$86bil revenue | UW walkout | Birthright citizenship

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

STRIKES

► From Forbes — Why JBS Meat Packing Workers Are On A Historic Strike — [UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova] I will tell you here at this JBS plant here in Greeley, the wounds run deep here. This goes back to Covid. We had one of the largest outbreaks during the pandemic, and workers died or got really, really sick. We had a lot of people that were intubated or were in hospitals during the pandemic, and it was due to the company’s lackadaisical response, their lack of safety interventions and protocol…You went from that to, later, allegations of human trafficking here at this plant here in Greeley, and this is their flagship plant. There’s a lawsuit right now. And they were trafficking folks from Benin, West Africa, and folks from Haiti…[JBS is] posted $86 billion in revenue in their last earnings call, none of that extra money is filtering down to the workers who actually do all the heavy lifting for them.

LOCAL

► From the Daily World — UPDATED: Timberland Regional Library Executive Director Cheryl Heywood resigns — Michael Rainey, the president and executive director of AFSCME Local 3758, the union that represents TRL employees, asked the trustees to review the pending layoffs and the application of the collective bargaining agreement between the union and TRL. “The current financial crisis did not happen overnight, and it certainly did not arise because of frontline library workers. This situation is the direct result of management decisions, financial assumptions, and structural choices made over time. Now, 61 frontline workers are being forced to absorb the devastating consequences of decisions they did not make and could not influence.”

► From the Seattle Times — Seattle almost called the National Guard for help — until Trump did elsewhere — “I just don’t think the citizens of Seattle want the military having access to their information,” said Steve Kovac, business representative for IBEW Local 77, which has members in the city’s IT department. On top of concerns about the timing, particularly right before the mayoral election, union representatives also complained about work being “skimmed” away from union members at the city. “Your security staff is already overworked,” Kovac said. “Why not just hire more people?”

► From the Seattle Times — WA cities ban new ICE detention centers amid Trump push to expand — Mystery shrouds the state of the contract between GEO Group and ICE for providing detention services at the Northwest ICE Processing Center. GEO Group’s most recent deal with ICE was signed in 2015 as a one-year contract with an option to renew each year for nine years. The contract awarded GEO Group a minimum of $700 million over 10 years. The contract was set to expire in September last year, but whether the contract was extended remains unclear. Immigration advocates and researchers have widely criticized the lack of transparency over the expected contract renewal. Under federal law, ICE is supposed to proactively publish detention center contracts…One scenario that could explain the lack of information surrounding a new contract has some immigration advocates particularly concerned: the possibility that ICE is seeking to purchase the Tacoma detention center.

► From the Seattle Times — Oracle lays off hundreds in Seattle, again — Oracle laid off 491 Seattle workers Tuesday, part of broader cuts at the company amid increased artificial intelligence spending and a falling stock price this year. Business Insider first reported Tuesday that Oracle was laying off thousands of employees as the company faces pressure from Wall Street to cut costs while pumping billions into AI infrastructure like data centers. Though Oracle is not alone in spending unprecedented money on capital expenditures, among the tech giants, it’s had the worst-performing stock this year as it takes on debt to finance its AI efforts.

► From UFW:

Christmas might be in December but WA workers are planting the trees now. “Mario” says, “I start at 5am and depending on the weather I could be there until 10 at night. I spend the whole day laboring in mud without much rest. It’s hard work but it supports my family.” #WeFeedYou pic.twitter.com/Fq9gy5pDKr

— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) April 1, 2026

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Washington’s space economy powers the Artemis II moonshot — Forty-one Washington companies have a hand in the Artemis program…The Artemis II mission will not only mark the first time humans have left Earth orbit in more than 50 years, it will be the farthest a human has traveled away from Earth, Cantwell said Monday. But the ultimate goal is to continue learning and testing to enable the U.S. to set up its lunar base and eventually reach Mars.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Daily — SEIU 925 librarians, press staff walk out as contract negotiations remain stalled — Negeen Aghassibake, a data management and analysis librarian and member of the bargaining team, said the delay in securing a contract has been “deeply frustrating.” “I think we’re all kind of feeling that frustration and, frankly, at times disrespect for the value we bring,” Aghassibake said. “We’re often told that libraries and press are so valuable, and it’s just not really showing up at the bargaining table.” …Aghassibake emphasized that library workers aimed to avoid a walkout, but felt it was necessary after the extended period of time without a contract.

NATIONAL

► From the Washington Post — Musk has a plan to make human labor obsolete. Billionaires are joining in. — In the utopia proposed by Elon Musk, billions of robots perform all necessary work. A network of autonomous vehicles and humanoids, fueled by solar energy, provide boundless resources. Poverty is eliminated. Work is optional. And the world’s richest person would become the first trillionaire in the process…“Who is putting the trillions of dollars into AI and robotics research and development,” Sanders said in an interview with The Post. “It is the wealthiest people on Earth. It is Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg, Mr. [Larry] Ellison.” “Does anybody in their right mind think that these people are staying up nights worrying about how this transformation is going to benefit ordinary people?”

► From Wired — Tesla Admits Its Robotaxis Are Sometimes Driven by Remote Humans — In a report also released Tuesday, Senator Markey said the new details were not enough. “Every autonomous-vehicle company refused to disclose how often their AVs require assistance from [remote assistants]—hiding key information from the public about their AV’s true level of autonomy,” he wrote. “This information is critical for lawmakers, regulators, and the public to understand the potential safety risks with AVs.”

► From KRBD — Labor union files charges against Ketchikan shipyard operator — “The biggest concern is the deterioration of the pre-existing conditions and benefits that we had negotiated for with the previous operator,” said Local 23 business manager Randy Golding. “With this new operator coming in, all that’s off the table.” The union filed the charges with the National Labor Relations Board, asserting that JAG Ketchikan is not recognizing them or their collective bargaining agreement that was adopted under the previous shipyard operator, Vigor. They allege JAG has made “unilateral changes in terms and conditions of employment” including ending dirty pay, or special pay for work on ship septic systems containing human waste.

► From Reuters — US consumer confidence rises, but job openings and hiring drop sharply — U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly edged up in March, but households remained downbeat on the labor market and anticipated higher inflation over the next 12 months amid a surge in gasoline prices and continued tariff pass-through. That labor market apprehension was underscored by the other data on Tuesday showing fewer job openings in February and hiring tumbling to a six-year low. Economists say lingering uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s trade and immigration ‌policies has undercut demand for and supply of workers, hampering the labor market.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Key Justices Appear Skeptical of Limiting Birthright Citizenship — The question before the court on Wednesday involves the meaning of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War. The amendment reversed one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, the ruling in the 1857 Dred Scott case, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans. The key provision of the amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That language was mirrored by Congress in a 1952 law, and has been understood in court rulings and executive actions for more than a hundred years to guarantee birthright citizenship…The court could leave questions about the meaning of the 14th amendment for another day and instead find that the president’s order violates the 1952 law. That would give the administration an opening to go to Congress to try to limit birthright citizenship through legislation.

► From the AP — Trump signs order directing creation of a national voter list, a move already facing lawsuit threats — The order, which voting law experts say violates the Constitution by attempting to seize states’ power to run elections, is the latest in a torrent of efforts from Trump to interfere with the way Americans vote based on his false allegations of fraud…The order signed Tuesday calls on the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to make the list of eligible voters in each state. It also seeks to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to those not on each state’s approved list.

► From KFF Health News — Trump’s Hunt for Undocumented Medicaid Enrollees Yields Few Violators — Leonardo Cuello, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, said the reviews ordered by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services were unneeded because states check immigration status when people sign up. “It is entirely predictable that all of these burdensome reviews that the federal government is forcing upon states would yield no pay dirt,” Cuello said. “The states had already done the reviews once, and CMS was just making them reverify the same information they had already checked. Making states go through the same bureaucratic process twice is incredibly wasteful and inefficient.”

► From KUOW — Coming soon: Lawsuit challenging Washington state’s ‘millionaires tax’ — Larry Delaney, president of the state teacher’s union and part of the coalition to pass the millionaires tax, told KUOW that he expects the millionaires tax to withstand legal challenges. He pointed to the state’s capital gains tax as an example. Washington’s capital gains tax was challenged on similar grounds, but was upheld by the courts. “Challenges, from many of the same actors that tried to overturn the capital gains tax and failed, are highly anticipated, and we are prepared to fight them again,” Delaney said. “We are confident that once everything is said and done, the Millionaires Tax will be implemented, and millions of kids and working families will benefit from it.”

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