
A user’s guide to Tesla’s worker safety problems www.revealnews.org/blog/a-users-guide-to-teslas-worker-safety-problems/
Tesla to continue production at Fremont plant for days after shelter in place rule
www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-Tesla-s-Fremont-factory-car-production-15143877.php
Workers Comp Fraud: Tesla reportedly failed to tell regulators about dozens of factory injuries, then claimed without evidence that regulators praised its record-keeping
www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incomplete-records-osha-california-2020-3
Elon Musk's Workers Comp Fraud: How Crooked Tesla and its corrupt doctor made sure injured employees didn’t get workers’ comp
www.revealnews.org/article/how-tesla-and-its-doctor-made-sure-injured-employees-didnt-get-workers…
Group gathers to protest Tesla employees going back to work
www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/group-gathers-to-protest-tesla-employees-going-back-to-work/
Frustrated protesters outside Fremont Tesla factory want to see CEO Musk put behind bars
www.ktvu.com/news/frustrated-protesters-outside-fremont-tesla-factory-want-to-see-ceo-musk-put-be…
Workers Want Elon Musk in Jail After He Announces Tesla Restarting Operations Illegally but Gov Newsom Says Criminal Musk Can Open Without Proper Health and Safety Protection
www.news18.com/news/buzz/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-restart-operations-willing-to-be-arrested-for-…
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
Defending The VA Against Layoffs & Cutbacks NFFE Local 1 President Mark Smith
youtu.be/0yRQDPvloAQ
The cutbacks and layoffs at the Veterans administration are already effecting the patients and workers. The
new Trump Musk proposal is to cut an additional 80,000 workers according to NFFE Local 1 president Mark
Smith. He was attending a rally of workers and community members at San Francisco Veterans Hospital who
are demanding that there be no cutbacks at the VA.
This action took place on 5/7/25 and they have weekly rallies on Wednesday at 12:00 noon.
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
SEIU 1199 Health care union president ousted in upset election
George Gresham, the longtime leader of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, was defeated by a team of his former lieutenants.
www.politico.com/news/2025/05/05/health-care-union-president-ousted-in-upset-election-00325361
Union 1199 SEIU President George Gresham (2nd R) speaks.
George Gresham has served as president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East since 2007. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By MAYA KAUFMAN
05/05/2025 02:14 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Longtime labor leader George Gresham was toppled by his former lieutenants in a contentious race to lead the nation’s largest health care union.
Gresham, who became president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East in 2007, lost his reelection bid by a resounding margin to challenger Yvonne Armstrong, who leads the union’s long-term care division, according to data reviewed by POLITICO.
Gresham’s defeat ushers in a new chapter for the union, which represents 450,000 health care workers across five East Coast states and was once a powerhouse in New York politics.
It is very rare for union heads to lose internal elections in New York, a state in which labor holds outsize power in local politics. 1199SEIU helped elevate Bill de Blasio to the mayoralty when he was lagging in the polls 12 years ago, and it recently endorsed Andrew Cuomo for mayor.
Armstrong and her second-in-command, Veronica Turner-Biggs, will take the reins as the organized labor movement and the health care industry contend with the Trump administration’s attacks on collective bargaining rights and Congressional Republicans’ expected Medicaid cuts.
Armstrong and Turner-Biggs, who ran as the Members First Unity Slate, will also preside over an internal reckoning. The union is conducting an independent review of Gresham’s spending, after a nine-month POLITICO investigation revealed that he had long used members’ dues money to benefit himself, his family and political allies. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce subsequently asked the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate.
“Because of your courage—your heart, your hustle, your belief—we now have the chance to lead our union into a new chapter: one rooted in transparency, unity, and real member power,” the Members First Unity slate wrote in an Instagram post announcing the outcome.
In a Facebook post published early Sunday by Gresham’s 1 Union 1 Future slate, he congratulated the victorious candidates and recalled his path from rank-and-file member in housekeeping at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to union president.
“No matter who you voted for, at the end of the day we are all part of our precious 1199 family, and I know that we share the same deep love for our union and the labor movement,” Gresham wrote in the statement. “It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your President for the past 17 years.”
“Our solidarity as 1199 members is today more important than ever,” he added. “We have major work cut out for us in the coming weeks and months to fight back against federal cuts to Medicaid, to negotiate the strongest contracts, and to defend the most vulnerable in our communities.”
The union said early Sunday that official results from the election, which was conducted under the supervision of American Arbitration Association, will be posted shortly.
Gresham’s term as president ends in June.
Health care union president ousted in upset election
www.politico.com
George Gresham, the longtime leader of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, was defeated by a team of his former lieutenants.
Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story – "I Don’t Know What I’ve Been Exposed To”
www.gpb.org/news/2025/05/05/manufacturing-danger-the-biolab-story-i-dont-know-what-ive-been-exposed
May 5, 2025 12:00 AM
By: Pamela Kirkland
In Episode 5 of Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story, residents of Rockdale County share disturbing health symptoms they say began after the BioLab chemical fire — from high blood pressure to respiratory issues and chronic fatigue. We investigate what’s behind these symptoms, speaking with medical experts and community leaders launching a long-term health study.
Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story Logo.png
Credit: GPB
In Episode 5, host Pamela Kirkland confronts the question that has haunted Rockdale County since the BioLab fire: What is happening to residents’ health? We hear directly from people like Hannah, Cheryl, and others whose lives were upended after exposure to a mysterious chemical plume, reporting symptoms like respiratory issues, brain fog, skin irritation, and dangerously high blood pressure.
Medical toxicologist Dr. Ziad Kazzi helps unpack the science behind chemical exposure, explaining how certain symptoms align with what we know about chlorine and bromine, but also where the science hits a wall. And for symptoms like hypertension, he points to something harder to quantify: stress and trauma.
The episode also introduces a new effort to find answers: a community-led health study by Community Action Now! and Morehouse School of Medicine, aimed at tracking long-term health and social impacts.
As questions linger, this episode underscores the uncertainty residents face and the need for accountability, transparency, and ongoing research.
Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story – "I Don’t Know What I’ve Been Exposed To"
www.gpb.org
In Episode 5 of Manufacturing Danger: The BioLab Story, residents of Rockdale County share disturbing health symptoms they say began after the BioLab chemical fire — from high blood pressure to resp…
Rally for Incarcerated SEIU 2015 Member Cliona Ward
www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/05/05/18876179.php?show_comments=1#18876182
Date:
Wednesday, May 07, 2025
Time: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM
Event Type:
Press Conference
Organizer/Author:
via SEIU 2015
Location Details:
701 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz
Join us for a press conference and rally in support of SEIU 2015 member Cliona Ward, Santa Cruz permanent resident and IHSS Worker.
Cliona was detained by ICE and is being held in a facility in Tacoma, Washington. Cliona should be home with her family and taking care of her son who has a chronic illness.
Join us to show Cliona she is not alone and her union family and community have her back.
SEIU 521 Live Oak green card holder facing several months in ICE detention, sister says
By PK Hattis | pkhattis [at] santacruzsentinel.com | Santa Cruz Sentinel
PUBLISHED: April 29, 2025 at 4:20 PM PDT
SANTA CRUZ — An Irish-born Live Oak resident and valid green card holder remains in legal limbo more than a week after she was detained by federal immigration authorities after a trip abroad.
Family of Cliona Ward, 54, told the Sentinel that the Santa Cruz County resident of more than three decades is yet to be fully processed in the immigration courts system and, therefore, is yet to be assigned a hearing date so she can plead her case before a federal judge. Ward and her family previously believed she’d have a hearing as soon as May 7, but that all changed after getting clarity from recently retained legal counsel.
“She could be looking at being in there for months,” Ward’s sister, Orla Holladay, said Monday. “When I have been able to speak to her, she’s terrified.”
Ward is currently being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Tacoma, Washington, according to the agency’s online locator. She was moved there April 24 after being held for four days prior to that at San Francisco International Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Holladay said communication with her sister has been challenging, but when they have been able to speak over the phone, Ward described harsh and uncomfortable living conditions. Ward reported that the water was undrinkable and that the food tasted awful and that she was afraid to eat it. She also told her sister that she’s been confined with several other women that are also navigating the detention process and were similarly panicked.
“She said most of them are non-English speakers, but that there are a lot of tears and a lot of hugs,” said Holladay, adding that her sister was able to see some in-person visitors recently from the Irish Consulate.
Federal immigration officials first stopped Ward in late March as she was returning to Santa Cruz after escorting her stepmother to see her dying father in Ireland. Holladay said the officials latched onto two 20-year-old drug possession charges that Ward, who previously struggled with addiction issues but is now 20 years sober, was able to expunge and vacate from her record. However, the record was cleared by a state judge and now the immigration officials are requiring that a federal judge take a look, according to Holladay.
“She went through an extensive rehabilitation with Santa Cruz County to get all of these things put behind her and vacated,” said Holladay. “She had some struggles with addiction, and she got picked up with drugs that were not for an intent to sell, and she had those all vacated.”
Now, according to a GoFundMe page that Holladay set up to bring awareness to her sister’s situation and raise money for legal fees, Ward is facing threats of potential deportation by federal immigration authorities.
“Despite having fully complied with the law, making reparations, maintaining a clean record ever since, working full-time, paying taxes and raising a family — including caring for her chronically ill son — Cliona was instead taken into custody at what was supposed to be a routine meeting,” Holladay wrote on the public page.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to the Sentinel’s request for comment by print time Tuesday.
News of Ward’s case has attracted attention across the globe and from a number of public officials at local, state and federal levels. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta fiercely defended Ward in a statement last week and called her detention “unfathomable and unacceptable.”
Panetta posted on his social media page Tuesday that Ward’s detainment and potential deportation based on 20-year-old charges is “misguided and unacceptable,” adding that, “We are working with her legal team, and I continue to push for her release and due process.”
Jenny Ballesteros is a lead staff attorney and equal justice work fellow with the Santa Cruz County Immigration Project. Though she is not privy to the specifics of Ward’s case, Ballesteros told the Sentinel that as it relates to immigration issues in general, state expungements of criminal records are often not enough to satisfy federal requirements.
“It’s actually something we see (with) a lot of our clients,” said Ballesteros. “A lot of people end up getting expungements thinking they’re good, but in reality they got the wrong type of relief.”
Instead, she added, something known as “post-conviction relief” must be granted to prevent immigration status impacts. A defendant might seek this kind of relief, Ballesteros explained, if they were not adequately notified by a judge at the time of their conviction about the consequences the ruling could have on their immigration status in the future.
“The federal judge I’m assuming, yes, they do want to see what the expungements were for and if they qualify to get rid of those convictions for immigration purposes,” said Ballesteros. “If (the convictions) are for drug possession, most likely they had to get the post-conviction relief, not just a simple state expungement.”
Ward was originally detained March 19-21 in Seattle and, upon her release, was told to report back to customs in San Francisco with requested paperwork about her past. But upon arriving, she was detained again and has remained in custody ever since. Ward first moved to the U.S. when she was 12 years old and came to the county at 18 years old to attend UC Santa Cruz.
The Sentinel confirmed that Ward has retained representation in Washington with Seattle-based Global Justice Law Group PLLC. But her attorney said she is still in the investigation stage at this point and is awaiting requested documents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As of Tuesday, her lawyer was not yet ready to share information with the press, including requested documentation of Ward’s legal history.
In the meantime, Holladay has continued to post almost daily updates about her sister’s status on the GoFundMe page she created.
“Cliona is a taxpayer, she is a legal resident of this country who had just updated her green card,” said Holladay. “She is a valuable member of the community.”