OFNHP strike vote | SBUX on the ropes | State worker contract

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

STRIKES

► From KREM — Local operators union no longer on strike, WSDOT confirms — International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302, which covers the entire AGC District 5, including Spokane, Moses Lake and Pullman, has been on strike for the past month. Association of General Contractors (AGC) and Local 302 reached a tentative agreement Monday morning. That’s according to Cheryl Stewart, Executive Director at Inland Northwest AGC. Stewart confirmed with KREM 2 Monday afternoon Local 302 union workers will return to work immediately under a tentative contract agreement.

► From CBT News — UAW, GE Aerospace reach tentative deal after strike at Ohio and Kentucky plants — UAW and GE Aerospace secured a tentative contract covering facilities in Evendale, Ohio, and Erlanger, Kentucky, following a strike by more than 600 workers in late August. The deal includes nearly full coverage of healthcare premium increases, additional vacation time, and job security provisions, such as minimum headcounts and commitments for new work. Union members will hold a ratification vote on September 19, and they will continue the picket lines until then, reflecting broader labor actions within the aerospace and aviation sectors.

LOCAL

► From the Washington State Standard — The quest to make WA’s legal system more accessible for people with disabilities — With treatment, Whitener, appointed to the Washington state Supreme Court in 2020, hid her disability for years. She felt she already dealt with enough being a Black immigrant woman who was a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “Just adding that additional one, disability, I knew it would literally prohibit me from being all that I can be,” Whitener said in an interview Friday…This experience led Whitener, now 60, to help lead the Supreme Court’s Disability Justice Task Force. The task force’s work recently culminated in a more than 600-page study on conditions for people with disabilities in Washington’s legal system. The report found “widespread physical, programmatic, and cultural barriers that hindered in-person and virtual court engagement.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From OPB — Kaiser Permanente health care workers vote on possible Oregon, SW Washington strike — More than 3,500 Kaiser Permanente health care workers from Oregon and Southwest Washington are casting ballots this week to authorize a strike that could start as soon as Oct. 1 – though leaders of the health care nonprofit called the vote a “bargaining tactic” and emphasized that a strike may not take place. After six months of negotiations, Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals spokesperson Shane Burley said, members are still pushing for higher wages, more robust staffing and changes to how schedules are set at hospitals and clinics across the region.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA state workers OK new contract with retroactive pay hikes — Thousands of state government and community college employees in Washington have overwhelmingly ratified a new one-year contract that would secure raises they lost out on in July…For the past three weeks, these state government and community college employees voted on separate tentative agreements. Both were approved by more than 90% of those who participated, the union announced Monday. “We’re glad to have ratification done and this round of negotiations behind us,” association president Amanda Hacker said in an email.

► From NW Labor Press — Reed campus rallies for custodians — Reed custodians until recently worked three shifts: day, swing, and graveyard. But this summer Reed eliminated graveyard, saying it wasn’t safe, and transferred those six workers to the other shifts. It disrupted the lives of long-time employees who say they valued graveyard shift because it left other hours free to care for loved ones or sync with day care hours. More than half of the 43 custodians have been at Reed more than 10 years. Even though it affected just a handful of workers, they weren’t consulted, and the local is operating on the principle that all workers must stand together.

ORGANIZING

► From Wired — ​Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions — Despite handling work they describe as skilled and high-stakes, eight workers who spoke to WIRED say they are being underpaid and suffer from lack of job security and unfavorable working conditions. These alleged conditions have impacted worker morale and challenged the ability for people to execute their jobs well, sources say. Some contractors attempted to unionize earlier this year but claim those efforts were quashed. Now they allege that the company has retaliated against them. Two workers have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging they were unfairly fired, one due to bringing up wage transparency issues, and the other for advocating for himself and his coworkers.

► From Patch — Catholic University Won’t Recognize Faculty Union, Citing ‘Religious Exemption’ — Non-tenure track faculty members at the Catholic school located just north of LAX overwhelmingly voted to certify with Service Employees International Union Local 721 in summer 2024. On Friday, however, Chairman of the LMU Board of Trustees Paul Viviano sent an email to LMU employees and students announcing that the university would stop recognizing the NTT faculty members’ union and invoke its “constitutionally protected religious exemption” from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, which governs collective bargaining for private employers.

► From the Hollywood Reporter — ‘Abbott Elementary’ Production Assistants File for Union Election — Organizers on Monday filed for a National Labor Relations Board union election to represent production assistants on Abbott Elementary, the critically lauded ABC sitcom following teachers at an underfunded Philadelphia elementary school. Workers on the show are attempting to join a union affiliated with LiUNA Local 724, the Hollywood laborers’ union that nearly one week prior successfully unionized production assistants on HBO Max’s The Pitt.

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — The Long-Term Unemployed Today? College Grads. — When the federal government released its August employment numbers on Sept. 5, the overall unemployment rate was still relatively low, at just over 4 percent. But underneath was a concerning statistic: The portion of unemployed people who have been out of work for more than six months, which is considered “long-term,” rose to its highest share in over three years — to nearly 26 percent…But just as surprising as the rise in long-term unemployment is the subset of workers who are increasingly driving it: the college educated. The fraction of long-term unemployed people with a college degree has grown from about one-fifth a decade ago to about one-third today.

► From the Washington State Standard — Former women firefighters urge return of training program struck by anti-DEI cuts — The Women in Wildfire Boot Camp program was established in 2011 and continued for more than a decade before it was terminated in February because of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government…At a July 10 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, U.S. Forest Service Acting Chief Tom Schultz was asked to explain why the boot camp program was eliminated. He responded, “there are still ample opportunities for all firefighters to be trained without singling out solely women.” About 84% of federal wildland firefighters are men, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office

► From the NW Labor Press — Six workers killed in manure pit accident — Multiple fatality incidents like that have happened for decades. A worker enters a manure pit, often a tank below an animal confinement building, and is rendered unconscious by exposure to methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and ammonia…The accident is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) but farmworkers aren’t covered by its rules on entering confined spaces, which in other industries require training, air monitoring, and plans for safe rescue.

► From NBC News — Trump administration in damage-control mode after Hyundai immigration raid sparks investment concerns — A South Korean presidential spokesperson also told local media on Monday that Seoul is conducting a more thorough review to determine whether any human rights violations had occurred during U.S. immigration enforcement at the Georgia battery plant…Many other South Korean tech giants have been investing billions into facilities in the U.S. as part of reshoring efforts, including semiconductor companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has called the raid “bewildering,” adding that it would discourage future investment into the U.S.

► From the People’s World — Rail workers pick up steam against Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern monopoly — “Unions and workers’ advocates are already crying foul, denouncing this as a naked act of political interference to grease the skids for corporate railroad consolidation. Make no mistake.. this isn’t governance, it’s gate-keeping for the cartels, and it jeopardizes the freight rail network that sustains our industries, our jobs, and our communities.” Rail union chiefs concentrated on the Primus firing. Transport Workers President John Samuelsen, whose union represents Norfolk Southern workers, leads the charge. He, too, fears the impact on workers of rail carrier corporate oligopoly.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington Post — Senators pressure Jeff Bezos over Amazon schedules they say squeeze workers — In a letter to Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos sent Friday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) raised concerns about how the company schedules shifts for hourly warehouse and delivery workers. A 2024 survey from the Shift Project at the Harvard Kennedy School suggests those employees are required to use a system that can leave them with “volatile and unreliable schedules — and uncertain paychecks,” the senators wrote.

► From the New York Times — On Charlie Kirk Show, JD Vance Talks of Crackdown on Liberal Groups — Mr. Trump, who has downplayed violence from right-wing or other supporters, said that he would like to designate a range of groups, including the loosely affiliated group of far-left anti-fascism activists, known as “antifa,” as domestic terrorists and bring racketeering cases against people funding protests…It was unclear by Monday evening how these plans would unfold, or how the White House could legally formalize such an effort without curbing First Amendment rights.

► From the The New Republic — What’s Really Behind the Right-Wing Attack on Public School Teachers — Today, in the United States, teachers aren’t facing this kind of totalitarianism—at least not yet and hopefully never. But just like in the early moments of the Norwegian turn toward authoritarianism, we’re seeing clear warning signs of democratic backsliding. At both the state and federal level, far-right forces and wannabe dictators are smearing teachers, slashing public school funding, banning books, outlawing honest history, and expanding private school vouchers.

► From the New York Times — Appeals Court Says Lisa Cook Can Remain on Fed Board — A federal appeals court on Monday denied a last-minute attempt by President Trump to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, and prevent her from participating in a crucial two-day Fed meeting to set interest rates. As a result, Ms. Cook will be able to cast a vote at the gathering, which begins on Tuesday. The ruling marked the second legal defeat for Mr. Trump in his quest to oust Ms. Cook, whom he has accused of engaging in mortgage fraud. Ms. Cook has not been charged with a crime.

► From The New Republic — A Health Care Cost Bomb Is Coming—Unless Congress Acts — “If the enhancements expire at the end of the year, it would cause a lot of disruption in the marketplace, a lot of disruption in people’s lives,” said Claire Heyison, senior analyst for health insurance and marketplace policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “In some states, particularly states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, they could see like half of their marketplace enrollees exit the marketplace, which is really disastrous for both marketplace enrollees and for the ACA marketplaces.”

► From Common Dreams — ‘Corporate Greed Is Out of Control’: Tlaib-Sanders Bill Would Tax Companies for Excessive CEO Pay — The legislation would impose penalties starting at 0.5 percentage points for companies with CEO-to-worker pay ratios between 50-to-1 and 100-to-1. Firms where executives make more than 500 times their workers’ pay would be forced to pay the highest rate. The bill would also require the US Treasury Department to crack down on tax avoidance, including schemes that disguise pay disparities by outsourcing jobs to contractors.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From In These Times — “Starbucks Is on the Ropes,” Says SBWU President Lynne Fox, Who Is Eyeing a Strike — One year later, Niccol is driving a ​“Back to Starbucks” turnaround strategy, implementing a dizzying number of policy and program changes. Baristas have said that the changes are making their jobs harder, not easier, and stores remain understaffed. That strategy at present is bound to fail, since you can’t get ​“Back to Starbucks” without properly valuing the people who make the Starbucks experience what it is — including current and future union baristas. That’s why we’re calling on Niccol to return to the bargaining table, to address our remaining demands for better wages and conditions for employees, and to listen to union baristas who have thoughtful solutions for how the company might begin to fix what ails the brand.

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