‘Sell your f*ing yachts’ | Teamsters strike | Farmworkers

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

STRIKES

► From KIMA — Workers strike at Welch’s plant in Grandview over first-year wages — Rick Salinas, the Secretary Treasurer for Local 760, explained their goals with the strike. “The strike today is all economically based, and it’s particularly based on first-year wages between what the company brought forward out of negotiations and what this bargaining unit feels that they need to come back to work for year one wage,” Salinas said. The strike followed bargaining sessions late last week. Union leaders said Welch’s presented what it called its “last, best, and final offer,” which workers rejected in a vote last Saturday. “We had a bargaining this past week, Wednesday and Thursday. We brought this group a contract to vote on Saturday morning, which is when the decision was made to reject the company’s last best and final offer,” Salinas said.

► From KOIN — PCC strike enters third week, delayed start to spring term possible — Negotiators are still at the table as the historic strike at Portland Community College enters its third week…More than 2,000 workers walked off the job back on March 11. That includes Kelsey Loy, a part-time math instructor at PCC’s Sylvania Campus, who also teaches online through the Cascade Campus. “It’s been a rough two weeks, going on three weeks,” she told KOIN 6 News. “And I miss being in the classroom with my students.” Late Monday, PCC offered a new contract with a total 5% cost-of-living raise over two years, plus higher contributions to employee healthcare.

LOCAL

► From KUOW — Between ICE and a hard place: WA farmworkers fear deportation, family separation — While the pay for farmwork stays the same, the cost of groceries, heat, and rent continues to climb. “We have to stretch every dollar we earn,” the husband said. “We live with the strain every day now.” Adding to that financial strain is the very real possibility that the couple could be apprehended by ICE and deported to Oaxaca, where both were born but where neither of them has lived since they were children…The couple said their stress is starting to affect their children, who find it increasingly difficult to focus on school. “It’s sad to see that because we’re supposed to be happy in this world, regardless of our immigration status,” the Oaxacan wife said. “We don’t know why the government is acting this way against human beings, who are all equal.”

► From the Seattle Times — Proposal to sell Seattle’s Wood Technology Center draws protest — Faculty said they were told the college is considering selling the building and winding down programs after current students finish, a process that could begin as soon as this fall. But even that timeline appears uncertain, and administrators have not publicly confirmed specifics. “It makes no sense to me,” said Catie Chaplan, lead carpentry instructor and the first woman to graduate from Wood Tech’s boatbuilding program…The center serves about 80 students across carpentry, boatbuilding and pre-apprenticeship programs, with demand far exceeding capacity, Chaplan said. Graduates move into construction, building trades and union apprenticeships, often with direct connections to employers.

► From KUOW — Sea-Tac manages government shutdown turbulence with normal wait times and no ICE — Passenger Sharon Feucht was at SEA Airport Monday, planning to fly to France. She arrived early for TSA, but not just to avoid the lines. “We dropped off some gift cards for the TSA employees,” Feucht said. “I felt like we could help them a little bit… since they’re not getting paid at this time.”…Feucht dropped off grocery gift cards at the airport’s conference center. The Seattle airport has two two donation bins in the conference center where people can leave non-perishable food items. SEA Airport spokesperson Perry Cooper said the response from the community, and airport tenants have been heartfelt.

► From the Spokesman Review — Spokane not included in airports receiving officers from ICE — Officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived Monday at several U.S. airports, but Spokane and Seattle were not among them…Representatives for airports in Atlanta; Cleveland; Newark; New Orleans; New York; Fort Myers, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Phoenix confirmed that ICE officers would be on site Monday. The George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport, both in Houston, also were anticipating some officers, according to the Houston Airports website.

► From OPB — Lawsuit accuses Asante of underpaying thousands of workers in Oregon — A class-action lawsuit filed in Jackson County alleges Asante underpaid employees since at least 2020 by rounding down work hours using a timekeeping software. Juniper Arthurs, a nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, filed the complaint. The suit seeks to represent about 6,000 workers. The lawsuit also alleges Asante failed to calculate and pay required premiums when employees worked more than five consecutive shifts without time off or on consecutive weekends. Staff are entitled to time-and-a-half pay in those situations, according to the complaint. The suit further alleges that the hospital has not paid staff for time worked through 30-minute lunches or 15-minute breaks…Earlier this year, the Oregon Nurses Association said Asante Rogue Regional required staff to give up extra pay before volunteering to fill holes in the facility’s schedule.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the NW Labor Press — Fed up at Alaska Horizon — Horizon is a regional subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, but the company’s 677 flight attendants earn $18,900 to $45,000 a year, about half what their counterparts at Alaska Airlines earn. That’s in part because the company pays based on the length of flights, and Horizon operates primarily short-hop flights to and from the Portland and Sea-Tac airports. The short flights mean flight attendants are doing four or five flights a day. “We have to do the same service. We go to the same places. We live in the same cities. But we’re paid less,” said Lisa Davis-Warren, union president for Horizon’s flight attendant bargaining unit.

► From the AP — WNBA players unanimously approve a new 7-year collective bargaining agreement through 2032 — WNBA players unanimously approved the new collective bargaining agreement on Monday with more than 90% participating in voting over the weekend. The seven-year CBA, which will begin this season and run through 2032, represents a landmark labor deal for the WNBA and its players. “This transformational CBA delivers consequential economic progress and expanded benefits that support players on and off the court,” the union said in a statement. “It builds a stronger foundation for today’s players, the next generation, and those who helped build the WNBA. It affirms the strength of our union and the power of our collective voice.”

ORGANIZING

► From the Nation —  The Underground Movement to Spark Union Organizing From the Inside — When you apply for a job as an “associate” at an Amazon warehouse, you don’t have to attach a résumé or supply references. All you have to provide is your name and your Social Security number, and the automated hiring system conducts a basic background check within minutes…At no point are you asked, “Why do you want to work here?” When I went through these steps in the fall of 2022, my answer would have been “I want to build a union at Amazon.” I was a “salt,” a worker who gets a job in order to organize their workplace. Salting is a long-standing tactic of labor activists who seek to spark organizing from the shop floor. The origins of the term are debated—some say it connotes pouring salt in the wounds of capitalism to aggravate its contradictions. It could also derive from “salting a mine” to extract its valuable minerals (in this case, the collective potential of workers).

► From 19th News — Sex workers are fighting to own their likenesses in an AI world — Lawyers, professors and sex workers who spoke to The Indy say control over image and likeness has always been a sensitive area in adult industries. Those questions are becoming even more crucial today as online adult content grows more lucrative and as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes widespread. Legal sex work in Nevada is changing as a result, making women’s likenesses more profitable but also opening them to new forms of exploitation and abuse. “Whether it’s sex workers, or whether it’s women who are just going about their lives, we have seen enough of what can be done with someone’s likeness,” said Genevieve Dahl, a sex worker who was fired by Sheri’s Ranch for supporting the union push. She pointed to the recent controversy where Grok, the AI tool embedded in X, followed instructions to generate thousands of images of undressed women and children.

NATIONAL

► From Game Developer — Union workers have a message for game industry execs — During the show, I sat down with a handful of union members organized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) banner and asked what they would say to the suits who have spent recent years presiding over mass layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations—all while singing from the generative AI hymn sheet. UVW-CWA secretary Kaitlin Bonfiglio offered a succinct response. “Sell your fucking yachts,” she said. “You don’t need five yachts.”…Aurelia Augusta, president of UVW-CWA, had some equally stark words for leaders who might still be wondering what to make of a recent surge in unionization, which has resulted in the formation of huge wall-to-wall unions at the likes of Microsoft and a notable upswing in UVW-CWA membership. “You need to lear to either let go of the power now, or be forced to let go of it later,” they said. “That’s really the only thing to be said, because the idea that you have the monopoly on brilliance, innovation, talent, and on what the value is in this work is just patently untrue.” 

► From the Guardian — TSA workers try to survive second shutdown and ICE influx: ‘We need to be paid’ — Antoinette Wade, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1047 that represents TSA workers in Louisiana and Mississippi and a TSA officer in Jackson, Mississippi, said the influx of ICE agents has deflated TSA workers, especially as ICE agents continue to be paid during the shutdown. “It definitely impacts morale when were are expected to show up to work every day and fulfill the duties and the missions that we love and support, keeping the public safe, and we’re not being paid,” Wade said. “A lot of people are skeptical about it and definitely offended by it. Basically, we need to be paid.”

► From TV Tech — IBEW Calls for Scrutiny of Skydance-CBS Layoffs and Proposed CNN Merger — “The IBEW is proud of its longstanding partnership with CBS and is deeply troubled to be learning of these developments only now,” the union said in a statement. “CBS works because of the skill, dedication, and professionalism of the IBEW technical and production workers who make its broadcasts possible. The IBEW believes that a workforce of this caliber—and partnership of this duration—warrants direct and transparent communication about decisions that affect the livelihoods of its members.”

► From CBS News — What we know about the deadly runway crash at LaGuardia Airport between a plane and emergency vehicle — A team from the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) is also traveling to support the NTSB. “The loss of our two fellow crewmembers onboard Flight 8646 is a profound tragedy,” said APLA president Jason Ambrosi. “These pilots dedicated their careers to the safe transport of passengers, and we are all thinking of their families, loved ones, and colleagues at Jazz Aviation during this devastating time.”

► From the AP — It’s a bad time to hunt for new jobs, most US workers say in new Gallup poll — Americans’ outlook on the job market has turned increasingly pessimistic, a surprisingly negative shift given the low unemployment rate but one that likely reflects an ongoing hiring drought. Just 28% of workers in a quarterly Gallup survey conducted late last year said now is a “good time” to find a quality job, with 72% saying it is a bad time. Those figures are a sharp reversal from just a few years ago, in mid-2022, when 70% said it was a good time.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Hill — GOP cracks in Senate begin to show in DHS shutdown fight — Images of huge chaotic lines at major airports in Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and New York City caused by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers calling in sick are rattling Republican senators who don’t see an end in sight given the hard lines taken by both the White House and Senate Democrats during the funding stalemate…Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Cruz’s proposal to end the five-week standoff by setting aside funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and reopening the TSA and other critical agencies is gaining momentum in the GOP conference.

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