Portland strike | ICE arrest surge | Shutdown stops paychecks

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

STRIKES

► From OPB — Portland Community College faculty and staff will go on strike — The unions plan to strike at 10:30 a.m. at all four campuses in the Portland metro area. PCC and its two unions have been negotiating over compensation and other benefits for nearly a year. But all sides have been stuck on salary increases and how much the college has to spare for such increases, for months. Neither union has gone on strike before. This is the first strike to occur among any of the state’s 17 community colleges.

Editor’s note: PCCFCE has put together a list of ways community can support while workers strike

LOCAL

► From the Daily UW — Starbucks on the Ave to close permanently April 5 — According to Avcular, the closure appears to be a retaliation for the store’s union action. Aidan Inchausti, a barista who started at the Ave location in October 2025, said that losing his job after the strike means he’ll have to move out of Seattle entirely. “To go through [the strike] and then have the store close is a crazy, ‘Life doesn’t feel real’ type of situation right now,” Inchausti said. “It’s really upsetting.” According to Avcular, employees were not given a reason for closure when told by store management Tuesday. When she and other employees asked about transferring, Avcular said she was told that employees would not be able to transfer to different locations and would have to reapply for other positions at Starbucks.

► From the Seattle Times — Pacific Northwest saw surge in ICE arrests at end of 2025, data show — From a recent low point of fewer than 250 arrests across the Northwest between October and December 2024, ICE arrests climbed under the Trump administration to a high of nearly 2,250 arrests during the last three months of 2025, researchers said. The data, published Wednesday, offers the first look at the breadth of immigration arrests in Oregon, Washington and Alaska for the entirety of 2025, and a more exact picture of where people were arrested…ICE arrests disproportionately hit Yakima County, which saw the highest number of ICE arrests relative to its population — 185 arrests per 100,000 people. By comparison, there were 44 arrests per 100,000 people in King County. Other counties with large agricultural communities also saw a spike in arrests in the later half of 2025, including Clark, Mason and Whatcom counties.

► From the union-busting Columbian — ‘We are just in this situation’: Vancouver school board approves staff cuts for next school year — Most staff position reductions are to building-based teachers on special assignment: coaches, specialists, mentor positions, with cuts to 43.9 full-time equivalent staff members, while office-based teachers on special assignment will be cut by 13. Elementary and transitional kindergarten teachers will be reduced by 23 FTE; secondary teachers by 12.4; secretaries, clerks and paraprofessional positions by 24; custodians, maintenance, grounds, warehouse, pools and transportation by 28, according to the resolution. Staff members shared their concerns at Tuesday’s board meeting about classified staff positions and cutting language development specialists.

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Hundreds call on PeaceHealth to reverse advance care cuts — Following PeaceHealth’s latest round of cuts in February that effectively shuttered its advance care planning program, hundreds of community members, including doctors and the board of directors for the Northwest Washington Medical Society, are calling on hospital leaders to reverse course. Over 400 people, including more than three dozen doctors and nurses, in addition to the medical society board, signed a letter sent to hospital leaders on Tuesday asking PeaceHealth to reinstate the four advance care coordinators and two social workers cut in February…The latest round of community pushback in Bellingham comes as PeaceHealth is facing significant employee and public disapproval in Lane County, Oregon, where it operates another hospital. The health system’s decision to oust a longstanding local emergency department physician group and bring in an out-of-state corporation sparked a “no confidence” vote by hospital staff.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From The Hollywood Reporter — CBS News 24/7 Writers Pledge to Strike If Contract Negotiations Go South — The bargaining unit at CBS News’ free streaming network delivered a strike pledge on Tuesday calling for “a fair deal with our union by the end of today.” Tuesday marks the last scheduled bargaining date for the group of writers, producers and graphic designers, who are represented by the Writers Guild of America East. Ninety-five percent of the 60-member bargaining unit signed the pledge, which called for the company to “meet us where we are at on our most important issues” including guaranteed wage increases, overtime directives, union jurisdiction and work from home policies.

► From Front Office Sports — WNBA and Players Meet for Overnight CBA Talks, No Deal Yet — WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson told reporters outside the Langham, “I would describe the last 10 or 11 hours as a lot of conversation going in the right direction.” When asked whether there was any indication a deal would be reached in the coming days, Jackson said, “The only thing I’m going to say on that is the conversations are continuing.”

► From the Hollywood Reporter — Motion Capture Workers at ‘NBA 2K’ Studio Ratify First Union Contract With IATSE — Motion capture workers employed by the video game company behind NBA 2K and WWE 2K have ratified their first labor contract in a move that union IATSE is calling historic…The new deal establishes wage minimums as well as annual wage increases and bonuses. The contract additionally enshrines work-from-home and leave policies, staffing and subcontracting language and “an enforceable promotions framework,” IATSE stated. The contract also creates guardrails for the use of scanned likeness and artificial intelligence.

NATIONAL

► From OPB — Immigration detention on track for deadliest fiscal year since 2004 — More people have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since October — 23 — than died in the whole prior fiscal year. The most recent death was of a 56-year-old Haitian man held at an immigration detention center in Arizona. He died in a hospital after going into septic shock…“The abhorrent and worsening conditions in detention centers, gross negligence, and a complete lack of oversight have contributed to yet another grim record for deaths in ICE custody,” said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant rights defense organization. “As a country, we cannot accept that death in federal custody is an acceptable or inevitable outcome of American immigration policy.”

► From KTVB — Waymo restricts some routes after viral video shows car had a near miss with Texas train — The video circulating on social media was taken at a crossing on East Koenig Lane, just before Airport Boulevard. It shows the CapMetro train narrowly avoiding the Waymo as it moves through…The autonomous vehicles have come under scrutiny after one was filmed blocking an ambulance responding to the deadly mass shooting on West Sixth Street in Downtown Austin. An Austin police officer eventually was able to access the car and move it into the driveway of a parking garage.

► From Med Page Today — OPINION: I’m an Emergency Doctor Who Mops Floors and Starts IVs During Strikes  — But there’s a pitfall to this debate about ethics: it generally fails to account for the conditions in which healthcare strikes now occur. Until the 1980s, owned their practices. Then private corporations began acquiring healthcare assets, including physician practices, hospitals, nursing homes, and pharmacies. By 2023, were employed by a hospital, corporation, or private equity firm. These corporations are accountable to their shareholders, so the interests of patients and the healthcare workforce fall second to their primary motive: profit…I find myself wondering whether healthcare unions — with their emphasis on economic equality, patient care, and clinician autonomy — are one of the few remaining counterbalances to corporate medicine…There was a time when I resented healthcare strikes. Over the years, I’ve come to a more nuanced opinion — a realization that these strikes are best understood as a window into the broader underlying trends in healthcare and its many stakeholders. Increasingly, I also suspect the short-term inconvenience of healthcare strikes is probably outweighed by their long-term benefits for patients.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — WA income tax clears House after 24-hour debate — The state is one of nine that do not levy a personal income tax, relying instead mainly on sales and business taxes. The tax code has been ranked as among the nation’s most regressive, meaning it taxes wealthy people relatively lightly compared with poorer residents. Democrats said the historic vote will help fix that inequity while bringing in billions of dollars for schools, health care and child care. Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek, the chair of the House Finance Committee, who helped shepherd the bill through the House vote, said the state is struggling to fund such vital services “and we are in desperate need of structural tax reform, foundational tax reform.”

► From KUOW — Seattle bans new ICE detention centers for 1 year — The City of Seattle has passed an emergency, one-year ban on new ICE detention centers. The issue gained urgency after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put out a notice that it was looking for more detention space, including in the Northwest…Council members said they worried that a new detention center in the region would also bring an increased presence of immigration officers on the streets. “This impacts all of us, regardless of immigration status,” Mercedes Rinck said. “ I refuse to be complicit in letting human rights violations happen within our city, under our watch, and we are not alone in this. With so many jurisdictions passing similar legislation within our region and more are on the way.”

► From the Hill — OPINION: Shutdowns just stop paychecks, they don’t really shut government down — Let’s stop the charade. What Washington calls a “government shutdown” is not shutting down most of the government. It is only shutting down pay for hardworking people. Congress should fix this injustice once and for all…I saw the human toll firsthand during the 43-day shutdown that began on Oct. 1, when federal employees, including many from my union, American Federation of Government Employees, stood in line at a food bank in suburban Maryland. Many drained their savings. Others took out loans. Some missed rent and car payments.

► From CNN — Republicans face a growing conundrum on the ‘Save America Act’ — Congressional Republicans have spent years playing into President Donald Trump’s wild claims about undocumented immigrants and illegal voting…As the 2026 midterm elections approach, though, it’s looking more and more like Republicans could come to regret feeding this particular beast. The party appears stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the legislation the GOP has dubbed the “SAVE America Act” to address this purported problem…Trump, meanwhile, is asking that it include more unrelated ideas, including restrictions on transgender athletes and gender identity care for minors, as well as prohibiting mail-in voting. He wagered Monday that some of those policies are so popular that Democrats will have to vote for the legislation, even though that appears very unlikely. “So we added those two points,” Trump said. “We’re going for the gold, and we’re going to have to fight like hell.”

► From Common Dreams — ‘Massive, Illegal, and Horrific Breach’: Ex-DOGE Staffer Allegedly Stole Social Security Data — The ex-DOGE staffer allegedly told multiple colleagues that he possessed two key databases of sensitive information on over 500 million living and dead US citizens, “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” and once he removed personal details, he wanted to plug the remaining data into his company’s system.

► From 19th News — A record share of U.S. workers now have access to paid leave — A third of American workers now have access to some form of government-issued paid leave — the biggest share ever. The United States is one of only a handful of countries that doesn’t have a federal paid leave policy offering workers paid time off after the birth of a child or to seek medical care, for example, and access to unpaid leave is only about 30 years old. In that dearth of federal action, states have moved ahead to pass 14 paid leave laws since 2002, which now cover a third of the population. Ten of those were passed in the past decade, as support for paid leave has risen; three go into effect this year.

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