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Today we take a closer look at how the city of Boston is preparing for a potential National Guard deployment — similar to what we’ve seen recently in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. But first: workers at Boston’s local Environmental Protection Agency office received an email last week warning them against conducting union business — not only during work hours, but also on their personal time, GBH’s Craig LeMoult reports. “The EPA Ethics Office advises caution when performing union activities on non-duty time,” the email read. “Prior approval from an ethics official of this activity is required, and there are serious concerns under the representational conflict of interests statute.”

EPA workers in the union say it was a shock: “The EPA has had unions my full career. So more than 20 years, there’s been a union in the workplace,” EPA worker and union leader Lilly Simmons told LeMoult. “Not recognizing this contract and the existence of the bargaining unit is highly unusual, likely illegal.”

Rep. Jim McGovern of Worcester said he’d like Congress to vote on a bill that would undo an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that ended collective bargaining agreements for some federal employees. 

“The alternative is just to roll over and to allow them to nullify these union contracts and protections,” he said. “And this is so wrong. This goes against, quite frankly, bipartisan tradition of respecting collective bargaining in the federal government. And Trump doesn’t like it. He wants more control.”

Four Things to Know

1. It’s been a year since rideshare drivers got a new minimum base wage of $32 per hour while transporting passengers, part of a legal settlement between the state and companies including Uber and Lyft.

So what’s changed for drivers? One said he now receives fewer tips. And Ed Booth, who lives in Foxborough, said he quit the apps in January: “After the settlement, there was a mass influx of drivers, and trying to find rides was a lot more difficult. You were competing against a lot more drivers. The surge pricing just basically disappeared with so many drivers out there,” he said.

2. How many nursing home beds — and health care workers to care for the people in them — does Massachusetts need? Pete Tiernan, a former chief financial officer for the state’s Executive Office of Elder Affairs (since renamed the Executive Office of Aging & Independence) says he believes a task force charged with looking at the issue has done the math based on the wrong numbers. 

The task force estimated that, given current projections, the state could run out of nursing home beds by 2034. But Tiernan said he believes that given the rate at which the state’s population of people older than 80 is growing, we may run out of beds by 2029 instead. “My call to action is that they should basically rescind the report, engage with an actuary or statistician and revise their projections,” he said.

3. On the other end of the caregiving spectrum lies a similar problem: new data from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care shows about 70 percent of infants in Massachusetts don’t have access to licensed childcare centers. 

“We understand that families across the Commonwealth are challenged with accessing and affording child care,” said Massachusetts’ Department of Early Education and Care Commissioner Amy Kershaw. “We are making investments that are increasing access and quality in a way that’s leading the country — while at the same time, recognizing the challenges that many, many families are facing.”

4. More than 350,000 people in Massachusetts will be getting rebates from their health insurance companies next month — $75.6 million in total, according to the State House News Service. The payments will come to people whose health insurers failed to spend at least 88% of premiums on care for individuals and small groups.

You might be eligible for a rebate if your coverage came from an individual or small employer plan offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts HMO Blue Inc., Fallon Community Health Plan Inc., Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc., Mass General Brigham Health Plan Inc. or UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company.

Boston’s mayor bracing for potential National Guard deployment

As National Guard troops continue to patrol Washington, D.C. under President Donald Trump’s orders, and as the president threatens to deploy the guard in Chicago, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the city is watching closely.

“In this moment, however we got here, every mayor of every major city is having to take preparations for the National Guard coming in against their will,” Wu told GBH’s Boston Public Radio yesterday. 

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Boston and 31 other cities, states and counties demanding that they comply with unspecified immigration enforcement demands. Wu held a press conference in which she said the Trump administration is “attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.” Since then, the rhetoric has escalated, with Bondi warning that cities and states failing to comply with the administration could face military intervention, “Just like we did during the LA riots and just like we’re doing here in Washington, D.C.”

It’s worth noting that at the heart of this is a Boston ordinance stating that local police officers can only cooperate with federal immigration agents in cases where a crime has been committed.

For now, Wu said, the city is preparing for what might happen next by reviewing court cases and getting in touch with community members.

“This federal administration is willing to go beyond the bounds of constitutional authority and federal law to try to activate National Guards even when local communities aren’t asking for it and don’t want it,” Wu said.

Hear her full interview here. 

Dig deeper: 

-'Stop attacking our cities’: Boston mayor responds to Trump administration on sanctuary cities

-Adam Reilly: The escalating standoff between Mayor Wu and the Trump administration