In today’s news and commentary, the Philadelphia City Council passes legislation strengthening protections for immigrant workers and increasing financial penalties for employers who break the City’s law; thousands of federal worker layoffs at the Department of Interior are expected imminently; and the University of Oregon Student Workers union ends its 10-day strike – the first strike at the University in over 11 years – after reaching a tentative agreement.  

On Thursday, the Philadelphia City Council unanimously voted to pass the “Protect Our Workers, Enforce Rights” (POWER) Act. Where previously employers charged with violating worker rights paid only the City financial penalties, the POWER Act requires employers to pay additional monetary compensation directly to employees harmed by workplace retaliation. The Act also establishes a “Bad Actors Database” that publicly lists employers with three or more violations of any Philadelphia Worker Protection Ordinance, authorizes the City’s Department of Labor to submit statements of interest to the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of workers seeking to defer an immigration enforcement action, and grants the City’s Department of Licenses and Inspections the authority to suspend or revoke the business license of any employer in violation of the Act who fails to comply with the ordered remedy. 

Within ten days, the Department of Interior is expected to issue reduction-in-force notices to 1,500 workers at the National Park Service, 1,000 employees at the U.S. Geological Survey, and 100 to 150 workers at the Bureau of Reclamation. The layoffs are expected imminently even as a coalition of unions, nonprofits, and local governments seek to stop the Trump administration’s mass layoffs within the federal workforce in today’s hearing of American Federation Of Government Employees, AFL-CIO et al v. Trump et al before Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

Student workers at the University of Oregon return to work today, ending a 10-day strike, after signing a tentative agreement with the University. Following 10 months of bargaining, the University of Oregon Student Workers union (UOSW-UAW Local 8121) declared an impasse. 94.5% of student workers voted to authorize a strike that began on April 28 to fight for higher wages, reformed grievance procedures for discrimination and harassment, and an improved pay schedule. If ratified by the general membership, the agreement would be the nation’s first union contract for a wall-to-wall undergraduate student worker unit at a public university.