NEWS ROUNDUP

SBWU negotiations | REI goes mask off | Goodbye session

Friday, March 13, 2026

 

STRIKES

► From Bloomberg —  Starbucks Union Says It’s Working With Company to Revive Contract Talks — “We are in conversation with the company about the road back to the bargaining table,” barista Jasmine Leli said in an emailed statement from Starbucks Workers United, which represents about 600 of the chain’s roughly 10,000 company-run stores. The union made a new comprehensive contract proposal last month, and the two sides are discussing how to revive negotiations, a union spokesperson said…Workers United’s latest proposal includes a $17 minimum wage, 4% annual raises and a requirement that at least three staffers be scheduled to work the floor whenever a café is open, according to the union.

► From Starbucks Workers United:

► From Higher Ed Dive — Portland Community College faculty and staff unions go on strike — “The strike authorization vote was not just a procedural step, it was a powerful act of collective organizing,” the faculty union said at the time. It has since accused the college of union-busting activities and improperly asking employees to self-report their strike participation.

 

LOCAL

► From KNKX — King County leaders declare support for REI Union as company cuts benefits — For the past six months, unionized REI workers have been under an agreement to avoid publicly disparaging the company as the two parties try to hammer out a first contract for the outdoor retailer’s 11 unionized stores. Negotiations hit a wall in February. When the agreement to stay silent ended Wednesday, the union workers had a lot to say. “REI has not been the wholesome, friendly co-op they market themselves as,” said Alex Pollitt, a worker at the unionized REI store in Bellingham. “At the table, they ripped off their mask and showed us who they are.”

► From UNITE HERE Local 8:

► From the Guardian — ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony — US immigration agents in Oregon used a custom-made app to identify neighborhoods and people to target, and had daily arrest quotas they sought to meet during operations, courtroom testimony has revealed…JB testified that officers had started the day by surveilling an apartment complex. He suggested officers choose the location in part based on intelligence from an app called Elite. It’s unclear the exact role Elite played in identifying the area as a target – another officer testified that the ICE field office in Portland had provided “intelligence” that led them to visit the site. But JB explained that Elite was a “newer app” given to ICE agents. The app, he said, is “kind of like Google Maps” and shows how many individuals with an “immigration nexus” are believed to be in a certain area. Another officer testified that a “nexus” could mean any history of contact with immigration officials, which could include a naturalized US citizen.

► From IAM 751:

 

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Pentagon wants Boeing, others to build more weapons. It won’t be easy — Boeing’s defense division is smaller than its commercial business. Boeing Defense, Space and Security accounted for about $27.2 billion in revenue last year, while its commercial airplanes business reported $41.5 billion…Greg Autry, a business professor at the University of Central Florida, said the largest hurdle to increasing production is skilled labor. “There aren’t enough people with engineering skills,” Autry said. “You can’t have an economy that only builds the F-35,” Lockheed Martin’s stealth fighter jet. “You don’t have people learning to do the basic skills.”

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Freight Waves — Amazon partner airline ATI, pilots agree on provisional 4-year contract  — The union representing pilots at Air Transport International, an Ohio-based airline that operates more than 40 Boeing 767 cargo jets in Amazon’s air logistics network, said Friday it has reached a tentative labor agreement with the company after more than five years of contentious negotiations. The current contract was eligible to be updated in March 2021. The new labor agreement provides about $114 million in value for the company’s 550 pilots over its four-year span, including improvements to compensation, scheduling and retirement, the Air Line Pilots Association said in a news release.

► From Front Office Sports — WNBA CBA Talks Drag Late Into Night 3 With No Deal — The WNBA and WNBPA returned to the bargaining table on Thursday for the third consecutive day of in-person discussions. As of 1 a.m., there was still no deal. In total, both sides have been engaged in negotiations for more than 30 hours over the last three days in an effort to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement. More than nine proposals have been exchanged, including one from the league that offered a higher salary cap but the same revenue-sharing system.

 

ORGANIZING

► From Spectrum News — Nevada brothel workers say they were fired for organizing union — Wylder said she was fired within 24 hours of doing an interview with The Associated Press about unionization efforts. In a statement, Sheri’s Ranch denied that the terminations were related to union activity and said the decisions were made for legitimate business reasons. Labor experts say the case could hinge on whether the workers are legally considered independent contractors or employees, a distinction that determines union eligibility under federal law. The brothel maintains that its workers are properly classified as independent contractors. The women say their goal is not to shut down the brothel, but to return to work under a negotiated contract.

 

NATIONAL

► From Retail Dive — REI cuts compensation as labor talks break down — After presenting its “last, best, and final offer,” REI said by email that it declared an impasse, a legal designation that allows a company to institute changes without the union’s blessing. The union is challenging that, calling the impasse illegal and noting that the negotiations have produced 25 tentative agreements…Laughton’s memo went out during the negotiating process, a move the union characterized as “a key marker of bad-faith bargaining.” “Among many others, they cut our retirement, our health care, our vacation days, holiday pay for part-time workers, plus the personal and unpaid time we’ve always set aside to go outside and return with real experience that we could pass on to our members,” REI Bellingham store worker Alex Pollitt said in a statement. “It’s like they think the outdoors are only for the people who can afford it.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — WA legislative session ends with budgets passed and a dash of drama — Democratic budget writers negotiated the final details of that spending plan, which makes changes to the $77.8 billion two-year budget approved last year that covers state funding from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2027. It is precariously balanced through the combination of one-time maneuvers, a big withdrawal from the rainy day reserves and slashing of child care and early learning funding. And there is a $878 million budget hole lawmakers will need to confront next year…The biggest pots of new spending deal with addressing the state’s growing lawsuit payouts for government misconduct and grappling with major federal changes to safety net programs. The budget relies on little new revenue, just from eliminating some tax breaks.

► From the American Prospect — Killing Kids in Iran While Kids in the U.S. Go Hungry — It’s been two and half years since JC Bengtson lost his job as an autoworker when the Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois, idled. He’s been waiting to go back to work ever since as his union local, United Autoworkers Local 1268, pushes for a reopening. In the meantime, he’s been volunteering once a month with the union’s food distribution program that it operates with a local food bank…When I asked him how he feels about the money the Trump administration is now putting toward war with Iran, he told me, “People just want a shot at the American dream, and by taking money that could be for jobs, training, education, health care, basic needs, and putting it into bombs and missiles, there’s a word for it. It’s obscene.”

► From CNBC — Trump-backed SAVE America Act will get a Senate vote next week, Thune says — For months Trump, GOP hardliners and online influencers like Elon Musk have railed against opponents of the bill and called repeatedly for a change to the Senate filibuster rule to ensure passage in the upper chamber. Thune supports the legislation but has rejected those calls, saying changing Senate procedure could have unintended consequences. Speaking from the Senate floor Thursday, he made no mention of changing the chamber’s rules, all but assuring the proposal will not pass.

► From AFGE:

► From KUOW — The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant truckers shifts into higher gear — Rivera is part of a lawsuit seeking to block proposed regulations from the Department of Transportation. The changes were sought by the Trump administration, which wants to make it harder for immigrants with temporary legal status to get commercial driver’s licenses after several high-profile crashes involving foreign-born drivers. But the administration’s critics say that would do little to make the nation’s roads safer…”Everybody who gets a commercial driver’s license has to pass all the same tests, has to do all the same training,” Liu said during an interview. “Prohibiting them from having these licenses based on their immigration status just doesn’t make any sense.” Liu says every fatal crash is a tragedy. But the right response is to get unsafe drivers off the road, regardless of where they were born.

 

JOLT OF JOY

Goodbye session, it’s been nice. We’ll meet again in 303 days….but who’s counting.

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