SEATTLE – A bill in Congress to address workplace violence for health-care and social-service workers is moving closer to a vote in the House.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration finds health-care workers were four times more likely than average private-sector workers to face violence in the workplace between 2002 and 2013. House Resolution 1309 would direct OSHA to require health-care and social-service employers to create and implement prevention programs.

Mike Yestramski – a psychiatric social worker at Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Washington – says there's an assumption that violent incidents will happen in his line of work – and workers need to be prepared.

"With the right education, with the right training, with the right procedures, you know, the majority of those can be eliminated or at least mitigated to a lower level,” says Yestramski, “provided that we put the emphasis on what we need to do to make that happen."

Yestramski says he's seen specialized training work to reduce assaults, but facilities usually lack funds and resources to implement it on a large scale.

HR 1309 passed out of the House Committee on Education and Labor this week. Opponents say the bill is moving too fast. They point out that it excludes hospitals, and could create duplicate anti-workplace-violence rules.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal – D-King County, is one of the 176 cosponsors – including six from Washington – supporting the bill. She says workplaces need interim rules to curb violence while OSHA works on its own, and adds the rules would be tailored to the needs of each facility.

In a hearing this week, she recounted stories of a woman who had her thumb bitten off at work, and Christa Butters, a nurse at Western State Hospital who was assaulted by a patient with a history of violence.

"A patient punched her from behind, knocked her down and then stomped on her head, threatening to kill her,” said Jayapal. “As a result of this horrific violence, Ms. Butters can't work. She has continuing medical needs and is receiving weekly sessions with a speech therapist, and mental health support for the trauma she experienced."

Jayapal says this assault was preventable, noting hospital management could have made different decisions based on this patient's history about where to place the person so that staff was kept safe.

Coaches in the Renton School District, just south of Seattle, are organizing with the American Federation of Teachers to fight for what they say are "fair wages" in their first union contract.

Buddy Ryan, head boys track and field coach at Hazen High School, said Renton coaches get paid much less compared with neighboring school districts, which contributes to a 45% turnover rate in coaches from year to year.

"I'm not expecting to go buy a new car off a season of coaching, but I'm not expecting to make minimum wage to be responsible for all these kids," he said. "I think the reality is, a fair wage for a fair day's work is what everybody looks for."

Renton School District has proposed a 2.5% wage increase, far below what the coaches asked for. AFT has said the district has the funds to pay coaches fairly. The district did not respond to a request for comment.

Ryan said the low pay and high turnover rate costs the district more money in training and degrades the quality of the sports programs.

"And then what's the cost to the kids that get a different coach every year? Well, you know what ends up happening? These parents get tired of it and they take their kids to private schools, or they move and transfer them to other schools," he said.

Ryan noted that sports, along with other extracurriculars such as band, are what motivate many kids to keep their grades up in order to participate. He said the district should want to keep the programs strong.

"It's just like when you're a kid at dinner," he said, "and your parents say, 'You've got to eat your vegetables or you don't get dessert.' Well, that dessert is the after-school activities."

Nevada groups concerned about affordability, clean air and health care are speaking out against the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" recently signed by President Donald Trump.

The new law extends tax cuts from 2017, funded partially by huge cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food benefits.

Dr. Joanne Leovy, steering committee chair for the Nevada Clinicians for Climate Action, noted it also ends the tax credit for electric vehicles on Sept. 30, which drives up the price of an EV by $7,500 while promoting the sales of gas-powered vehicles.

"This bill will dump an extra 2.1 billion tons of climate pollution into the atmosphere over the next decade," Leovy pointed out. "Increasing greenhouse gas emissions by about 7% over prior projections; the equivalent of adding more than 400,000 cars to the road."

The new law also cuts tax credits for rooftop solar and energy efficient home upgrades. Backers said the savings were necessary to fund other administration priorities, such as increased funding for immigration enforcement.

Yolanda Kemp, a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 4041, said she worries about job losses in the public sector.

"When states, cities, towns, and schools lose essential federal funding, they will be forced to make cuts to their budgets as well, putting all public services and jobs at risk of being cut," Kemp stressed. "And let me tell you, the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' that is supposed to help hardworking Americans is nothing more than another billionaire giveaway paid for by us."

The change to Medicaid and SNAP are not immediate but will be phased in mostly in 2027 and 2028.


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More than 1,100 caregivers at Portland's Providence St. Vincent Medical Center have voted to unionize, joining the Service Employees International Union Local 49.

Hospital staffers, including certified nursing assistants, cooks, lab assistants, pharmacy techs, environmental workers and patient representatives, will soon begin collective bargaining with management over a new work contract.

Finn McCool, senior food service attendant at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, said changes to working conditions in the hospital were a major driver to organize.

"There's a lot that makes St. Vincent a great place to work, but we've also seen just tons of changes over the years around staffing and benefits," McCool explained. "My fellow caregivers really knew that jobs were only going to get harder."

The St. Vincent caregivers will join thousands of other unionized workers at Providence hospitals in Oregon, Washington state and other parts of the country. Providence officials released a statement, recognizing the union and saying they were prepared to work with it toward a new contract.

McCool noted the company made several changes to staffing and work policies without feedback from its employees, with changes to the employees' health care benefits causing a major upheaval.

"It's been a recent change to our health care plan with Aetna switching over, and that was probably a very large reason why a lot of us decided to vote yes," McCool pointed out. "We had our own internal health care system. We changed to a different thing. Co-pays changed. Things were definitely a lot harder with increased deductibles."

McCool stressed political uncertainty, particularly in the government's health care policies, was also a significant concern.

"We're seeing a lot of changes going on with the government with cuts, especially right now," McCool observed. "What threatens us is cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Our CEO said, 'These cuts are threatening the hospital.'"