With help from Ian Kullgren and Andrew Hanna

DACA IN SPENDING BILL?: Top Republican and Democratic lawmakers will meet with White House officials on Capitol Hill today to discuss a deal to avoid a government shutdown later this month. Will DACA be part of the conversation? Perhaps not in a substantial way, according to POLITICO's Sarah Ferris and Jennifer Scholtes.

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“Republicans are eager to separate a debate on Dreamers from the latest budget fight, with White House officials saying Tuesday that the meeting’s focus will be on raising stiff budget caps for defense and domestic programs over the next two years — not on immigration,” the pair report. “A senior congressional aide also said the meeting was called by the speaker’s office, with the topic specifically focused on trying to reach a budget caps deal.”

Democrats could force Republicans to grapple with DACA (since Republicans will need Democratic support to pass any spending bill). But it’s not clear they will. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to her Democratic colleagues Tuesday that said leadership is “firmly committed” to passage of the Dream Act, H.R. 3440 (115), but she didn’t tie Dreamers to the spending bill.

Congressional leaders may instead look to a bipartisan Senate working group tackling DACA, POLITICO reports. The group, which includes Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), aims to combine protections for so-called “Dreamers” with border security measures and limits on legal immigration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to bring a stand-alone immigration bill to the floor by the end of January if the Senate negotiators and the White House reach an agreement.

If Democrats assent to a spending deal without DACA, that will disappoint pro-Dreamer groups, who view must-pass legislation as their best chance to secure legal protections. Adrian Reyna, membership director at the immigrant youth-led United We Dream, blasted Democrats for backing a stopgap spending bill passed in late December. “We build all this momentum to push the Republicans to make this an issue on the national stage, and then Democrats [say], ‘Oh sorry, we don’t have enough leverage,” Reyna told Morning Shift. “They shouldn’t be promising things to us if they’re not going to fulfill [them].”

By one calculation, Dreamers are already losing their DACA protection at a rate of 851 each week (based on the 22,000 recipients who didn’t renew by the administration’s October deadline). DHS says it isn’t targeting DREAMers for deportation, but a September White House talking points memo said DREAMers should “use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States — including proactively seeking travel documentation — or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible.”

Immigrant youth will rally today outside the California office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), with actors Alyssa Milano, Bradley Whitford, and America Ferrera in tow to urge Democrats to vote against any spending measure that lacks protections for Dreamers. Feinstein opposed the stopgap bill last month under pressure from immigration activists. The rally and press conference take place at 7 p.m. (4 p.m. PT). Read more from POLITICO’s Ferris and Scholtes here.

GOOD MORNING! It's Wednesday, Jan. 3, and this is Morning Shift, POLITICO's daily tipsheet on employment and immigration policy. Send tips, exclusives and suggestions to thesson@politico.com, ikullgren@politico.com, ahanna@politico.com and tnoah@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @tedhesson, @AndrewBHanna, @IanKullgren and @TimothyNoah1.

L.A. TIMES GUILD BULLISH ON UNION: The Los Angeles Times Guild says it is “extremely confident” it will win a union vote Thursday. The vote comes after a majority of the newsroom signed union cards last year authorizing NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America to represent them. The entire newsroom will participate in the NLRB-directed vote, including editors. “They’re in the same boat we are,” said Paul Pringle, an investigative reporter and organizer. “They’re increasingly overworked, they haven’t had regular raises in memory.”

Advocates of unionization say the union will give reporters and editors a greater say in wages and workplace standards. The guild pledged to represent employees on employee-management committees to be established after the vote. “It’s much more than the economics of a workplace,” Pringle said. “If we believe management or a manager is not behaving in the best interests of the newspaper… we would have a legally protected voice in addressing that.” But the newsroom's senior management warned employees in an email today that a union"will not and cannot address our industry's extremely difficult business conditions."

Los Angeles Times CEO and Publisher Ross Levinsohn told Morning Shift in a written statement that the vote won’t change the paper’s mission. “Whether our newsroom unionizes or not, we will remain committed to ensuring the LA Times is a leading source for news and information across all media touchpoints,” he said.

MINING DEATHS RISE IN 2017: The number of coal mining deaths ticked up in 2017 after falling to a record low in 2016, John Raby writes in the Associated Press. Year-end totals from MSHA show 15 coal miners were killed in 2017, compared to eight the previous year. Of those killed, eight occurred in West Virginia, Raby writes. “Kentucky had two deaths, and there were one each in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.”

“The number of coal mining fatalities was under 20 for the fourth straight year after reaching exactly 20 in 2011, 2012 and 2013,” the AP reports. “By comparison, in 1966, the mining industry counted 233 deaths. A century ago there were 2,226.” The long-term decline reflects increased safety measures; it also reflects shrinking employment in the coal industry. More here.

NEW LEAVE LAWS: New York became the fourth state on Monday to offer paid family leave, NPR reports. When it phases in fully in 2021, the law will require employers to provide 12 weeks’ paid leave at 67 percent of the employee’s salary (providing that doesn’t exceed 67 percent of the state’s average weekly wage). In addition to caring for new children, employees can use the benefit to tend to sick relatives or care for their family if a relative in the military is deployed.

Another paid sick leave law took effect Monday in Washington state, and yet another will take effect in Rhode Island in July, bringing to eight the number of states offering paid sick leave. In Nevada, a new law requires employers to give 160 hours’ leave per year to employees who are domestic abuse victims or who have an abuse victim in the family who needs tending. More here.

NIELSEN AT THE BORDER: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Tuesday that the Trump administration would consider legislation that includes a pathway to citizenship for DACA enrollees, but stressed that no final decision has been made. Nielsen spoke with the Associated Press’ Elliot Spagat during a visit to the San Diego area, where she toured prototypes of the border wall. Asked whether Trump would support citizenship, Nielsen said she thinks the president is “open to hearing about the different possibilities” but that she wasn’t aware of any decision from the White House. The secretary said it remains to be seen what kind of legislation Congress will produce, but “the idea would be that you move away from a temporary status.”

Still, Nielsen told the AP the border wall was the top priority. In addition, she said the administration wants to end “loopholes” related to asylum claims and mentioned jurisdictions that limited cooperation with immigration enforcement. DHS also faces a Monday deadline to decide whether to renew temporary protected status for roughly 263,000 Salvadorans covered under the humanitarian program. “Nielsen said she spoke with El Salvador’s top diplomats about how their return would be carried out and said others have gone home to start small businesses,” Spagat reports. “She expressed wariness of temporary extensions.” More here.

CWA CRIES FOUL AFTER AT&T FIRINGS: “The union Communications Workers of America AFL-CIO asked a Texas federal court Saturday to intervene in AT&T's planned termination of 713 employees, alleging the move violates the collective bargaining agreement between the parties,” Michelle Casady writes in Law360. “The union argues in the complaint that the reduction of the 713 employees, ‘at a time the company's market is growing and earnings are booming, is unprecedented in character and scope in the history of the collective bargaining relationship between the union and the company.’” More here.

CALIFORNIA WORKERS CLAIM IMMIGRATION RETALIATION: The number of California employees who said they were subjected to immigration-related threats skyrocketed in the past year, Andrew Khouri writes in the Los Angeles Times, citing data from the state’s labor commissioner's office. The outlet reports that 94 retaliation complaints tied to immigration were filed through Dec. 22 of last year. That’s a 370 percent increase over all of 2016, when only 20 such complaints were filed. In 2015, the total was just seven. More here.

HARASSMENT UPDATES:

Former publisher admits spanking: H. Brandt Ayers, the former publisher and current chairman of Alabama’s Anniston Star, admitted that in the early 1970s he spanked one female reporter, and “seemed to admit” he spanked another woman one or two years later, reports the Star’s Tim Lockette. “Ayers said he went to the home of Wendy Sigal, a reporter who worked at the newspaper in 1973 and 1974, and spanked her — on the advice of a doctor,” reports Lockette. Ayers didn’t recall the doctor’s name. Sigal died in 2006.

The second reporter, Veronica Pike Kennedy, “last month said that in the 1970s, Ayers delivered a spanking to her, against her will, in the Star’s newsroom. Kennedy was in her early 20s in 1975, when the attack is alleged to have happened; Ayers turned 40 in the same year. Mike Stamler, a former Star reporter, said he witnessed the attack.” Another two women recounted similar stories, according to the Star. Asked whether he would resign, Ayers said, “Of course not. I am the third generation of a family that has served honorably, even courageously, in the public interest.” More here.

Vice suspends senior execs: “Vice Media placed its president, Andrew Creighton, and its chief digital officer, Mike Germano, on leave after sexual harassment allegations were reported against them in a New York Times investigation that detailed the treatment of women at the company,” Emily Steel reports in the New York Times. “Vice employees learned of the moves in a memo sent to the staff on Tuesday morning.”

“Sarah Broderick, Vice’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said in the memo that a special committee of the company’s board was ‘reviewing the facts’ related to a $135,000 settlement Mr. Creighton had reached in 2016 with a former employee, who claimed that she was fired after she rejected an intimate relationship with him, according to people briefed on the matter and documents viewed by the Times.”

“Vice also said that Mr. Germano would remain out of the office pending investigations by the company’s human resources department and an outside investigator into claims against him,” the Times reports. “Among the allegations against Mr. Germano are that he told a former employee at a holiday party in 2012 that he had not wanted to hire her because he wanted to have sex with her; and that, in 2014, he had allegedly pulled an employee onto his lap.” More here.

Restaurant industry’s harassment problem: The restaurant industry hasn’t done much to address the possibility of harassment in its ranks, Pete Wells reports in the New York York Times. “So far there seems to be only one way to depose a serial harasser who runs a restaurant: a long investigation by reporters who have the time to gather a convincing number of corroborated accounts,” he writes. But, clearly, “checking out all 620,000 or so restaurants in the United States is going to take a while if we leave it up to journalists.”

Wells cites a tone deaf apology email that celebrity chef Mario Batali sent to fans last month. Batali announced in December that he would step away from his restaurants amid allegations of sexual misconduct, but tacked a link to a recipe for pizza dough cinnamon rolls onto the bottom of the message (he included a photo, too). Overall, restaurant owners give the impression the harassment outrage “will blow over soon enough and the party will start up again,” Wells writes. More here.

COFFEE BREAK:

—“Sheriff David Clarke temporarily blocked on Twitter after violating terms of service,” from CNN

— “Lawsuit against Indianapolis stems from worker's 'chronic body odor,’” from the Indy Star

—“Immigration judges getting new performance metrics,” from the San Diego Union-Tribune

—“Even if your new job is a bad fit, don’t quit,” from the Wall Street Journal

—“Border Patrol agent hospitalized after getting hit with grapefruit-sized rock,” from the San Diego Union-Tribune

THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT.