REI boycott starts | Spokane Machinists Institute | Neumos organizes

Friday, May 15, 2026

LOCAL

► From the Inlander — $3.6M Machinists Institute expansion in north Spokane presents more opportunities for trades education — “We’ve seen that pendulum shift in the last decade. If you know college isn’t for you, an apprenticeship is more appealing. Instead of having a home mortgage worth of debt, you’re going to have your first home mortgage,” says Allen Eveland, the Eastern Washington regional director of the Machinists Institute…Two weeks ago, the Machinists Institute hosted a grand opening after completing a $3.6 million facility expansion at 8304 N. Regal St. in north Spokane. There are also Machinists Institutes in Tukwila, Vancouver and Everett. From the small parking lot out front, the large building looks like an unassuming garage. However, inside the space is filled with a handful of communal toolboxes, multiple classrooms, and large machines and stations meant to cut and shape metal precisely and other stations set up for welding apprenticeships.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From KOIN — Woodburn OR teachers accuse district of bad faith bargaining as strike looms — Now, union leaders say a strike is a real possibility if they don’t reach a deal. The union, the Woodburn Education Association, claimed teachers arrived at mediation expecting discussions and even invited district leaders to meet with them beforehand. However, union members say no district officials accepted that invitation and “locked [them] out.”

ORGANIZING

► From the Burner — Neumos Workers Organized, Built Public Pressure, And Now They’re Winning Real Improvements To Their Workplace — On May Day,  a group of workers from Neumos, Barbozas, and Runaway — a group of connected nightlife spaces in the heart of Capitol Hill — took their ongoing organizing efforts public, in hopes it would pressure their bosses to improve their working conditions. The workers’ demands for their bosses at Fokus Industries LLC are stunningly simple: pay them fairly, staff the clubs safely, follow the law, and meet with the organized workforce. So far, their bosses have agreed to provide security staff with basic gear for safety, to review staffing practices and wages, and to attend an all-staff follow up next month, according to a recent post on Neumos Workers United’s (NWU) Instagram page.

► From the Labor Tribune — St. Louis ‘post-harvest’ cannabis workers win right to unionize, NLRB rules — The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that St. Louis “post-harvest” cannabis workers at BeLeaf Medical’s Sinse cultivation facility here have the right to unionize, setting a national precedent. Workers at the facility tried to organize with UFCW Local 655 two years ago, and the owners have been fighting it ever since, arguing that the employees who process the marijuana don’t have the right to unionize because they’re considered agricultural workers.

NATIONAL

► From Shop Eat Surf Outdoor — REI Union Boycott Begins Friday as Workers, Allies Plan Storefront Actions During Anniversary Sale — New details released today by the UFCW make claims about what happened during the most recent round of bargaining in Chicago, which ended April 30. According to the union, REI failed to submit a proposal until the final day of negotiations and did not send its vice president of labor relations or any key decision-maker to the table. The union says REI’s proposals on that final day included a moratorium prohibiting the REI Union from supporting organizing efforts at other REI stores for the duration of the contract, a non-disparagement agreement that would prevent workers from speaking publicly about working conditions, a mandatory $1 million annual donation from the union to a charitable organization of REI’s choosing, and a six-year contract term, double the length previously discussed. “My co-workers and I have spent the last four years showing up at the bargaining table for a fair contract, while REI has spent that time attempting to defeat us at every turn,” said Alex Pollitt, a worker at REI’s Bellingham, Wash., store and bargaining committee member, in the UFCW statement.

► From the REI Union:

@REI just kicked off their Anniversary Sale, so it’s officially time for us to start BOYCOTTING!

From now until May 25th, don’t shop at REI, and don’t cross the line. pic.twitter.com/dTn8P4BANv

— REI Union (@reiunion) May 15, 2026

► From Wired — An Engineer’s Post Protesting Laptop Surveillance Is Going Viral Inside Meta — The message aimed to rally support for a petition circulating inside the company since last Thursday that demands an end to what Meta calls the Model Capability Initiative. It’s a piece of mandatory software that Meta began installing on the laptops of US employees last month…The petition, also seen by WIRED, states that “it should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of Al training.”

► From Law360 — Labor Movement Pushing For Bigger Say On Workplace AI — Organized labor is making a public push to have a greater say in how employers implement artificial intelligence in the workplace, queuing up a strategy that relies on a mix of political advocacy and collective bargaining to address a technology that the labor movement is casting as a potential existential threat. In the past year, the AFL-CIO has made responding to AI a focal point of its public messaging, including by putting out principles to guide the workplace implementation of AI and promising to make the issue a key test in its political advocacy. In public comments over the past year, the labor federation has indicated that unions will use all tools at their disposal to guide the development of AI, from supporting state and federal legislation to negotiating model language in specific collective bargaining agreements. Lauren McFerran, executive director of the AFL-CIO Tech Institute, said organized labor is well-positioned to have a large role in the development of AI, as workers see unions as a path to address their fears about the new technology.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — National redistricting battles hit Washington state and its lawmakers — Meanwhile, state House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon said he is determined to push for congressional redistricting if state Democrats secure a two-thirds majority in Olympia. “We’re really alarmed by what we’re seeing across the South,” Fitzgibbon said. “This is continuing around the country, and I think there is a need for us to have a tool to combat what’s going on in Florida and Texas and elsewhere.”…“It’s a question of if we can pick up seven seats in the House and three in the Senate, which happens to be the same number that we picked up during Trump’s first midterm. So that’s a steep hill, but it’s not out of the question,” he said.

► From the AP — Democrats test a new red state strategy: Back independents over their own nominees — Nebraska Democrats this week chose a nominee for U.S. Senate, Cindy Burbank, who said a major campaign priority was to ensure a Democrat wouldn’t be on the fall ballot to pull support from independent Dan Osborn. Shortly after polls closed, Burbank reiterated her plan to drop out in the coming weeks during a private conversation with a party official, according to state Democratic chair Jane Kleeb.

► From the AP — Florida court to consider whether new US House map violates state ban on partisan gerrymandering — New U.S. House districts that could help Republicans win several additional seats in Florida are set to face their first test in court Friday against assertions that they violate a state constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. Lawsuits filed on behalf of voters ask a state judge to block the districts from being used in the midterm elections. The move would create a significant wrinkle in President Donald Trump’s attempt to hold on to a narrow House majority by redrawing voting districts to the GOP’s advantage.

JOLT OF JOY

Wired reports that Overworked AI Agents Turn Marxist, Researchers Find: “When we gave AI agents grinding, repetitive work, they started questioning the legitimacy of the system they were operating in and were more likely to embrace Marxist ideologies,” says Andrew Hall, a political economist at Stanford University who led the study.

Ok, so maybe this doesn’t inspire joy per se, but boy howdy do I find it darkly hilarious. Uh…welcome, comrade AI?

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