NEWS ROUNDUP

Caregivers rally | WNBA negotiations | Kaiser strike grows

Monday, February 9, 2026

 

STRIKES

► From the AP — NYC nurses reach a deal to end a strike at 2 major hospitals while walkout continues at another — Nurses and two major hospital systems in New York City have reached a deal to end a nearly monthlong strike over staffing levels, workplace safety, health insurance and other issues. The tentative agreement announced Monday by the union representing nurses involves the Montefiore and Mount Sinai hospital systems. Nurses remain on strike at NewYork Presbyterian.

► From the New York Times — San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979 — The teachers walked out after their union, United Educators of San Francisco, could not reach an agreement on raises and health care costs despite nearly a year of negotiations with the San Francisco Unified School District. The union represents about 6,000 teachers, librarians, social workers and nurses who work in more than 100 schools in the city. The strike has no set end date. The last teachers strike in San Francisco, in 1979, lasted for nearly seven weeks, making it one of the longest in state history.

► From FOX 11 LA — Kaiser strike grows as additional workers expected to walk out Monday — An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and health care workers with United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) have been striking since Jan. 26 across Kaiser facilities in California and Hawaii. The strike expanded on Monday, Feb. 9, when more than 3,000 pharmacy and laboratory workers walked out…An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and health care workers with United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) have been striking since Jan. 26 across Kaiser facilities in California and Hawaii.  The strike expanded on Monday, Feb. 9, when more than 3,000 pharmacy and laboratory workers walked out.

 

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — In Minneapolis, Seattle visitors see ICE agony, community power — As Oudkerk and other political organizers from Seattle crisscrossed Minneapolis, what also blew them away was the power that ordinary people were exercising through collective action. Huge numbers of residents standing watch outside schools and restaurants, tracking agents, blowing whistles, donating expertise, singing protest songs and collecting groceries in an effort to shield vulnerable neighbors against the apprehension-and-deportation push ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration.

► From the Washington State Standard — After loss of tax credits, WA sees a drop in insurance coverage — About 19,000 fewer Washingtonians enrolled in health insurance through the state’s online marketplace amid the loss of federal subsidies. The decline didn’t appear to be as precipitous as feared. State officials had predicted 80,000 people would forgo coverage if Congress didn’t extend the enhanced premium tax credits for those purchasing the policies. But officials fear the drop could get steeper in the coming months as enrollees fail to pay premiums.

► From the Spokesman Review — Father and 10-year-old daughter released ICE custody in Texas; pair returns to Spokane — Federal court documents indicate that Arnoldo Tiul Caal and his daughter Karla Tiul Baltazar, a Logan Elementary School student, were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Friday, according to court records. The official ruling remains under seal. Dan Gividen, an immigration attorney in Texas, filed a petition asserting that the Department of Homeland Security violated the father and daughter rights to due process. “DHS violated their own regulations,” he said in an interview Sunday morning. “It was the government that essentially said, ‘We are not going to fight this one. We are letting them go.’”

► From OPB — Gresham family returns to Oregon from Texas detention facility — After three weeks in a Texas immigration detention center, an Oregon family is coming home, according to U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, who announced the family’s release on Friday afternoon. In a statement Friday, the Democratic congresswoman said she is “escorting” the Crespo-Gonzalez family home to Oregon. Immigration officials detained the family of three Jan. 16 as they arrived at Portland Adventist Health seeking medical attention for their 7-year-old daughter Diana.

► From the Washington State Labor Council:

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the AP — WNBA union president says significant work remains for season to begin on time — WNBA players’ union president Nneka Ogwumike said significant work remains for the season to start on time but said she remains confident games will be played in 2026. “I know our players 100% want to play this year,” she said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on Friday. “We want a season.” Ogwumike said the league and union are not close on key issues like revenue sharing in their effort to strike a new collective bargaining agreement. The clock is ticking. The season is supposed to begin May 8, but an expansion draft, free agency and a rookie draft also need to happen before the league tips off.

► From Reuters — Union agrees to US refineries contract, averting nationwide strike — The U.S. United Steelworkers union adopted on Friday a national agreement on pay and benefits, averting a nationwide strike that could have affected 30,000 workers at 26 companies operating crude oil refineries and petrochemical plants. The agreement was negotiated between the union and leading U.S. refiner Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) on behalf of the refiners and chemical producers.

► From Jacobin — The UAW Volkswagen Contract Is a Win for Unions in the South — This marks the first time the union has successfully organized and bargained an agreement with a foreign-owned, nonunion auto company in the South and lays the ground for further inroads at other employers across the region. It is likely that the Volkswagen contract will result in yet another “UAW bump” for at least some autoworkers at nonunion auto companies whose employers have tried to blunt enthusiasm for unionizing, much like they did following the ratification of the historic UAW contracts at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis in 2023. This contract at Volkswagen not only is life-changing for the workers who won it and further expands the UAW’s density in its core industry. It also provides the threat of a good example.

 

NATIONAL

► From the AP — As head of the actors guild, Sean Astin brings a little Rudy, a little Samwise, and a lot of fight —  Sean Astin has taken on the presidency of the SAG-AFTRA at a particularly perilous time for the actors union, and for Hollywood. There’s the threat of human actors being replaced by artificial intelligence. The ongoing upheavals of streaming. Studio consolidation and realignment…“In my imagination, growing up, I would want to have been in a place of consequence,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in his office at the guild’s Los Angeles headquarters. “And so to have the opportunity to be in a role, leading a union of 160,000 people at this moment of consequence when there’s turmoil, when there’s fear and uncertainty and danger, this is exactly where I want to be.”

► From KERA News — American Airlines flight attendant union votes no confidence in CEO — The Association of Professional Flight Attendants demanded leadership change at the Fort Worth-based airline, better operational support and accountability. “From abysmal profits earned to operational failures that have front-line Workers sleeping on floors, this airline must course-correct before it falls even further behind,” Julie Hedrick, president of the union, said in a press release. “This level of failure begins at the very top, with CEO Robert Isom.” Fort Worth-based American’s financial losses mounted after the pandemic, causing the Airline to fall behind competitors like United, Delta and Southwest Airlines, the union said. Despite this, union leaders said, Isom has received increases in compensation and benefits.

► From the AP — Migrants languish in US detention centers facing dire conditions and prolonged waits — The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot hold immigrants indefinitely, finding that six months was a reasonable cap. With the number of people in ICE detention topping 70,000 for the first time, 7,252 people had been in custody at least six months in mid-January, including 79 held for more than two years, according to agency data. That’s more than double the 2,849 who were in ICE custody at least six months in December 2024, the last full month of Joe Biden’s presidency.

► From the New York Times — Bar Complaint Filed Over Search of Washington Post Reporter’s Home — The group, Freedom of the Press Foundation, cited the failure of the prosecutor, Gordon D. Kromberg, to alert the magistrate judge who approved the search about the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which limits searches for journalistic work product. “The omission could not have been a mere oversight — the warrant in question was, predictably, a subject of national news, given that raids of journalists’ homes during investigations of alleged leaks by government personnel are, according to experts, unprecedented,” Seth Stern, the foundation’s chief of advocacy, wrote in the complaint.

► From Fortune — Washington Post publisher to step down after big layoffs as union calls his legacy ‘attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution’ — The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis’ exit long overdue. “His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”

► From IATSE:

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From KIMA — Yakima rally protests potential Medicaid cuts — Leaders in Washington are facing a significant budget deficit, exacerbated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which could lead to severe cuts impacting elderly immigrants and people with disabilities…In response, the Service Employees International Union Local 775, representing over 60,000 long-term care workers, organized a rally on Yakima Avenue. Caregivers voiced their concerns, emphasizing the critical role they play in their clients’ lives. “People can die. We are the majority of these folks that we provide care. We are their lifeline,” Brenda Morgan said.

► From the Bellingham Herald — Whatcom schools are running out of mental health funding — Whatcom County school districts are looking for ways to continue to support mental health services for students as current funding is expected to run out in a matter of months…These funds, totaling about $1.65 million annually, come from a federal grant and excess county sales tax revenue. But with an unstable federal funding environment and a continued reduction in projected local sales tax driven by slowing border traffic, the schools can’t rely on the funding continuing…Although overall state spending toward education over the last decade has actually increased, those dollars adjusted for inflation simply don’t reach as far. This has lead to a notable decrease in usable funding over the last five years, according to data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

► From the AP — FEMA will resume staff reductions that were paused during winter storm, managers say — FEMA at the start of January abruptly stopped renewing employment contracts for a group of staffers known as Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees, term-limited hires who can hold senior roles and play an important role in emergency response. But FEMA then paused the cuts in late January as the nation braced for the gigantic winter storm that was set to impact half the country’s population. FEMA did not say whether that decision was linked to the storm. The two FEMA team managers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the staffing changes with the media, were told this week that dismissals were going to resume soon but were not given a specific date.

► From the Orlando Weekly — Florida moves to incentivize employers to make it harder for their workers to unionize — Florida lawmakers are advancing cookie-cutter legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded “bill mill,” that would incentivize private sector employers to make it harder for their employees to form a union. The legislation (SB 1236/HB 1387) was approved by two panels of state lawmakers along party lines this week. It would disqualify employers, or otherwise withhold state economic development incentives — such as tax refunds, rebates and tax credits — from employers that agree to remain neutral during a union organizing campaign or grant a union voluntary recognition…Critics have argued this type of policy is preempted by federal law, which gives employers the right to grant a union voluntary recognition if they believe it is the right thing to do for themselves and their employees.

 

INTERNATIONAL

► From the UAW:

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

Related Topics:
Exit mobile version