WA unions | ProPublica strike | College grads turn to labor

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

ProPublica workers are on strike today; no ProPublica articles will be included in the News Roundup

STRIKES

► From the ProPublica Guild:

Our members are on the picket line today demanding a fair contract now! We want a fair disciplinary process, layoff protections & guardrails on artificial intelligence. Support us by donating to our strike fund: https://t.co/mxvk5nUrWR pic.twitter.com/zyU2I32lta

— ProPublica Guild (@propublicaguild) April 8, 2026

► From the New York Times — ProPublica Journalists Strike for a Day, Partly Over A.I.  — ProPublica journalists walked off the job on Wednesday, for 24 hours, after more than two years of negotiations that failed to yield a deal for a union contract. It was the first major labor action at ProPublica, one of the country’s largest nonprofit newsrooms…Newsrooms around the country are grappling with similar issues over the use of A.I. in reporting, editing and disseminating journalism. Some embarrassing errors, such as Bloomberg’s corrections for A.I.-generated summaries or the inadvertent publication of A.I.-written articles, have raised the stakes. Collective bargaining agreements at unionized newsrooms increasingly contain language that offer protections against replacing jobs with A.I. and guardrails for its use.

LOCAL

► From Cascade PBS — The fight continues: a look at union efforts in Washington state — Nationally, unions are in a tough spot, according to the Associate Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, Andrew Hedden at the University of Washington. But Washington has the 3rd highest union density in the country. Hedden says that means the state is a comparatively good place for unionized workers. “The union density in the United States, that’s the percentage of members of workers who are in a union, is at a historical low. It’s around 10% of the workforce in the United States belongs to a union. And the numbers are even lower for workers in the private sector. Washington state, however, is a bit of an exception to that. Its workforce is about 18% union,” Hedden said.

► From KOMO — 87,000 work-zone speed violations in a year; WSDOT marks 61 worker deaths — Hours after the crash, WSDOT held a memorial in which each cone was marked with a white rose to signify each of the 61 workers the agency has lost on the job since 1950. WSDOT said there were 1,557 work zone-related crashes statewide in 2025. The agency said the top three causes were speeding, distracted driving, and following too closely. Josh Quilici, a WSDOT highway maintenance worker, said he was injured in a crash earlier this year that kept him off the job for weeks. “But this wasn’t my first close call, it was the second time in three years I’d been hit by a suspected impaired driver while simply doing my job,” Quilici said.

► From KING 5 — ICE raids rattle Washington farmers who backed Trump’s immigration promises — At one Whatcom County farm, owners initially allowed ICE agents into their fields after being told agents were searching for “dangerous criminals” among the farmworker population. But what they witnessed changed their perspective…Kraght recently had two longtime workers picked up by immigration agents and deported — hardworking family men he’s known for more than a decade…Kraght, a self-described “right-winger,” says he believed President Trump when he said agents were only going after the “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants. “As far as I can tell from what comes out of Trump’s mouth, they’re not supposed to be taking innocent people — good, hardworking, innocent people that we need,” Kraght said. “I’ve been knocked on my butt, I’ll admit it. I’m really disappointed.”

AEROSPACE

► From the Everett Herald — Boeing readies Everett for 737 MAX production line this summer — As Boeing prepares to open the Everett 737 MAX production line this summer, the company is focused on hiring and training the hundreds of employees who will work on the North Line. The North Line in Everett, where the company will manufacture 737s for the first time, will be capable of building all 737 MAX models, but will initially focus on producing the 737 Max 8, 9 and 10, according to a Boeing press release…The Everett production line will replicate the 737 MAX build process used in the Renton factory, aside from introducing the 737 Wing Transport Tool, which will “ferry partially completed wings for final assembly in Everett,” the release said. The team will include newly hired employees and existing teammates from Renton, Everett and Moses Lake, the release said.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Axios — NYT union tells management its AI standards are “woefully inadequate”  — The New York Times’ editorial union leaders on Tuesday sent a letter to management arguing its artificial intelligence standards are “woefully inadequate” and too vague, which has led to editorial problems and trust issues.  AI is one of several sticking points in a contract dispute between management and the guild…”Our dedicated human journalists — including and especially the Times Guild’s 1,500 members — make this paper a reliable source for millions of subscribers who want quality reporting and commentary. When The Times instead publishes A.I.-generated work, intentionally or not, our readers lose trust in what we do. This is unacceptable,” it adds.

► From Aviation A2Z — Delta Air Lines Pilots Push for New Contract as $465/Hour Pay Gap Narrows — The pilots’ opening proposal covers a broad set of priorities: scope provisions, pay rates, retirement and vacation improvements, better layover hotels, higher non-revenue travel priority, improved commuting and deadheading terms, and greater schedule flexibility…Under the U.S. Railway Labor Act, pilot contracts do not expire in the traditional sense. They remain in force until both sides ratify a new agreement, which makes early bargaining essential. The history of the last Delta contract illustrates just how long this process can take.

► From KTLA — Major Los Angeles Unified School District strike could happen next week — Employees at L.A. schools are one week away from a historic employee walkout, which would involve three major unions that represent not only teachers, but also most non-teaching staff and administrators, including principals and assistant principals.

The strike, tentatively scheduled for April 14, would make it impossible to keep all campuses in the nation’s second-largest school district open, even if one union decides not to walk off the job, LAUSD officials say.

NATIONAL

► From the New Republic — The Disillusioned College Grads Turning to the Labor Movement — In Mutiny, Scheiber reports in depth on multiracial, cross-class organizing campaigns at Starbucks, Apple stores, video game design studios, and among screenwriters for television. These campaigns were not entirely composed of college-educated people, but many of their participants certainly fit the bill. The story of a highly educated yet disillusioned generation has been told repeatedly since roughly 2011, when Occupy Wall Street gave voice to the frustration of a struggling mass of college debtors, unemployed degree holders, and others…The workplace-organizing campaigns that Scheiber traces are particularly notable because, for generations, college-educated Americans did not tend to throw in their lot with unions. These efforts and their successes, he suggests, not only illuminate the changing fortunes of the college-educated; they also might open a new front to the labor movement.

► From CNBC — Using AI can add extra labor and cause ‘brain fry’ for workers, experts say: It’s not a ‘magic bullet’ — But there’s a disconnect between leaders’ enthusiasm and expectations around AI and employees’ actual experiences, says Dennis Stolle, head of applied psychology at the American Psychological Association. A January survey from AI consulting firm Section found that 74% of the C-suite reported feeling “excited” about AI, while 68% of individual contributors reported feeling “anxious or overwhelmed.” It takes a lot of human labor and oversight to produce quality results with AI, some workers tell CNBC Make It, not to mention the time and effort employees expend learning how to use the tools in the first place. Moreover, using AI can itself create a kind of mental strain and fatigue called “brain fry,” according to a recent study.

► From Supply Chain Dive — UPS sets limits on driver buyouts in deal with Teamsters union — The Teamsters sued UPS in February over claims the latest buyout plan violated the union’s labor contract, a case UPS eventually won. Although a judge cleared UPS to proceed with the buyouts, the initiative still faced opposition among some Teamsters locals, leading UPS to roll back the program across 13 states in the company’s central region…In addition to the buyout limitations, the Teamsters said UPS has agreed not to pursue or offer any other severance programs for the duration of its current national master contract with the union, which doesn’t expire until July 31, 2028.

► From the AP — US still wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, despite new agreement with Costa Rica — U.S. government attorneys on Tuesday told a federal judge the Department of Homeland Security still intends to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, despite a new agreement with Costa Rica to accept deportees who cannot legally be returned to their home countries…At a Tuesday hearing in Xinis’ court, Ernesto Molina, director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation, suggested that Abrego Garcia could “remove himself” to Costa Rica. Xinis pointed out that the DOJ is prosecuting him in Tennessee on human smuggling charges. She called it a “fantasy” to say that he can remove himself anywhere while the criminal case is pending.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — To Boost Military Budget, Trump Targets Popular Programs at Home — Mr. Trump has eyed a series of potentially unpopular and divisive domestic spending cuts for the next fiscal year, in a move that may test the political appetite and financial health of a cost-weary American public. Even as voters grow frustrated with the economy — and seem eager to exact their vengeance at the ballot box — the president has proposed to scale back some of the very federal programs that are meant to ease families’ toughest financial burdens.

► From Punchbowl News — Tech: Kelly, Fitzpatrick push Trump on AFL-CIO AI views — Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) are urging President Donald Trump to incorporate the AFL-CIO’s principles on artificial intelligence in the workplace into a wide array of labor policy-making. “Artificial intelligence can support innovation, new industries, and expanded opportunity, but its impact will ultimately be determined by the working people whose skill and judgment put those tools to use,” the bipartisan lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Trump, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and other administration officials.

► From Bloomberg Law — NLRB Declines to Axe Biden-Era Severance Pact Policy for Now — The Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board declined to overturn a heavily scrutinized 2023 precedent that banned severance agreements with overly broad or restrictive language because they lack a three-member majority. The NLRB on Tuesday upheld an administrative law judge who relied on the board’s McLaren Macomb decision to find that Prime Communications LP’s severance agreement violated federal labor law. In McLaren Macomb, a Democrat-controlled panel ruled that a severance agreement violates labor law if its terms interfere with workers’ organizing rights.

► From the Washington State Standard — Months later, DOJ lawsuit to obtain WA voter rolls can move forward — The state has until May 12 to respond, attorney general’s office spokesperson Mike Faulk said. Faulk declined to comment on the saga to get the case started, saying only, “I think it speaks for itself.” “The improper handling of a lawsuit dealing with something as important as voters’ protected information, and a lack of transparency in how that information would be used, does not give us confidence that voter data would be handled with the care it requires,” said Randolph, from Hobbs’ office.

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