SW WA ed strikes | Cannabis unions | ‘Corporate neglect’

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

STRIKES

► From St. Louis Public Radio — Striking Boeing workers to vote on union-proposed counteroffer Friday — The proposal from the union’s bargaining committee contains 401(k) contributions which the union said are in line with other Boeing employees. It also improves wage increases for employees at the top of the pay scale and adds a $10,000 signing bonus, up from the $4,000 bonus in the previous contract. The bonus can be deferred into a 401(k) or a Health Savings Account.

► From ABC 13 — Historic hotel worker strike enters third week, postpones Houston’s State of the City address — Union members say they want the Hilton Americas to pay them what they consider a living wage. Already, the strike has indefinitely postponed the City of Houston’s State of the City Address and pushed back an annual Democratic Party fundraiser. The strike began on Labor Day. It was supposed to last nine days, but now, they’re on day 15, hoping to negotiate a deal with Hilton.

LOCAL

► From OPB — Why do Southwest Washington schools seem to have more strikes? — It doesn’t surprise people like Larry Delaney, the president of the Washington Education Association, that school districts in the largest media markets in the Pacific Northwest — Seattle and Portland— would go on strike more often…Delaney said news coverage has “normalized” strikes — for lack of a better word, he added — for districts near Portland, especially, following Oregon’s largest school district going on a nearly month-long strike back in 2023 that garnered plenty of media attention…Delaney said a key factor in how education unions behave in Washington is their connection to other labor groups, like WEA’s partner, the Washington State Labor Council. “It helps to let educators know that, you know, they’re a part of something greater,” he said.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA health inspectors on cusp of gaining access to Tacoma immigrant detention center — GEO sued over the 2023 law, claiming the state was overstepping its authority. A federal judge in Seattle ordered an injunction blocking the Department of Health from conducting those inspections and enforcing the law’s heightened standards. But last month, a panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed that order, paving the way for state health inspectors to get in the detention center. GEO on Tuesday petitioned the court for another hearing on its lawsuit. Now, officials believe they just need that appeals court ruling to be finalized, then they’ll have the legal underpinning to inspect the detention center.

► From KREM — Five Washington colleges to receive $80K for aerospace students’ childcare — According to the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (WSBCTC), five colleges in Washington will receive $80K for aerospace students’ childcare. WSBCTC says it is partnering with Aerospace Career Enhancement (ACE) and Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) to award $400K to five community and technical colleges.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From KOIN — Union reaches tentative agreement with Vancouver Public Schools — The Vancouver Association of Educational Support Professionals has reached a tentative agreement with Vancouver Public Schools, according to a press release shared by the union late on Monday. “We are pleased to have an agreement we can bring to our members for a vote,” said Chipo Sowards, president of the union. Sowards works at Hudson Bay High School and Lincoln Elementary School as a media clerk. “Our bargaining team believes this is a fair, solutions-based deal,” he said.

ORGANIZING

► From MJ Biz Daily — Does federal marijuana prohibition mean cannabis workers can’t unionize? — A Michigan cannabis company is attempting to thwart a unionization effort using a novel tactic: convincing the Trump administration that cannabis workers don’t enjoy federal labor law protections because cannabis is illegal under federal law. If the argument that Ann Arbor-based Exclusive Brands recently presented to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is successful, workers across the $32 billion national market could see their rights and protections weakened, observers told MJBizDaily.

NATIONAL

► From the Guardian — California nurses decry Ice presence at hospitals: ‘Interfering with patient care’ — The nurse said that the Ice agent – wearing a mask, sunglasses and hat without any clear identification – brought a woman already in custody to the hospital. The patient was screaming and trying to get off the gurney, and when Sposito tried to assess her, the agent blocked her and told her not to touch the patient…The man confirmed he was an Ice agent, and when Sposito asked for his name, badge, and warrant, he refused to give her his identification and insisted he didn’t need a warrant. The situation escalated until the charge nurse called hospital administration, who stepped in to handle it. “They’re interfering with patient care,” Sposito said.

► From Spectrum News — Union representatives push to keep mail carriers safe — According to the National Association of Letter Carriers, attacks on postal employees doubled between 2019 and 2023. “They’re out to get whatever they can grab,” said local NALC union president Monique Mate. “They are grabbing and going, they’re grabbing their satchel. They’re grabbing mail, they’re grabbing their personal items.”

► From Wired — A DHS Data Hub Exposed Sensitive Intel to Thousands of Unauthorized Users — An internal DHS memo obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and shared with WIRED reveals that from March to May of 2023, a DHS online platform used by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) to share sensitive but unclassified intelligence information and investigative leads among the DHS, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, local law enforcement, and intelligence fusion centers across the US was misconfigured, accidentally exposing restricted intelligence information to all users of the platform.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Guardian — ‘Like working in a prison’: cuts, fear and understaffing at Trump’s labor department — “Seeing [Chavez-DeReme] in that cabinet meeting where she begged Trump to look at it, it’s embarrassing. Fawning over the president, regardless of who the president is, acting that way means she can’t give him hard or bad news and you should be able to do that if you’re a leader.” Employees at the department and labor advocates say the Trump administration is undermining the agency’s mission to foster and promote the welfare of job seekers, wage earners and retirees through drastic cuts, deregulations that include pay cuts for workers, and mistreatment of those employed at the agency.

► From the Washington Post — The GOP cut parts of Obamacare. Now it’s at the center of a funding fight. — Democrats are demanding that at least some of the cuts to former president Barack Obama’s signature law be reversed in exchange for their support of a funding bill, while Republicans are daring Democrats to risk shutting down the government over the issue. Looming above it all is growing nervousness among some Republicans about the political consequences of millions of people losing health insurance as soon as January — and in the months ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

► From the New York Times — G.O.P. Again Cedes Power on Tariffs to Avoid Crossing Trump — The Republican-led House moved anew on Tuesday to relinquish Congress’s power to weigh in on President Trump’s tariffs, even as Democrats in the Senate prepared to force votes challenging his trade war. The maneuver by House Republicans effectively stripped lawmakers of the ability to force action on lifting the tariffs until March 31, 2026, extending a prohibition they initially imposed in the spring to spare their members a politically tough vote.

► From the LA Times — UC employees, not waiting on leaders, sue Trump for ‘financial coercion’ over UCLA cuts — A group of 21 unions and faculty associations representing more than 100,000 University of California employees sued President Trump on Tuesday, alleging he is illegally forcing “ideological dominance” over a UC education, has violated the constitution and endangered jobs by suspending research grants and seeking a $1.2-billion fine against UCLA.

► From My Northwest — Everett mayor calls out Kroger for ‘corporate neglect’ — The Everett City Council is expected to vote Wednesday night on a resolution criticizing Kroger’s decision to close a Fred Meyer store in South Everett—a move Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin calls “corporate neglect.” …“It betrays the community’s trust,” Franklin said. “Crime is down all over in that area, but shoplifting is down by 80%, and that is a significant decrease,” she told KIRO Newsradio. “We put in the effort. We made those investments, yet the store didn’t, you know, continue to invest in their facility.”

► From Cascade PBS — Lynnwood considers raising its minimum wage to above $20 an hour — “We have a lot of vulnerable members in our community that are struggling just to get by, and we need to make sure we’re doing our part to advocate on their behalf,” said Lynnwood City Council Vice President Josh Binda, chair of Fair Pay Lynnwood, a committee advocating for the wage increase. The proposed initiative follows a string of similar efforts that have successfully raised the minimum wage in Tukwila, Burien, Renton and other Puget Sound-area cities in recent years. The initiatives have proved popular with voters, consistently passing by wide margins.

INTERNATIONAL

► From CBC — Air Canada flight attendants’ union asks to cancel mediation process, sending wage issue to arbitration — A representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) confirmed the request to CBC News, saying that the union “saw no evidence” that mediation would yield an acceptable result on wage increases for its members. “The union is therefore seeking an expedited process that will put money in our members’ pockets and conclude this process as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said.

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