MultiCare Yakima strike | Port jobs | Budget cuts

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

STRIKES

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital employees start strike — Technical and technologist employees walked back and forth along Tieton Drive on Saturday in 30-degree temperatures, waving signs. Cars drove by honking in solidarity. The Teamsters 760 union has been in its first contract negotiations with MultiCare since the Tacoma-based health care system took over the hospital in 2023. They have been negotiating since February of last year…Teamsters union representatives said MultiCare has cut services, instituted policies detrimental to patient care, and reduced employee benefits since taking ownership of the hospital. The primary issues the two entities haven’t agreed upon are related to union security, retirement and health coverage, union representatives said.

► From Politico — Nurses describe escalating tension as NYC strike continues — Well before nearly 15,000 nurses across New York City went on strike this week, tensions were already roiling in the powerful private hospitals that employ them. Their union, the New York State Nurses Association, discovered the Mount Sinai Health System had changed the locks to its on-site offices at two facilities where negotiations were stalled.

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — At Port of Seattle, rocked by tariffs, there were 70 jobs for 600 workers — On many mornings, Sarah Esch’s job as a dispatcher for dockworkers at the Port of Seattle boils down to a question of simple, frustrating math. “No ships came in last night, so we have maybe 70 jobs today for 600 workers,” Esch said before dawn on a recent Monday, eyeing the whiteboard used to track available shifts. “Those numbers aren’t great.”…Through November, the total number of shipping containers that passed through the ports in Seattle and Tacoma was down almost 4% from 2024. That figure may not seem so bad, but it is skewed by an unusual spike in imports during the first quarter of 2025, as shipping companies rushed goods into the United States before potential tariffs. Since August, the monthly drop in traffic has been in the double digits compared with 2024. There was no pre-Christmas rush.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Suspected drunk semi driver hits WA snowplow, causing it to flip — A semi truck driver is accused of driving drunk when he collided with a Washington state snowplow, forcing it to crash along Interstate 90 on Saturday. The 32-year-old plow driver for the Washington State Department of Transportation was taken to an Ellensburg hospital but wasn’t seriously hurt, reported WSDOT officials. A Sunday morning update said the state worker was “experiencing some soreness.”

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Supreme Court SNAP ruling could deal blow to farmers markets — At farmers markets around the region, people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits can use their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to buy fruits, vegetables, meat and other local products. But market organizers say the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to block funding for food stamps has left many uncertain about the program’s future. Ted LeRoy, administrative manager at the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market, said cuts to food stamps will affect the SNAP Market Match program, which won’t be able to match the same amount next year. The market has about $10,000 in SNAP sales this past year.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Local firefighters confront cancer risks from on-the-job exposures — Matt Frank, a lieutenant at the Tacoma Fire Department, has spent over half of his life in the fire service. It’s because of that work, he says, that he’s contracted cancer twice, a disease that’s becoming all too common for firefighters. That’s why the Firefighter Cancer Support Network and International Association of Firefighters designated January as Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month, bringing eyes to the leading cause of line-of-duty death in the fire service.

AEROSPACE

► From the Wall Street Journal — The $100 billion of US goods at risk of tariffs in Trump’s Greenland push — If President Trump follows through with a threat to put new tariffs on European allies over Greenland, some $100 billion worth of American exports—from Boeing aircraft to bourbon whiskey—could get caught in the crossfire…Boeing would be a considerable casualty, with aircraft set to be hit by a 30% levy, according to an EU document published last year. America’s biggest exporter counts European airlines such as Ireland’s Ryanair among its largest customers. Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said last year that he would rather defer deliveries of aircraft than pay to cover tariff costs.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Hollywood Reporter — Can Hollywood Avoid a Strike This Time? — Perhaps the biggest factor at play in these 2026 negotiations will be the state of the Hollywood workforce. Namely, that it’s been battered in the past few years amid a contraction in the business and the flight of production from the U.S. There were 25 percent fewer jobs in entertainment in L.A. in 2025 than there were three years earlier, an Otis College of Art and Design report found that year. Corporate consolidation hasn’t been helping matters: In 2025, Paramount said it would lay off 2,000 employees after its merger with Skydance, and many more thousands of jobs could hang in the balance if Netflix’s planned acquisition of Warner Bros., a major employer in town, is completed.

► From WFAA — American Airlines training instructors secure significant pay raise, five-year contract, officials say — American Airlines announced Friday that the 350 flight crew training instructors and simulator pilot instructors have secured a new five-year contract. The Transport Workers Union helped approve the deal, including significant pay raises that will take effect Jan. 19, 2026, according to the announcement.

► From the New York Times’ Athletic — John Calipari proposes collective bargaining as a way to fix college sports — John Calipari, the outspoken Arkansas head basketball coach and Naismith Hall of Famer, endorsed collective bargaining in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Friday as a long-term solution to many of the issues causing turmoil in college sports. He and some of college athletics’ most prominent coaches proposed the idea to address growing problems, including player movement and confusion around amateur eligibility.

ORGANIZING

► From the New York Times — Met Museum Employees Vote to Unionize — Hundreds of staff members at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have voted to unionize, labor organizers and the museum announced on Friday, forming one of the country’s largest bargaining units within a cultural institution. Employees voted 542 to 172 in favor of joining Local 2110 of the United Automobile Workers, a driving force in the unionization of New York arts organizations that has spent the past five years quietly laying the groundwork for this vote.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — An icy reception for Gov. Bob Ferguson’s proposed budget cuts –There was applause for Ferguson’s embrace of an income tax on millionaire-earners. But because it could be years before it might generate revenue, testifiers urged members of the House and Senate budget-writing committees to find ways to raise money sooner. A recurring theme was the lasting negative effects of further paring public resources after the widespread reductions made last year to plug a budget hole that Ferguson pegged at $16 billion over four years…Jacqui Cain, president of the American Federation of Teachers in Washington, said across-the-board cuts would have “immediate consequences. Even modest cuts lead to hiring delays, fewer course offerings, and increased workloads.”

► From the Olympian — WA lawmakers push for immigrant protections amid increased federal deportations — For Washington’s Democratic leaders, expanding protections for immigrant communities is a top priority this legislative session as the federal government carries out its mass-deportation campaign…State Sen. Drew Hansen, a Bainbridge Island Democrat, is the prime sponsor of the Secure and Accountable Federal Enforcement (SAFE) Act. SB 5906 aims to prevent warrantless ICE raids in non-public areas of K-12 schools, early learning centers, higher-education institutions, election offices and health-care facilities.

► From the American Journal of Transportation — NABTU applauds court decisions restarting major U.S. offshore wind projects — North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) President Sean McGarvey issued the following statement…“With energy demand surging and prices spiking, the last thing our government should do is take any form of power generation offline. The men and women of NABTU are proud to be constructing every offshore wind project in the United States, all under strong project labor agreements. These rulings mean our members can get back to work and keep affordable, clean, reliable power moving to our communities.”

► From Bloomberg — Trump Presses GOP to Move Health Plan as Premium Hikes Loom — President Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers to quickly move on a White House healthcare plan, seeking to shift the narrative on an issue that threatens his party’s hold on Congress with millions of Americans facing premium hikes or the risk of lost coverage. “I think we can make healthcare into a Republican issue because the Republicans are going to be close to unanimous on this,” Trump said at a White House roundtable on rural healthcare. The president’s remarks highlighted the new urgency to deliver on health costs and access and more broadly household pocketbook concerns that have made Americans skeptical of his economic agenda.

► From the Washington Post — Trump wants to get rid of the Fed chair. Why a DOJ inquiry has backfired. — The Justice Department’s move may have not only hampered Trump’s effort to replace Powell as chairman but also made it more likely he will stick around on the board of governors for another couple of years. Additionally, it may affect the legal battle in a separate effort by Trump to fire another governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations that she has committed mortgage fraud — a charge she denies.

► From Trains Magazine — Senate bill would increase legal protections for passenger rail crews — U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) on Thursday, Jan. 15, introduced the “Passenger Rail Crew Protection Act.” It would carry penalties of up to eight years in prison for assault or intimidate a crew member, or conspire to do so. The maximum penalty increases to 20 years if the act involves a dangerous weapon…Supporters of the bill include the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, SMART-TD union, Transport Workers Union, Transport Communications Union/International Association of Machinists, and the Association of American Railroads.

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