Portland CC strike | VA union contract | Elect union members

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

STRIKES

► From OPB — Portland Community College faculty and staff remain on strike as college leaders and unions apply pressure for final deal — Portland Community College leaders and two unions representing instructors and staff are preparing for another round of negotiations on Wednesday as a historic strike passes the 13-day mark…But union leaders say they want the college to provide restorative pay for workers on strike, a point the unions say the college has refused to entertain. None of the proposals put forward by the school has included back pay for striking workers.

► From Bloomberg — JBS Strike Adds Fuel to Growing Worker Strife Over Health Costs — The JBS workers walked off the job after the union alleged the company committed unfair labor practices by engaging in regressive bargaining tactics and retaliating against workers. About 99% of workers voted to authorize the strike, according to the UFCW…The company’s current offer puts “all the risk of rising healthcare costs on workers,” UFCW Local 7 president Kim Cordova said in a statement. At other UFCW plants, some JBS workers who received the same wage increase as the one proposed at the Greeley plant spent more than two-thirds of their annual raise on increased premiums, the union said.

NATIONAL

► From the Federal News Network — VA restores AFGE labor contract, but isn’t implementing it, court documents show — The VA restored its master collective bargaining agreement with AFGE/NVAC days after the court’s preliminary injunction. But court filings show the department continued to deny benefits and workplace protections outlined in the contract to covered employees. AFGE/NVAC said more than 300,000 VA employees are missing out on parental leave benefits, fair disciplinary procedures and other protections in the collective bargaining agreement.

► From the American Prospect — Then They Came for the Immigrant Truckers — You may think that taking certified truck drivers, who’ve all been granted federal work permits, off the roads—in an industry that has 94 percent yearly turnover—may not serve the common good particularly well. You may also think that it is a gratuitous crime to harm the fortunes of those drivers and their families, not to mention an act of malignant folly to jack up the prices of the goods that will come late or go undelivered without immigrant drivers to take them to their destinations. If so, you’d be right.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — T.S.A. Union Leaders Blast Trump’s Deployment of ICE Agents in Airports — “The administration sent ICE agents to airports as replacement workers. That’s like giving a person dying of pneumonia a teaspoon of cough syrup,” said Everett Kelley, the national president of A.F.G.E. “It doesn’t address the problem, and it’s not going to work.”…Others complained that putting ICE officials, who have been paid through the shutdown, in proximity to T.S.A. workers, who have not, was an added source of tension. ICE has been able to draw on tens of billions of dollars Congress approved last year as part of a domestic policy bill to pay its officials, despite the lapse in appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security. “This is an insult to the employees,” added Johnny Jones, a local union chief based in Dallas.

► From Jacobin — Labor Wins When They Run Union Members for Office — As the report points out: The central challenge . . . is not public hostility to unions but the movement’s diminished capacity to translate popular support into political power. A significant part of the problem can be traced to the tsunami of political cash unleashed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. Although “total donations from labor PACs have remained roughly consistent” over the past twenty-eight years at an average of about $42 million (it was up to $57 million in 2025), the total flowing into the system has exploded from $1.45 billion in 1998 to a whopping $5.08 billion in 2025. This means that while unions have, despite all their challenges, been holding the line with their financial contributions to campaigns, their share of the overall pie has shrunk from 8% of all candidate donations to a truly “miniscule” 2%.

► From the New York Times — Quartz Cutters Are Falling Ill. Countertop Makers Want Protection From Congress. — When engineered stone is cut, it lets off tiny particles of silica. The dust lodges in the lungs, where the body identifies it as foreign and mounts an aggressive immune response. Over time, scar tissue forms and spreads, slowly killing the lung…It takes years of exposure to contract silicosis, and even longer before symptoms appear. This, doctors say, is why silicosis among fabricators didn’t really emerge until about five years ago, more than a decade after manufactured stone hit the market. They expect cases to rise…[Maufacturer] Cambria has taken its fight to Washington, where last year it spent $250,000 on lobbyists. In September, Representatives Tom McClintock of California and Andy Biggs of Arizona, both Republicans, introduced a bill that would bar lawsuits against manufacturers or sellers of engineered stone for injuries that resulted from cutting the product in third-party facilities.

► From Nonstop Local Tri-Cities Yakima — Governor signs urban property tax bill into law, boosting clean energy projects in Tri-Cities — A bill that strives to keep Washington and the Tri-Cities competitive for clean energy projects that face lengthy federal approval processes is now in the books. Gov. Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1210 into law, updating the state’s targeted urban property tax exemption to accommodate clean energy transformation business facilities, including those connected to advanced nuclear manufacturing.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Pierce County Council pauses new ICE facilities for 6 months — The Pierce County Council approved an ordinance Tuesday afternoon to stop the citing and permitting of involuntary detention centers, like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, for at least six months in unincorporated Pierce County. Hundreds commented in support of the moratorium prior to the vote Tuesday, and 17 people spoke in favor at the public comment period. Many mentioned allegations of abuse and mistreatment at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma and said they would support a longer ban on the expansion or construction of a new ICE detention center.

► From PBS — Florida Democrat flips seat in special election in district that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago — Democrats celebrated the victory as the latest sign voters are turning against Trump and Republicans ahead of the midterm elections in November. Tuesday was the latest in a series of lopsided or improbable victories in special elections across the country since Trump returned to the White House more than a year ago. The district was previously represented by Mike Caruso, a Republican who resigned to become Palm Beach County’s clerk. Caruso won by 19 percentage points in 2024.

INTERNATIONAL

► From Mexico Solidarity Media — 4 Workers Shot: Striking Workers Attacked at Tornel Rubber’s Tultitlán Plant — He commented that the attackers were wearing company uniforms, and that members of the movement filed a complaint yesterday with the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mexico. Roberto Gutiérrez, Secretary of the Interior for the Tornel union, interviewed at the scene of the attack, stated that the offensive occurred nine days before the scheduled employee referendum to legitimize the strike, as required by labor law. He believed the attack was an attempt to intimidate the rank-and-file workers “to break the strike” and that the company, owned by businessmen from India, was responsible for the attack, since “the company is the one that wants to prevent us from holding the referendum.”

► From the UAW:

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