Mill disaster investigation | UAW strike | Horizon Air negotiations

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

STRIKES

► From People’s World — Nearly 1,000 UAW members walk out at American Axle — At a minute past midnight on Monday, nearly 1,000 members of United Auto Workers Local 2093 walked off the job at the American Axle plant in Three Rivers. The strike came after months of negotiations failed to produce a contract acceptable to the workers here—and after the company spent weeks trying to intimidate these same workers into backing down and folding…Adjusted for inflation, workers are still taking home about half of what they earned before 2008. Exploitation has significantly deepened, and workers are feeling the squeeze, with some reporting that they had to sleep in their cars because the pay is so low.

► From the Harvard Crimson — HGSU-UAW Ends 40-Day Strike Without Contract — A vast majority of participating union members — more than 81 percent — voted over the weekend to end the strike, according to HGSU-UAW Vice President Evan R. Lemire. Another 15 percent voted to continue the strike, while roughly 4 percent abstained. Lemire introduced the motion to authorize an end to the strike at an all-membership meeting Friday, citing what he described as Harvard’s willingness to move on pay parity between research assistants and teaching fellows, paid family and medical leave, and a discrimination and harassment grievance process.

LOCAL

► From KUOW — Longview families, community come together after 11 killed in paper mill disaster — The union, the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, put out a statement over the weekend calling for a complete investigation. They’re calling for making sure that the integrity of the site is preserved, so that investigators can get a full understanding of what led to the incident. This is a very chaotic scene, and during the recovery, too. You had this giant tank pour half a million gallons of caustic liquid out. My colleague Nick Wagner had a drone photo this morning of the site. You can see all the mangled trucks around the accident site. This really did a lot of damage inside. The union wants to make sure that all the pieces are still there for investigators to look at.

► From KOMO — Washington L&I opens investigation into deadly Longview chemical tank collapse — After recovering all missing workers at the Nippon Dynawave chemical implosion site in Longview, Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) says it has officially opened its investigation into last week’s deadly workplace accident…The agency also said it is working to connect families of the workers killed and injured workers to benefits from the state’s workers’ compensation fund, including funeral service cost reimbursement, medical care and wage replacement, and survivor pensions.

► From My Northwest — ‘The community needs the loving arms of WA’: How to support Longview after deadly plant implosion — The Lower Columbia Longshoremen’s Federal Credit Union is also accepting donations to a relief fund created for the families of the 11 killed in the accident. The Cowlitz Wahkiakum Central Labor Council and the Longview/Kelso Building Trades Council established the fund.

Editor’s note: check out the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum CLC website all the ways to support families impacted by the mill disaster.

► From the Daily World — ‘Gloves off baby!’: Messages between top TRL administrators stoke outrage — Lane and Preston also disparaged public commenters, saying that members of the public and library staff “have no understanding of how libraries work” and alleging that “comments will be from people who are friends of the staff and don’t have the sense to not speak.”…Of library staff, Lane wrote, “We have really amazing staff. And we have really terrible staff that everyone is shoring up and funding with little or no return.” In one comment, Lane refers to a library staffer and says “We hired this old f—!! What the hell was Holly (Paxson, HR staff) thinking?”

► From the Daily UW — College of Arts & Sciences updates faculty, staff on internal budgeting, budget cuts — Faculty members have expressed frustration with a lack of faculty involvement in the budgetary processes in CAS. On May 14, Faculty affiliated with the UW chapter of the American Association of University Professors (UW AAUP) delivered a petition with over 550 signatures that called for administrative transparency and more faculty input in financial decision-making. “We feel that our knowledge about the work we perform and the value it produces has not been prioritized in budgetary decision-making, and that faculty voices have not been given appropriate weight,” the petition read in part.

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — ‘Emotionally devastated.’ People mourn cuts to subsidized childcare in Tacoma — Josh Gannis, who oversees Beyond the Bell for Parks Tacoma, said he hears from many parents who say the program has allowed them to accept jobs in the afternoon when their kids are usually out of school. “‘I would not have been able to sign this lease and put this roof over our head if not for this program that could allow me to pick my kid up at 6 o’clock.’ – I’ve heard that countless times across the district,” he told The News Tribune…Gannis said many Beyond the Bell employees are education-support professionals, also known as paraeducators, who work for Tacoma Public Schools. That same employee group bore the brunt of a reduction in hours, positions and pay that the school district made last year when it was contending with a $30 million deficit.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Daily Emerald — Services employees push back against wage freeze proposed by Oregon public universities — On May 15, administrators of several public universities across Oregon told members of the Service Employees International Union they would see no raises for at least two years. SEIU represents classified staff at public universities — from dining hall cooks to library technicians…“Gas prices are going up, food prices are going up, everything is going up except our wages. Our cost of living isn’t being matched,” Carla Hastie, who has worked in UO Dining Services for two decades, said. “For a long time the university got away with not paying us much and now they are realizing they are going to have to or we are going to strike.”

► From JPR — Horizon flight attendants protest as Medford base closes and negotiations continue — Horizon Air flight attendants protested outside the Medford airport Sunday as the airline closed its local crew base and contract negotiations stretched into a third year…The demonstration also comes as members of the Association of Flight Attendants vote on whether to authorize a strike after more than two years of contract negotiations with management. The union and airline remain at odds over pay increases and benefits.

► From the Athletic — MLB salary cap would mean pay cut for players and ‘eradication’ of amateur signing bonuses, union says — Bruce Meyer, the interim head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said Monday he was “very surprised” by the details of the salary-cap proposal owners made four days earlier. The union’s analysis of the offer showed players would make less money overall — and that amateur players who turn pro would be particularly hit hard…“Had MLB’s proposal been in place in 2026, players, we estimate, would lose over half a billion dollars.”

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Grio — Trump’s attacks on DEI are dismantling the public health infrastructure, new report finds  –According to the analysis conducted by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a confluence of anti-DEI policies, changes to student loan access for medical degrees, and federal cuts under the guise of eliminating “waste and fraud” under the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, which was led by Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, has resulted in the “most significant rollback of public health capacity and infrastructure since the creation of modern disease surveillance systems.”…“The current administration, which has proposed gutting programs without transparency, is creating a less prepared, less informed public health system that will miss emerging threats—creating the potential for them to become national emergencies,” says the group. “These actions threaten the nation’s capacity to detect disease outbreaks, respond effectively to health emergencies, and protect vulnerable communities.”

► From Wired — The White House’s Aliens.gov Site Brags That ICE Arrested More Than 700 US Citizens — A space-themed White House website that mocks immigrants and compares them to extraterrestrials claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested almost half a million people in nearly 12,000 cities and towns in the United States. In 715 of the locations listed, the site identifies at least one of the people arrested as being born in the United States. In 83 of the locations, every single arrestee is reported to be an American…Puerto Rico, a US territory whose residents are American citizens, is mapped on the site as a separate jurisdiction; in one row, the site lists Puerto Rico itself among the foreign countries the arrestees came from.

► From the Atlantic — The Economic Experiment That Upended Reality — In 2014, Seattle went ahead and implemented a $15 minimum wage anyway. And all the apocalyptic predictions failed to come true. The restaurants did not close. The jobs did not disappear. Instead, 100,000 workers got raises, and spent them. Seattle’s economy, far from collapsing, continued to boom. San Francisco soon passed its own $15 minimum wage. Then came minimum-wage hikes in state after state, including not just liberal New York and California but also Missouri, Nebraska, Florida, and Alaska—red states where voters, given the direct choice, said yes. In every case, predictions of economic catastrophe proved false.

► From KOIN — ‘Illegal’ and ‘unnecessary’: Oregon, Washington leaders decry USPS ballot proposal –“This is an unnecessary rule and does nothing to provide security in our elections. We’ll continue to evaluate and provide feedback to the USPS,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said. “Once again, we’re seeing federal overreach that threatens to undermine the rights of eligible voters and override states’ authority over elections. This is clearly another attempt by the Trump administration to exercise authority they don’t have.”

► From Wired — Illinois Lawmakers Just Passed America’s Strongest AI Safety Bill — California and New York have the strongest AI safety laws, requiring tech companies to provide information about model guardrails and to publish reports on safety incidents as they occur. Illinois’ bill goes a step further, requiring independent auditors to verify that an AI lab is adhering to its own safety standards. Previously, no independent body was required to keep an AI lab accountable to its own safety claims.

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