‘Worst safety record’ | ICE at the World Cup | Trump tariff pain

Monday, April 20, 2026

LOCAL

► From the NW Labor Press — Rotschy teaching safety? Say it isn’t so — “Rotschy has one of the worst if not the worst safety records in the State of Washington,” IBEW Local 48 business manager Garth Bachman said in an email to the district superintendent and school board members. “I am not sure how Rotschy was chosen to teach safety but if they indeed were, this contract needs to be retracted and awarded to a company or individual that has a superior safety record.” Mark Wreath, the district’s career and college readiness director, did not respond to attempts to reach him by phone and email. But a district spokesperson said Rotschy won’t be teaching safety after all.

► From the Seattle Times — Seattle union says police agreement on crisis response should be tossed — Seattle’s civilian crisis responders are being illegally squeezed by a contract with the city’s largest police union, a complaint filed with the state on Thursday argues. The agreement was improperly bargained, says an unfair labor practice complaint from PROTEC17, which represents crisis responders housed in the city’s new Community Assisted Response & Engagement department. The two parties who signed it, the city and police union, made unilateral decisions about the scope of the responders’ authority without engaging the union representing CARE’s workers. Therefore, the section regulating crisis response should be tossed out, it says.

► From Spokesman Review — Latino farmworkers face high rates of long COVID but barriers delay diagnosis — Since the pandemic, researchers and physicians, including Chopra, have been studying the long-term effects of COVID-19 and the complications that continue to interfere with daily life. These effects have disproportionately affected some groups of people, such as Latino farmworkers. Chopra said her observations also reflect a broader pattern in the agricultural community, where workers face higher rates of long COVID but often don’t receive a diagnosis.

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Reports of explosion at BP refinery; three people injured — At least three people at BP Cherry Point Refinery in Blaine were injured the morning of Saturday, April 18 after an industrial accident, according to the company…Witnesses at the refinery and in Birch Bay heard an explosion around 10:20 a.m. Employees at the refinery were evacuated. Whatcom County Fire and EMS responded to the incident at 10:25 a.m. and transported the injured employees to a local hospital. In a statement, the organization said it was not involved in incident mitigation.

► From KING 5 — Behind wave of hot dog carts near Seattle stadiums, officials cite ‘organized operations,’ possible labor exploitation — Licensed vendors say the issue extends beyond lost revenue; it is also a matter of civic responsibility. Trice said customers spending money at unpermitted carts may unknowingly be funding exploitation. “The money you’re giving them pays nothing into your kids’ schooling. It doesn’t pay into your sidewalk. And you’re also — you might be exploiting somebody,” Trice said. KING 5 reached out to the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries to ask whether it is investigating the labor exploitation concerns, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

► From the Washington State Standard — Forest Service plan to close research stations stokes fear as wildfire season approaches — “This is research that’s been going on for decades or even a century or more,” said Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for agency workers. “They’re able to see how climate change impacts are playing out in a dry ponderosa forest or a humid hardwood forest. There are research plots and experimental forests that have been diligently studied for decades. This could be a loss of a lot of knowledge.” The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory, for instance, plays a crucial role in issuing wildfire smoke forecasts that are relied on throughout the Northwest. After a hot, dry winter, that work could be critical as a dangerous wildfire season approaches…Some conservation advocates are concerned that the research station closures are aimed at suppressing studies that might show the environmental harms of logging or mining.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the New York Times — NYC Doorman Strike Averted After Agreement Is Reached With Building Owners — Just two days after staging a raucous rally on Park Avenue in Manhattan, a union representing about 34,000 doormen and other residential-building service workers in New York City said it had averted a looming strike by reaching a tentative contract deal with the owners of roughly 3,500 apartment buildings…The union got most of what it sought in the negotiations, including wage increases that would boost salaries by $4.50 an hour over the life of the contract, said Manny Pastreich, the president of 32BJ. He said that the owners had also agreed to continue covering all of the costs of providing health care to the workers and their families, an exceptional benefit that few American workers receive, and to increase pension benefits by 15 percent.

► From WIBC — NIPSCO, USW Reach Tentative Agreement — The two sides started negotiations in January, but couldn’t reach a new collective bargaining agreement by the expiration of their contract on March 31. That led to a weeks-long lockout that began on April 2, which kept over 1,600 people from work. The agreement is pending ratification by union members.

► From WFSE/AFSCME Council 28:

ORGANIZING

► From the Guardian — Employees at first ever Starbucks store seek to unionize amid fight for contract — Nailah Diaz, a Starbucks barista for about five years, three of those at Pike Place, said the Pike Place store can often have lines out the door, with waits up to two hours for tourists to come inside and look around…“I myself have experienced unfair treatment, favoritism, discrimination and harassment with little to no support from management, and for me, joining this fight is me making sure that no one else has to go through what I have,” said Diaz. “We feel personally empowered by each other’s courage, the encouragement of our fellow union baristas and honestly, the unwavering support from our Pike Place Market community.”..Blair said that Starbucks’s record on unionization instills fear in workers of being retaliated against, but the unity in workers coming together to improve their workplace has offset those fears. “I do believe the unity that I have with fellow baristas with me in this cause to really fight for a better workplace is stronger than any fear that could be out there,” Blair said.

NATIONAL

► From the NYT’s Athletic — SoFi stadium workers union files complaint over ICE concerns at the World Cup — A formal complaint has been lodged with the National Labor Relations Board against FIFA and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which accuses the parties of failing to restrict access to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at SoFi Stadium ahead of this summer’s World Cup. The complaint, filed on Thursday and seen by The Athletic, has been made by UNITE HERE Local 11, a union that represents more than 30,000 workers across hotels, airports and sports arenas in Los Angeles and broader Southern California.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Common Dreams — Relief From Trump Tariff Pain Coming for Corporations—But Not Consumers Harmed by High Prices  — The Trump administration on Monday launched a portal designed to facilitate refunds on around $166 billion taken in from tariffs that the US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional earlier this year. But only businesses that directly paid President Donald Trump’s sweeping import taxes are eligible for relief—not the millions of Americans who paid higher prices as a result of the illegal tariffs. As The New York Times observed, “The extent to which consumers realize any gain hinges on whether businesses share the proceeds, something that few have publicly committed to do.”

► From the Hill — Critics of Education Department changes see difficult path to restore agency after program closures — While opponents have not lost hope the department can be rebuilt, the task becomes more difficult by the day with programs shuttered, thousands of employees fired and some initiatives transferring to completely different federal agencies. “I do think we can and will rebuild, but the how-long or how, I think that’s something that a lot of people are trying to think about and figure out right now,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, the union representing employees at the department. “I wouldn’t be in the job that I’m in if I didn’t believe that rebuilding was a possibility.”

► From the NW Labor Press — Firefighters face the threat of toxins in protective gear — Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — also known as “forever chemicals” for their tendency to persist in the environment and human body — are used to waterproof what firefighters call “turnouts” — the heavy-duty fire-resistant coat, pants, and gloves they put on for protection. And PFAS are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, and immune system damage. International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) estimates that cancer caused 65% of firefighter line-of-duty deaths from 2002 to 2021…For IAFF, getting PFAS out of gear is a top political and legislative priority.

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