NEWS ROUNDUP

Farmworker housing | Abuse at NWDC | USW on TAA

Friday, May 8, 2026

 

LOCAL

► From the Spokesman Review — New farmworker housing project emerges in Sunnyside amid labor and immigration shifts — A hotel in central Washington is being converted to a temporary home for farmworkers as a change in federal law makes it easier to pay them less…Lionor Galindo Cardenas, political legislative coordinator for United Farm Workers, said in a statement that farmworkers are particularly vulnerable and questioned how much workers will be charged for housing. “At a time when so many local resident farmworkers are struggling to find work, it’s concerning that growers are looking to bring in more guest workers, meaning fewer jobs and reduced hours for local residents,” Cardenas said. Maricela Santana-Walle, environmental justice coordinator for We Are Ella, said she also heard similar concerns from local farmworkers. “A lot of stories that I’ve heard from farmworkers is that they’ve had to travel to places near Oregon, you know, going up farther away to look for jobs,” she said.

► From KUOW — Sexual abuse investigations mishandled at Tacoma ICE lockup, UW report finds — Angelina Godoy, director of the human rights center, said the report shows that ICE and GEO group are skirting the rules. “I know what the accountability process is supposed to look like ’cause it’s written down,” she said. “But they have clearly departed from that.” She said rules are in place, but they are being ignored. “They have these elaborate accountability mechanisms and choose simply to ignore them because they assume there will never be any consequence for them,” Godoy said.

► From My Northwest — ‘They cannot just show up unannounced’: ICE gives fiery response after WA sues over blocked inspections at Tacoma facility — However, Mike Faulk, Deputy Communications Director for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, told KIRO Newsradio the department followed the procedures. Faulk cited documents showing Labor and Industries, along with local food inspectors, have conducted announced visits at GEO Group’s facilities for decades. “GEO cannot pick and choose which state inspectors it allows into its facility or which state laws it must comply with,” he stated via email. Faulk added that surprise inspections are required under state law. “Unannounced inspections are what the state law explicitly requires,” he stated. “It seems ironic that ICE would have a problem with unannounced enforcement activities.”

► From the Seattle Times — Don’t ax future light rail stations, residents tell money-strapped Sound Transit — Don’t cancel our train lines. That was the dominant message Thursday from residents who filled Sound Transit’s boardroom, to insist the giant agency keep its 2016 campaign promises to reach Ballard, Issaquah, Tacoma, Everett, West Seattle, and other new destinations, despite a $35 billion funding gap…Colored T-shirts marked people’s interests — light purple for Issaquah, green for Ballard, orange for union laborers, beige for “Build the Damn Trains.”

AEROSPACE

► From KWCH — Union demands transparent investigation into death of Boeing worker — The union representing Boeing machinists in Wichita is demanding a transparent investigation into the death of an employee, Daniel Lussier. Lussier died last month after an accident at the Boeing plant in Wichita. Lussier’s family said he stepped on a crossbeam at work and fell through floorboards, breaking multiple ribs and dying in the hospital, days later…In a new statement, the International Association of Machinists said it will investigate whether proper safety policies were in place at Wichita’s Boeing plant, whether those policies were followed and what corrective actions are needed. The union also said that workers at the plant where Lussier’s accident happened have reported falling through crossbeams before and pointed out other alleged safety deficiencies.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From ABC News — WNBA’s new CBA sets blueprint as emerging women’s leagues chart their own path — As the WNBA begins its season under the new CBA, emerging women’s sports leagues like baseball and hockey are looking at that progress as a promising roadmap for growth. At the same time, leaders of those startup leagues recognize the WNBA’s growth was shaped by decades of player advocacy, work stoppage threats and athletes playing elsewhere to supplement their incomes. “The WNBA is definitely an example of a league that had to grind and keep showing its worth over and over,” said Justine Siegal, co-founder of the WPBL, which debuts in August. “The recognition is overdue and well-deserved. For us as a new women’s pro league, we don’t see it as the beginning. We see it is we’re part of a momentum that fans want to see.”

► From the Stranger — What’s the State of SIFF in 2026? — The Stranger asked SIFF if someone in leadership could speak more about the state of their finances, but they told us they wouldn’t talk about it until after the festival in June. Multiple sources said this raised the greatest unknown in SIFF’s future: What will happen with ongoing contract negotiations with the SIFF Cinema Workers Union? Will the organization, showing an unabashedly pro-union film as its opener, do right by its own union? Will the current floor staff workers, essential to the ongoing operations of the organization, be given a fair contract? That remains to be seen—and, just a few years back, some staff walked out at the conclusion of the 2022 fest.

► From Guy Oron:

► From SF Gate — SF: Airport Union Speaks At Board Of Supervisors Meeting On Working Conditions — The union representing San Francisco International Airport service workers visited the city’s Board of Supervisors on Thursday afternoon to express their frustration about contract negotiations with sub-contracting companies and what they see as retaliation for organizing…”SFO is an exceptionally beautiful airport with a reflection room, art installations, meditation room,” said Cam Roberts, an organizer with SEIU-USWW. “Unfortunately, SFO’s underbelly hides break rooms without water, contracted companies with vans with cockroaches, invisible workers who work without proper safety materials, people who work up to 16 hours a day because of low wages and have precarious housing or head into retirement after decades of work with little financial stability.”

 

ORGANIZING

► From Publisher’s Weekly — Hachette Workers Coalition Goes to Union Election — Hachette Book Group has declined to voluntarily recognize the Hachette Workers Coalition (HWC), which launched last week, prompting employees to formally vote on the union in a National Labor Relations Board election…“We were notified today that HBG is formally denying voluntary recognition of our union,” the Coalition wrote on its Instagram on Tuesday. “We’re disappointed by this choice, given that a supermajority of workers signed cards with a full understanding of the democratic process we’re undertaking. Regardless, we’re undeterred.”

 

NATIONAL

► From the Washington Post — Why young and old men are leaving the labor force at record rates — Labor Department data released Friday showed that 1 in 3 American men were not working or looking for a job in April. The labor market has weakened since early 2025, with most job opportunities concentrated in areas typically dominated by women, including health care and private education. At the same time, several male-dominated industries, including manufacturing, transportation and mining have shed jobs, leaving a mismatch between typical skill sets and job opportunities for men.

► From Labor on the Line:

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Politico — White House distances itself from tighter AI regulation — Senior White House officials are trying to soothe industry concerns that the administration could require tech companies to submit their advanced artificial intelligence models for federal vetting before releasing them to the public. A day after one top White House economic adviser publicly confirmed that such a review was under discussion — likening it Wednesday to the Food and Drug Administration’s yearslong testing of prescription drugs — aides to President Donald Trump were sending a different message: Not so fast.

► From the United Steelworkers — TAA Is a No-Brainer. Yet Here We Are Fighting for It. — I’m livid, too, and so are hundreds of thousands of workers across numerous industries—farming, glass, mining, steel and tires, to name a few—who got kicked in the gut when Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) ended for no reason in 2022. The program’s demise ripped away a lifeline from workers who lose jobs because of the adverse effects of global trade. Prime example: the Iron Range miners, who produce the taconite, or iron ore, that’s used to make steel for an auto industry roiled by trade disputes…King is among the USW activists trying to push Congress into bringing the program back, saying it’s as integral to a manufacturing economy as investment in equipment and maintenance of supply chains. Those of us in the USW and throughout the labor movement recognized the risks of losing the program four years ago.

► From Bloomberg — DOGE Slammed by Judge for Using AI to Find $100 Million in Cuts — A US judge blasted the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency project for relying on artificial intelligence tools as it orchestrated roughly $100 million in cuts to federal funding for humanities programs last year. US District Judge Colleen McMahon released a 143-page opinion on Thursday blocking the National Endowment for the Humanities from carrying out DOGE’s grant terminations. The New York-based judge found that the government’s actions were unconstitutional and that DOGE officials didn’t have authority to direct them. McMahon slammed DOGE for how it had used the AI platform ChatGPT as part of its process for deciding which grants to cut.

► From the AP — Agency will move forward with plans to propose weakening some Biden-era PFAS limits, official says — The Trump administration will soon propose softening Biden-era limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water, delaying but keeping tough standards for two common types and rescinding limits on some rarer forms of the substance, according to an EPA official. The proposal will start the formal process of rolling back parts of the first-ever limits on PFAS in drinking water finalized during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Trump administration order cost WA coal plant $20M, company says — Since last December, the U.S. Department of Energy has ordered the plant to be ready to generate power if needed, even though the plant’s owner had long been in agreement with the state to wind down at the end of 2025. A new filing by TransAlta, the plant’s owner, has pulled back the curtain on how much complying with DOE’s initial order has cost, despite not producing power since late last year…While the coal facility in Centralia has not actually generated power since December 2025, TransAlta’s filing also reveals how much it would cost if it did. According to the filing, generating power at the coal plant would cost between $83 and $113 per megawatt hour before factoring in any startup costs, which would range from around $202,000 to $577,000. Those estimated costs fall far above what price electricity typically commands in the region.

► From the Boston Globe — R.I.’s working class pays a larger share of income in taxes than the 1 percent. It’s time to rebalance the tax system. — The Rhode Island AFL-CIO fully supports proposals before the General Assembly submitted by Representative Karen Alzate and Senator Melissa Murray raising income taxes on the top 1 percent of earners, as well as the “millionaires’ tax” proposed by Governor Daniel McKee in his FY 2027 budget. The labor movement understands that our current tax structure is fundamentally broken, with working class Rhode Islanders like the 80,000 union members in our state paying a larger percentage of their income in taxes than the 1 percent.

 

JOLT OF JOY

I’ve been LIVING for all the media coming out of the Ball Without Billionaires protest celebration honoring the beauty and power of working people organizing against Bezos’ greed and the exploitation that createws profits for the companies he has run and bought. Here are some of my favorite videos from Monday’s event:

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