Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Judge temporarily blocks U.S. efforts to deport Guatemalan children; Protests, parades: Dozens of Labor Day events planned in CA; Labor Day events across West Virginia honor working people; Labor, immigrant advocates rally at WA detention center; New PA labor report reveals slower economy for workers. 

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service daily newscast for Labor Day, September the 1st, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

With children already loaded onto planes, a federal judge Sunday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of Guatemalan kids and demanded assurances they would remain in the shelters until a more permanent ruling.

That for the New York Times.

They report the order brought to a close for now, and of the last bit of flurry of court action in the administration's mass deportation drive.

Lawyers for the children said they would face peril if they were sent to Guatemala and that doing so would deny them due process.

They also argued the government had ignored special protections for minors who crossed the border alone.

Meantime, folks all across the nation have a chance to participate in events recognizing working people this Labor Day.

We report first to West Virginia and then head to California.

Josh Sword with the West Virginia AFL-CIO says Labor Day offers a chance to reflect on how organized labor has improved working conditions and wages for millions of Americans.

It's a great opportunity for families to get together and union members and their families to get together with brothers and sisters in the labor movement and celebrate that accomplishment.

A recently released Gallup poll finds 68 percent of Americans say they approve of labor unions.

The fifth consecutive year, more than half of the country have supported organized labor.

That level of support hasn't been reached since the early 1960s.

Around 15 percent of adults say they live in a household where at least one resident is a labor union member.

This is Nadia Ramlagan for West Virginia News Service.

And big crowds expected at more than 100 Labor Day events across California today, from picnics to large scale protests.

One of the biggest is the 46th annual Los Angeles Long Beach Harbor Labor Coalition parade marching for better conditions for workers and against the threat of unregulated artificial intelligence.

Many other events are organized by the grassroots group 50 51 which stands for 50 protests 50 states one movement.

The group's spokesman LA area activist Hunter Dunn says the workers over billionaires campaign is making five requests of the federal government.

Those five demands are to stop the billionaire takeover, corrupting our government, to protect and defend Medicaid, Social Security and other programs for working people, to fully fund schools, healthcare and housing for all, to stop the attacks on immigrants and to invest in people, not wars.

Protests will take place up and down the state from tiny Ukiah to big cities like Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

Many of the events are sponsored by local unions or nonprofits like Indivisible and 5051.

Specific event details are online at mobilize.us.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

This is Public News Service.

In honor of Labor Day, a coalition of labor and immigrant rights advocates in Oregon and Washington have organized a caravan that will travel to a rally at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

The caravan started in Southern California and left from Portland this morning.

Jessica Rojas with the International Migrants Alliance says it is important this Labor Day to show support for working migrants who are being threatened with deportation by the Trump administration.

In our experience, those detained are primarily migrant workers who oftentimes are the ones that are putting the food on our tables, that are helping us with our groceries, that are taking care of our loved ones in hospitals.

The caravan is part of over 1000 events happening across the country today to reject what organizers say is a billionaire takeover of government.

I'm Isabel Charlay.

And just out for Labor Day, a new report finds job growth was higher in Pennsylvania than the nation overall for the first half of the year, but shows signs of slowing down.

The state of working Pennsylvania report analyzes the challenges and opportunities for the workforce.

Report co-author Claire Kovac with Keystone Research Center warned shifting federal policies are creating tougher conditions for workers.

She notes from mid 2023 through late 2024, unemployment stayed at 3.6 or 3.7 percent lower than any pre pandemic month in more than 50 years.

But she says unemployment has begun to creep up in July.

It was up to 4 percent.

But it's still pretty low unemployment rate.

But we also see that Pennsylvania's hiring and quit rates are lower than they were last year.

So these figures together indicate there's more slack in the labor market and ultimately fewer people are switching jobs and that's often because outside opportunities aren't as plentiful as they were before.

The report recommends increasing Pennsylvania's minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Kovacs says nearly a million Pennsylvanians are affected by the state's lower minimum wage.

Danielle Smith reporting.

Finally you can tell we take Labor Day seriously with one more report now from Colorado.

CEOs at the largest 100 low-wage corporations listed in the S&P 500, businesses such as Home Depot, Starbucks, Walmart, and others earn 632 times more than their lowest paid workers on average.

Sarah Anderson with the Institute for Policy Studies is the report's lead author.

She says CEO pay has soared since 2019, while worker pay has lagged behind US inflation.

At a time when many American workers are struggling with high costs for things like groceries and housing, what we found is that the nation's 100 largest low-wage employers are focused on making their overpaid CEOs even richer.

Average CEO compensation at low-wage companies was over $17 million in 2024.

The average median pay for workers was less than $36,000.

I'm Eric Galatas.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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