Stopping deportation | Redistricting lawsuit | Support SAMWU

Tuesday, May 19, 2026

STRIKES

► From the AP — Negotiators reach a deal to end strike on North America’s busiest commuter rail system — Kevin Sexton, the vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the unions believe this is a fair deal, but he wouldn’t disclose any specifics about what the railroad promised its workers. Union officials said later that more details would be shared soon with rank and file members. “We are looking forward to our members getting back to work doing what they do best, which is serving the region,” Sexton said at a news conference.

LOCAL

► From the Progressive — How to Halt a Deportation Flight — Dozens of union members had been mobilized to turn out for their union siblings by the leadership of their locals. IAM brought their International President to the picket line at NWIPC—which Atejo says speaks to how serious the entire union was about committing every possible resource to demanding the release of their member. “Unions just have this aspect of legitimacy behind them,” he says…Sorio doesn’t belong to a union, but Church says he still felt it was their duty as union members to intervene on his behalf. “Well, we’re all workers,” he said in late March 2026 while seated beside Johnson outside of a taqueria in Seattle’s Columbia City, the neighborhood where they both live. “These aren’t just things happening on TV. They’re happening at SEA-TAC, at our work. It’s our home, man, and we can do something about it. We have to do something about it.”

► From Nonstop Local — Major cleanup milestone reached at Hanford Waste Treatment Plant — Inside the facility, workers combine radiological and chemical waste with glass-forming materials and heat it to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit in two 300-ton melters. That vitrification process turns the material into stable glass inside stainless steel containers for long-term disposal at Hanford’s Integrated Disposal Facility. “Treating 100,000 gallons is more than just a number; it represents our commitment to protecting the Columbia River and Tri-Cities community for future generations,” said Mat Irwin, Hanford Field Office assistant manager for tank waste operations.

► From the Spokesman Review — New USDA conditions are hampering state and local wildfire services. Northwest fire officials warn of dire consequences — But this year, state and local fire officials in Washington and across the western United States are facing a new obstacle: In the name of efficiency and as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on what it calls “radical left ideology,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture imposed new terms and conditions at the end of December that have jeopardized federal funding for critical fire management work…On Dec. 31, when USDA changed course, it threw the fire department into limbo. Johnson called it “disappointing.” “It’s delayed our projects we have for fuel mitigation. It is going to be a bad fire season, and we are losing this opportunity to do fuel reduction projects,” Johnson said. “Our No. 1 risk is wildland fires. Every person needs to listen and help mitigate it. Our firefighters cannot do it all.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the New York Times — N.Y.C. Hotel Housekeepers Will Earn Over $100,000 Under New Contract — The average pay of housekeepers in New York City hotels will increase to more than $100,000 a year as part of a contract settlement between an industry trade group and a powerful union. The deal, which the group ratified on Monday, averts a threatened strike this summer that could have disrupted the influx of tourists expected for the World Cup and America 250 festivities.

ORGANIZING

WSLC President April Sims speaks to SAM Workers United members and supporters. Photo: WFSE/AFSCME Council 28

► From Hyperallergic — Seattle Art Museum Workers Move to Unionize — Dated May 13, the SAMWU letter to the museum was signed by 59 current employees working in visitor experience and memberships, collections care and art handling, curatorial and exhibition projects, events management, institutional giving, and education, among other departments. “The challenges we face, such as unsustainable wages, subpar health benefits, and siloed, top-down decision-making, are undeniable, systemic, and have persisted across administrations,” the union’s letter to leadership reads. “Change at the top alone will not solve our root problems.”

Editor’s note: sign the SAMWU community support letter in solidarity with the workers

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — Trump’s Deportations Are Costing Americans Jobs, Study Finds — Recent surges in deportations have led to job losses for both immigrant and American-born workers, while wages have stayed flat, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonpartisan research organization…Analyzing federal labor data, researchers focused on four industries that rely heavily on undocumented immigrant workers: agriculture, construction, manufacturing and wholesale. Deportations had a chilling effect on each of those industries, disproportionately affecting men, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the immigration arrests. Taken together, the affected industries saw a 5 percent drop in employment for male undocumented workers and a 1.3 percent drop for male American-born workers without a college degree. The researchers found no evidence that employers increased wages to attract American workers. Instead, work slowed.

► From Wired — Tesla Reveals New Details About Robotaxi Crashes—and the Humans Involved — In one incident, which took place in July 2025, the safety monitor experienced “minor” injuries after a remote worker drove the Tesla up a curb and into a metal fence at 8 mph. The monitor, who had requested help from Tesla’s remote driving team after the car stopped on the side of a street and wouldn’t move forward, was not hospitalized, Tesla reported…The new details draw attention to an often misunderstood but safety-critical part of autonomous vehicle operations: the human backstops who remotely monitor the robot cars and intervene when they get into trouble. All US self-driving operators maintain these remote teams, according to letters submitted to a US senator earlier this year. But Tesla appears to be an outlier because it more frequently allows these remote workers to directly drive the cars.

► From the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum:

 

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POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — Federal judge rebuffs bid to toss WA legislative maps — Now, opponents are waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on whether the maps comply with an April ruling from the high court in the case Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly curtailed the use of race in drawing districts…Lawyers representing the Latino plaintiffs in the original case oppose the request to speed up review of the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. They pointed to a concurrence authored in 2022 by Justice Brett Kavanaugh in an Alabama districting case. In it, he cites the “Purcell principle,” a bedrock tenet of election law, that discourages federal courts from swooping in and messing with a state’s laws in the run-up to an election.

► From the Everett Herald — Vehicle license fee considered to close $9 million Public Works shortfall — Everyone who spoke was in favor of the funding, including Nathan Howard, a member of the county’s labor union Local 109-E, “I won’t pretend that this is popular. Nobody like car tabs,” Howard said. “This isn’t the long-term answer. It’s the stopgap maintenance that keeps 34 families employed and keeps this county moving forward and not backward. It takes courage to do an unpopular thing that is right to do. I’m asking the council to have that courage today.”

► From the Federal News Network — Federal appeals court keeps union contract for 300K VA employees in place amid lawsuit — A federal appeals court is upholding a lower court’s decision to restore collective bargaining rights for most employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs. A three-judge panel with the First Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling Monday, unanimously denied the VA’s emergency motion to stay a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which required the department to restore a union contract for more than 300,000 VA employees.

► From Bloomberg Law — Judge Permanently Blocks NLRB Case in Constitutional Challenge — An online social services platform secured a decision shielding it from a National Labor Relations Board unfair labor practice case, as a federal judge ruled there are constitutional defects with the agency officials’ job protections. Findhelp is entitled to final declaratory and permanent injunctive relief on its claim that NLRB administrative law judges are unconstitutionally protected from being fired by the president and therefore unauthorized to prosecute the company for allegedly terminating union organizers in violation of federal labor law, Judge Mark Pittman of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled May 15.

► From the American Prospect — Palantir Gets an Initial $3.9 Million to Spy on Federal Workers — The artificial intelligence war profiteer will “design, configure, deploy and manage a secure, user-friendly tool to track USDA employees’ return to the office,” according to a disclosure. The contract started May 1 and has the potential to grow to $13.3 million over the next fiscal year, which runs from October 1 to September 30.

The Stand posts links to local, national and international labor news every weekday morning. Subscribe to get daily news in your inbox.