EPS offer rejected | Flight attendant pay | Boeing to hire scabs

Friday, September 5, 2025

STRIKES

► From KOIN — Union members reject district’s ‘final offer’ as Evergreen Public Schools cancels Friday classes — The union, which represents more than 1,400 specialized support staff including paraeducators, bus drivers, security officers and maintenance workers, told KOIN 6 News the district made a small amendment to increase a lump sum payment for paraeducators (years 10 to 14) from $250 to $275. However, those in the role said that’s not enough to retain the staff needed to keep students safe. “I’m voting no,” said Derek Sytsma, a Special Education Paraeducator. “I said no last week in the park before our rally, and my feelings have not changed with an increase of $25 to a one time lump sum payment. If anything, it’s a slap in the face, especially for folks that have given over a decade to the district.”

► From the New York Times — Boeing Plans to Hire Replacements for Striking Workers — Boeing said on Thursday that it planned to start hiring permanent replacements [editor’s note: scabs] for workers who went on strike a month ago from three factories in and around St. Louis that make equipment for the military…In a statement, Brian Bryant, the international president of the machinists union, criticized Boeing, accusing it of failing to advance the negotiations and angering workers. “Here’s some free advice for Boeing executives: Don’t go backwards on a proposal that two-thirds of your work force rejected,” he said. “On the strike line, I consistently heard from our members that they were offended by Boeing taking a $5,000 signing bonus off the table.”

► From MissouriNet — Sen. Hawley stands by St. Louis Boeing workers on strike: Management needs to ‘suck it up’ — He said Boeing should give the workers what they deserve and rebuild that company. “I mean, these people have strip mined that company,” Hawley told Missourinet. “The C-Suite is doing great over at Boeing. Their workers are the ones who’ve been getting the shaft. The problem is the workers are the ones who make the planes. So if you want anything to work, it’s got to be the good people who are on the line, the engineers and the designers, they’re the ones who Boeing needs to do right by and they haven’t.”

► From Axios — Cannabis workers strike to form union in Ann Arbor — UFCW says an Exclusive Brands worker who was recently fired had been supporting the unionization effort and also claims the company tried to block a union election. “This industry is about healing and caring about people and lifting each other up, and this company is actively doing the opposite to its own workers,” Exclusive Brands budtender Emily Hull told Axios last week while striking. “They won’t give us a chance to even lose (a union election).”

LOCAL

► From MyNorthwest — Tariffs could eliminate over 30,000 Washington jobs by 2029, report says — The Office of Financial Management (OFM) published a report last month, stating crop production, food, beverage, and tobacco manufacturing, along with aircraft manufacturing jobs, are most at risk. “These job losses may spill over into the broader economy, affecting support services like transportation, education, and health care,” OFM added. Meanwhile, jobs in fabricated metals manufacturing, textiles and apparel mills, and transportation equipment manufacturing are expected to grow. “These gains suggest that select domestic industries may benefit from reduced competition with imports, prompting expansion and higher wages. However, the overall impact on labor income is negative,” the report stated.

► From KUOW — Confused about your eligibility for the Covid shot? In Washington state, you’re covered — Thanks to a standing order signed by the state health officer Thursday, anyone in the state can get the vaccine without consulting their doctor. The standing order means that pharmacists, nurses, and other health care providers can give the Covid vaccine to everyone 6 months or older, including pregnant people, unless there’s a specific, individual reason not to. The agency issued the order in the wake of confusing and sometimes conflicting guidance from the federal government about who’s eligible for the shots.

► From KUOW — Former state senator accused of rape rejected in bid to join KUOW board — Katie Campbell, a staffer at KUOW and a steward for the SAG-AFTRA union that represents the station’s reporters and producers, expressed concerns over the board’s unwillingness to answer questions from staff at the meeting. “I expect better from our board, and so does our union,” Campbell said.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From NJ.com — N.J. security guards march for better pay for sometimes fatal work — He and 150 other union members at a rally in Newark on Wednesday all felt the death of their colleague Aland Etienne, a guard from Brooklyn who was among four victims killed in a July 28 mass shooting in Manhattan. “People refer to security officers as ‘rent-a-cops,’” said Johnson, 67, of Woodbridge, a father of three and grandfather of seven who makes $43,000 a year. “And one of the people that was killed in that shooting in Manhattan was in our union. So we do very dangerous work.” Johnson is one of 2,500 New Jersey security guards who belong to Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, which staged the Wednesday afternoon rally and march in New Jersey’s largest city to call for higher pay and better working conditions.

► From Bloomberg — WNBA Union Head Says ‘We’re in a Labor Fight’ as Talks Stall — The head of the WNBA players union didn’t mince words about the state of contract negotiations with the league. “We are in a labor fight,” said WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson at Bloomberg Power Players New York. “The main thing is a salary system that is tied to the business, so that these players are paid their value. Right now, we’re in a system that, if you look at it, it’s not tied to the business. So it’s designed to undervalue them.”

► From Progressive Railroading — Union Pacific reaches labor agreements with 11 unions — Union Pacific Railroad has ratified agreements with 11 unions that cover 12 crafts and represent 46% of the railroad’s craft employees. Additionally, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) have approved interim agreements that provide 3% wage increases effective Sept. 1, as negotiations for long-term agreements continue, UP officials said yesterday in a press release.

ORGANIZING

► From the Daily Californian — In landslide victory, 7,200 UC professionals join United Auto Workers in unionization effort — In a win for labor, 7,200 researchers and public service professionals, or RPSPs, across the University of California system announced Tuesday the formation of a new union after a vote in late August. The vote passed with 83% of the 3,692 ballots cast voting “yes.” The thousands of previously nonunionized employees now represented by RPSP-UAW, will join over 50,000 UC workers organized with the United Auto Workers, or UAW.

NATIONAL

► From the Guardian — US flight attendants push to be paid when planes aren’t in the air: ‘Most of our passengers have no idea’ — “The Air Canada strike helps negotiations everywhere,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA)-CWA, which represents about 55,000 flight attendants at 20 different airlines said in a statement. “It defined the problem of ridiculous expectations for flight attendants to work without pay.”

► From the AP — Hiring stalls with US companies reluctant to expand in an uncertain economic landscape –U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs last month as the labor market continued to cool due to uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s economic policies. Hiring decelerated from 79,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday, and came in below the roughly 80,000 economists had expected for August. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, also worse than expected and the highest level since 2021.

► From KUOW — For mixed status families, deportation fears cast shadow over new academic year — “There are no confirmed reports of ICE raids or ICE enforcement inside of schools,” says Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law school. She says it’s important to let parents know that ICE agents cannot enter a school without a warrant. Additionally, it is unconstitutional to deny students access to public education based on immigration status, and in certain cities like Chicago and New York public schools have language stipulating that administrators may not ask about immigration status. A few years ago, attempts to do so in Alabama were struck down as unconstitutional. But Mukherjee understands the fear around schools and immigration enforcement. Almost as soon as President Trump took office, in January, locations previously designated off limits – schools, churches and hospitals – were deemed fair game for immigration enforcement.

► From Spectrum News — Grocery workers push back as self-checkout expands — Fournier has spent nearly two decades behind the counter. She said machines have cut hours, added to workloads and chipped away at the customer connection that first drew her to the job. “If it continues, they’re just going to keep taking out more registers and adding in more machines and cutting the cashier hours,” she explained. “Besides just the hours you’re losing… the best part of the job… is talking to the customers.” Beyond the checkout line, Fournier is also a shop steward for UFCW Local 770, a California-based union, which represents 31,000 members.

► From WV Metro News — Documentary explores West Virginia Coal Mine Wars — The Coal Mine Wars, also known as the West Virginia Mine Wars, took place between 1912 and 1921. The conflict was between coal miners and the coal companies they worked for, driven by efforts to unionize and improve working conditions. The documentary begins with everything that led up to the Battle of Blair Mountain. One of those was the Matewan Massacre in 1920, when a group of Baldwin-felts came into town. They were hired by the coal companies to evict miners living in a nearby coal camp. Ultimately, a shoot-out ensured between the detectives and the miners and ten people died as a result.

Editor’s note: watch the documentary on Youtube.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — ‘You’re a charlatan’: Cantwell slams RFK Jr. for rejecting vaccine science — “Sir, you’re a charlatan. That’s what you are. You’re the one who conflates chronic disease with the need for vaccines,” Cantwell said as she showed a chart outlining the success of vaccines in curbing diseases since the last century. “The history on vaccines is very clear.” Kennedy, who has a long record of of false and misleading claims about the efficacy and side effects of vaccines, pulled $500 million in federal funding last month for mRNA vaccine development aimed at respiratory viruses like COVID and the flu…Washington’s senior senator, Democrat Patty Murray, on Thursday again called for Kennedy’s firing. “This man is burning down our public health system from the inside,” Murray said from the Senate floor.

► From the Seattle Times — WA state races see heavy spending from big businesses — Political action committees such as Jobs PAC, Sound Jobs and East King County Jobs, which are sponsored by the business-friendly campaign group Enterprise Washington, have raised just over $2 million, collectively, so far…The groups are investing heavily in highly contested races, such as the showdown for the Senate seat in the 26th Legislative District in Gig Harbor between Republican Rep. Michelle Caldier and Democrat Sen. Deb Krishnadasan…Jobs PAC has received contributions from businesses in and out of state, including $100,000 from the Marathon Petroleum Corporation, $40,000 from Amazon, $30,000 from Premera Blue Cross and $25,000 from the Texas-based BNSF Railway Company. Alaska Airlines also contributed $20,000 and Koch Industries donated $15,000 to the PAC.

► From the Washington Post — Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve plans to keep his White House job while on Fed — Testifying in the Senate on Thursday, Miran said he plans to take an unpaid leave instead of stepping down from the White House because he would only be filling a short-term slot on the seven-member Fed board…If confirmed, he would be the first modern-day Federal Reserve Board member to maintain such close ties to the White House. Although he would be filling a term that officially expires at the end of January, he could remain on the Fed board until a successor is confirmed by the Senate.

► From the Washington Post — The Trump administration is moving staff into jobs they know nothing about — To fill vacancies left behind by waves of firing and resignations in the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal government, agencies are reassigning people to posts they know little about. That includes people who were forced out of jobs that are required by law or are essential to basic government functions, according to interviews with 20 federal employees across seven departments, most of whom spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

► From Publishers Weekly — AFSCME, Cultural Organizations Ask Court to Reinforce IMLS Protection — On September 3, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and a coalition of library, museum, and cultural organizations filed an amicus brief in Rhode Island v. Trump, stating their solidarity with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Twenty-one states’ attorneys general filed the case on April 4, and as of May 13, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court of the District of Rhode Island had ordered a halt to the gutting of IMLS and two other federal agencies.

INTERNATIONAL

► From CBC — Unions preparing to ‘fight’ as Canada sees the most strike action in decades — Canada is seeing a spike in strikes — and as tariffs and the affordability crisis continue to hit workers hard, unions warn of more action on the horizon. Some labour leaders say that includes a potential battle with a federal government that has repeatedly sent them back to work. “We’re preparing for the fight that’s ahead,” said Alisha Kang, president of the Union of National Employees. “The movement is done with lip service.”

JOLT OF JOY

On Labor Day, we celebrate all the ways organized labor has improved the lives of working people, including of course, the weekend. Without that victory, we wouldn’t have bangers like this. One more reason to thank unions…

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.