SBWU files ULPs | TSA workers | Women in the trades

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

LOCAL

► From the Seattle Times — Starbucks will shutter five Seattle stores. Is your cafe closing? — The affected stores are located on First Hill, in the University District, in the Seattle Center Armory, in Seattle Children’s hospital and in the Metropolitan Park East building downtown. Except for the Met Park East tower location, workers at each of these coffeehouses are represented by Starbucks Workers United, the union made up of thousands of baristas…Starbucks Workers United responded by filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board last week. It’s pushing the company to bargain about the store closures, a union spokesperson said Monday.

► From My Northwest — Seattle Civil Rights Director on leave amid slew of HR complaints — The union PROTEC17 filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging the review process is compromised. The union noted that Wheeler‑Smith alerted HR leadership to complaints before interviews began, and that at least one employee withdrew from participation due to fear of retaliation. The EEOC filing also cited threats from community members tied to the director, which reportedly discouraged staff cooperation. “The employee subsequently received threats from community members associated with the director,” according to the EEOC complaint.

► From OPB — Portland State declares financial crisis, reveals plan to cut or reduce 19 departments — Tenured faculty, whose jobs are typically considered permanent, could find their positions on the cutting room floor too. “It’s just a decimation of some of the most crucial forms of learning that we offer students here,” said PSU-AAUP President Bill Knight about the list of possible department cuts. “I think we’re abdicating responsibility to take this much more seriously and much more patiently than we are,” he said…Some faculty whose jobs were cut last school year were recently reinstated after an independent arbitrator found the university did not follow the correct layoffs procedure outlined in the PSU-AAUP contract.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From USA Today — WNBA CBA deadline passes without new deal: Here’s what we know — The league said Tuesday, March 10, is the date a term sheet for a new CBA must be completed in order to avoid a delay in the start of the 2026 season, which is scheduled to tip off May 8. There’s been movement from both sides as the deadline approached as the WNBA and WNBPA swapped counterproposals over the weekend. But, as of Tuesday morning, there is no deal. Will there be a 2026 season? Will the players go on strike? What’s next for the WNBA? Here’s everything you need to know as the latest CBA deadline has passed without a new deal.

► From Colorado Public Radio — JBS workers give notice of planned strike on Monday — According to the union, its bargaining committee met more than two dozen times with JBS as the negotiations continued. The sticking points include safety equipment, wages that reflect the cost of living, and the rising cost of health care premiums.  Today’s announcement fulfills the union’s required seven-day notice that the contract extension has been canceled. The last contract expired in July 2025…Cordova claimed that JBS has violated labor law by intimidating workers and conducting “regressive bargaining,” taking away or reducing previous offers. The union has filed multiple unfair labor practice charges against JBS. The meat-processing plant in northern Colorado is JBS’s largest beef processing site in the U.S.

ORGANIZING

► From Current Affairs — Current Affairs has Unionized with the Chicago News Guild — We, the staff of Current Affairs, are pleased to announce that we have unionized with the Chicago News Guild (Local 34071), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America and the AFL-CIO. We received immediate voluntary recognition from our editor-in-chief, Nathan J. Robinson, and the Current Affairs board of directors, and are grateful for their support and cooperation as we take this step forward…As a magazine of the political left, we’re also proud to be joining the wider American union movement at a pivotal time in history. Unionization will allow us to preserve the magazine’s editorial independence and continue serving our readers with integrity in the years to come.

► From the Hollywood Reporter — Video Game Developer Heart Machine Voluntarily Recognizes Staff Union — The developer behind 2021’s Solar Ash and 2016’s Hyper Light Drifter agreed to recognize a wall-to-wall union representing all non-managerial employees, the Communications Workers of America announced on Monday. Previously, the union states, a majority of the workers at the studio signaled their interest in joining CWA. Thirteen employees are included in the bargaining unit, including animators, designers, gameplay engineers, environmental artists and a gameplay tools engineer. Heart Machine is based in L.A. and the union will be under the umbrella of Burbank-based CWA Local 9003.

NATIONAL

► From MS Now — The system is failing TSA workers — and travelers are paying the price — Those lines were not a fluke. They were a warning about what happens when the people responsible for keeping our aviation system safe are forced to choose between performing a public service that keeps us all safe for no pay, or flipping burgers with pay. Across the country, Transportation and Security Agency officers are once again being asked to report to work without a paycheck. In the most recent pay period, many officers received only a fraction of their normal pay. Some members of the American Federation of Government Employees took home as little as $5. Now, the checks have stopped entirely.

► From WCIA — ‘I hope to increase the visibility of women in the trades’: female electricians paving the way for more — Only around 3% of electricians are women. Cara Siegel and Kendall Townsend are two of them, and they’re shattering glass ceilings. “The word’s getting out, like, ‘Hey, there are women out there doing these jobs, getting these checks,” Siegel said…“I hope to increase the visibility of women in the trades,” Siegel said. Townsend is following in her footsteps. “I just hope that more women coming out of high school and women who have had a different career, that they know that they are more than welcome and that their home can also be the IBEW or any other trade,” Townsend said.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From KING 5 — Overnight debate over Washington income tax for millionaires continues into Tuesday — Republicans filed dozens of amendments to the bill in an effort to slow or derail its passage…Rep. April Berg, D-Everett, chair of the House Finance Committee, said she expressed confidence in the bill’s passage and defended its significance. “This is a 100-year change to our tax code and it’s much needed,” said Berg. “We have a very regressive tax code that is not doing anything for Washington families.” Berg added that revenue generated by the tax beginning in 2029 would fund schools, health care, higher education institutions, and public safety.

► From the Washington State Standard — Nannies, housekeepers and other domestic workers to gain state protections in WA — Ana Bello has been working as a domestic worker in the United States for around five years. Today, she is celebrating what she sees as basic rights for the profession. When she arrived in the United States, an employer retained her legal documents to prevent her from finding work elsewhere. This bill prohibits that practice. “There are many people who still view you as a slave,” Bello said in Spanish. “When you don’t know the laws … the world closes in on you. You don’t have identification, you can’t get another job. It’s a way to retain not only your papers but yourself.”

► From the Washington State Standard — Seattle litigator appointed to Washington Supreme Court — Angelis, a partner at K&L Gates, has degrees from Claremont McKenna College, the London School of Economics, Oxford University and Yale Law School. He clerked on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals before joining the Seattle firm.  At K&L Gates, he focuses on intellectual property litigation, with experience representing companies from the United States and Asia. Ferguson emphasized Angelis’ pro bono work representing immigrants seeking asylum. He has also challenged the federal government’s practice of requiring children to represent themselves in immigration court if they couldn’t afford a lawyer.

► From the Washington Post — After slashing federal jobs, Trump administration ramps up hiring — A year after Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency allies purged hundreds of thousands of federal employees, the Trump administration is ramping up hiring — a reversal that reflects a quiet retreat from one of the president’s defining early priorities and marks a new phase in efforts to reshape the bureaucracy in his image…The hiring push is unfolding under new rules designed to give the White House greater influence over the government’s 2 million-person civilian workforce. The administration has lifted restrictions imposed during last year’s reductions and created job classifications that make it easier to hire employees aligned with the president’s priorities — and fire those who aren’t.

► From Safety & Health Magazine — Bipartisan Railway Safety Act reintroduced in the Senate — “It has been over three years since the Norfolk Southern derailment disaster in East Palestine OH, and it is past time for Congress to act,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), bill co-sponsor and ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in the release…“Railroads move our crops, power our economy and connect our rural communities to the world,” Marshall said in a separate release. “But with that responsibility comes a duty to operate safely. The Railway Safety Act incorporates lessons learned from the derailment in East Palestine, OH, and ensures stronger safeguards and meaningful accountability for violations.” 

INTERNATIONAL

► From PYOK — Another Flight Attendant Strike at Lufthansa Could Be On The Horizon As Airline Demands ‘Radical Overhaul’ of Work Rules — The airline has been in talks with the main UFO flight attendant union on a new framework collective agreement, which covers rules of employment like working hours, rest periods, and sick pay provisions…Lufthansa flight attendants took part in a massive one-day ‘warning strike’ last month in protest at the airline’s plans to shutter a short-haul subsidiary known as Lufthansa CityLine because flight attendants have a contract that chief executive Carsten Sphor no longer thinks is competitive.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the New York Times — Billionaires Made 19% of Federal Election Campaign Contributions in 2024 — The Times analysis found that 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees. Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise…For every dollar donated by billionaires and their immediate families to a candidate or committee associated with Democrats, five dollars went to Republicans. Much of that was a result of ultrawealthy people in the tech industry, who aligned with Mr. Trump’s tax and deregulation policies. More than a dozen billionaires were awarded roles in his administration.

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