NEWS ROUNDUP
Contract in Snohomish | Remembering Sister Vonda | War on wind jobs
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
TODAY’S MUST-READ
► From the Nashville Banner — Vonda McDaniel, Nashville labor leader, passes away — Nashville organized labor leader Vonda McDaniel died on Tuesday, the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee announced Thursday. She was 60 years old…Jessica Stewart, president of SEIU Local 205, called McDaniel “the epitome of a unionist.” “I will miss her quiet strength, always willing to help out or listen,” Stewart told the Banner. “[She was always] uplifting young people and other women. She was aware of her own power to affect change but also incredibly humble and unassuming.”
► From the WSLC:
STRIKES
► From the NW Labor Press — Seattle hotel strike during World Cup — “We’ve seen DHS officers around the hotel, people have reported them being inside the hotel before the World Cup, and folks who have legal status don’t trust that they’re not going to be deported or abducted,” Douglas says. Local 8 proposed that hotel management notify workers if immigration agents are in the building and allow workers to call out without penalty if so, but the company declined…Daily housekeeping has been suspended during the strike and Teamsters-represented drivers have refused to cross the picket line to pick up garbage, Douglas said.
► From the Philly Voice — PECO strike continues into third day after storms and heat wave caused power outages in region — Negotiations between PECO and the union representing roughly 1,600 mechanics, line workers, customer service representatives and technicians resumed at 10 a.m. Monday — the third day the workers have been on strike. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 614 began striking at midnight Saturday, leading into a weekend of a record-breaking heat wave and persistent flash flood warnings that caused tens of thousands of power outages over the weekend.
LOCAL
► From KOIN — Nippon to pay clean-up costs after deadly Longview mill disaster, State of Washington says — A spokesperson for the Washington Department of Ecology confirmed to KOIN 6 News Monday that it plans to issue an Order for Reimbursement to Nippon Dynawave for all necessary state expenses incurred as part of the response to the tank failure, which killed 11 people and injured 8…Last week, the state announced it will investigate two other kraft pulp paper mills in response to the Longview incident. Records show there were at least two open investigations at Nippon at the time of the accident.
► From the Olympian — Immigration arrests surge nationwide, including in South Sound, advocates say — “There’s a big surge going on,” Cushman said on Monday. “There are lots of arrests up and down I-5 right now.” Cushman’s team is part of the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, she said. On Thursday, the network issued a news release indicating its rapid response teams confirmed a “large-scale immigration enforcement operation” that occurred on June 28 in Shelton.
► From the Seattle Times — Central, Eastern WA to be under red flag warning as dry front comes — The fire weather warning will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. as a dry cold front moves through the area from the foothills of the Central Washington Cascades, creating westerly winds from 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph, the warning said. Strong winds coupled with low humidity and high temperatures, including the mid-90s on Tuesday, contribute to large-scale fire conditions, a Spokane County news release said.
► From the Seattle Times — Seattle Immigration Court launches new Trump tactic: ‘Mega’ hearings — Begun nationwide in the spring and hitting Seattle in late June, the tactic involves calling in an unusually large number of people at a time for a preliminary “master calendar” hearing in deportation proceedings. The number on Windrow’s docket that day: 117. As a point of comparison, other judges in the Seattle court had between seven and 35 people scheduled for preliminary hearings Tuesday…Immigrant advocates and at least one scholar who have watched mega masters play out across the country suspect another purpose: racking up as many deportation orders as quickly as possible.
AEROSPACE
► From Reuters — Boeing’s new 737 assembly line starts moving in Everett — The new line, known inside Boeing as the North Line, is part of the U.S. planemaker’s long-term plans to significantly increase output of its popular single-aisle jetliner to keep up with historically high global demand for jets.
CONTRACT FIGHTS
► From the Everett Herald — City of Snohomish ratifies new Teamsters union contracts — After six months of negotiations last year, it was clear the city wanted to exclude a union pension from the new contracts, Teamsters representative Tammy Ayers said in October. On June 26, Snohomish announced two new contract ratifications that included increases in pension fund contributions and wages, a press release said…“I would like to express my appreciation to the city’s new administration for engaging in negotiations with an open mind and a genuine willingness to listen to staff concerns,” said Joe Palmer, a public works employee, in a release.
► From the NW Labor Press — Roofers win contract increases totaling $10.28 — Members of Roofers Local 49 voted June 18 to ratify a new master agreement with 13 union-signatory roofing contractors in the Portland metro area. The agreement will raise compensation $10.28 an hour over the contract’s four-year term. It’s expected that $3 of that increase will go toward maintaining health coverage…The new agreement also restricts the extent to which employers can use rear-facing cameras to surveil workers in work vehicles.
ORGANIZING
► From the NW Labor Press — Grand Canyon: Now union — In ballots tallied June 17, National Park Service workers in eight Western states voted 317 to 11 to be represented by National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the second-largest union of federal employees. NTEU says the new bargaining unit will include about 650 park rangers, scientists, administrative staff, and others in the National Park Service’s Intermountain Region, which stretches from Montana to Texas.
► From the Missouri Independent — Missouri cannabis workers notch union wins as organizing spreads — “Now for the first time in Missouri, dispensary workers are FEELING THAT CONTRACT HIGH!” the United Food and Commercial Workers International Local 655 posted on its Facebook page Wednesday…“I’ve been hearing from more and more production and dispensary workers all over the state who want to find out what they need to do in order to organize their workplaces,” said Sean Shannon, organizing director at UFCW Local 655. “They basically thought it was impossible when all these companies were fighting, and now the workers are winning.”
NATIONAL
► From the AP — Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs, including many at Xbox in a ‘reset’ of its gaming division — Microsoft is cutting 4,800 jobs, about 2.1% of its global workforce, including a large number of workers at its Xbox video game business. The layoffs included 1,600 Xbox workers, with more to come this year in a broader reorganization designed to “reset” Xbox as it faces heightened competition, the company said Monday.
► From Games Industry — Union launches hardship fund for laid off developers — Funded by UVW-CWA membership fees, two funding tiers are available for eligible applicants: the Small Fund Tier provides up to $1,000 and the Major Expenses Tier offers $1,000 to $5,000…Applicants do not need to be UVW-CWA members or belong to any union…The UVW-CWA launched in partnership with the Communication Workers of America last year, and is the first direct-join union for developers in the US and Canada that does not represent a single workplace. Full-time and freelance workers across various disciplines can join, as well as those affected by layoffs and workers who want to or are organising unions in their workplace.
► From the Tech Times — AI Leads US Job Cuts for Record 4th Month as Tech Claims 31% of H1 Layoffs — Artificial intelligence has become the leading stated reason for US job cuts for four consecutive months — a streak with no precedent in outplacement data — and the technology sector has absorbed nearly a third of all US layoff announcements in the first half of 2026, according to a report released Wednesday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Between January and June, US tech employers announced 139,156 job cuts — an 83% surge from the 76,214 recorded in the same period of 2025 — while AI was explicitly cited in 101,743 of all US layoff announcements this year.
► From People’s World — Teamsters document the disaster of deregulation — And, eventually, the Teamster article notes, what happened after all the chaos is consolidation, monopolies, oligopolies, and what experts call “monopsonies.” A monopsony is a situation where a firm or group of firms—say, Walmart, big grocery chains, and meatpackers—has so much power that they can collude to dictate wages to all their workers, prices to all their customers, and payments, or lack of them, to all their suppliers. Exhibit A for the Teamsters is trucking. Exhibit A for everyone is the airlines. And the nation’s freight railroads are Exhibit A-2.
POLITICS & POLICY
► From the Guardian — ‘Why take those jobs away?’: the unionized workers decrying Trump’s war on wind — Will Gonzalez, a construction laborer with the Laborers’ local 385 in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, worked on the Vinyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, a project the Trump administration attempted to halt in January…“It’s a personal vendetta,” said Gonzalez. “Good union jobs – we shouldn’t be trying to take those off the table. That just doesn’t make any kind of sense. Families obviously need good jobs … why take those jobs away?”
► From the Federal News Network — Unions sue DoD over termination of collective bargaining agreements — The lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Federation of Federal Employees, alleged that the department’s decision to terminate collective bargaining agreements violated the Administrative Procedure Act…According to the lawsuit, there was almost “no notification or communication at all about what actions were being taken, if any.” Some union leaders were notified by phone that their collective bargaining agreements had been terminated, while others received emails or letters. Some said they received no notification at all, saying that agency officials “went radio silent” or stopped responding to routine questions.
► From Politico — The GOP’s dirty little secret about the SAVE America Act — House conservatives bristled this week over the Senate’s refusal to pass the SAVE America Act — the GOP elections bill that President Donald Trump has called his “No. 1 priority” in Congress — and shut down the floor in protest. Their outrage has obscured an inconvenient truth for the Republicans locking arms with the president to push for the bill: It can’t even pass the House — at least not the version Trump is pushing.
► From the New York Times — Nearly a Million Investors Lost a Total of $3.8 Billion on Trump Crypto Coin — An up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them, the overall results are remarkably bad. Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion. The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025.
► From KUOW — Opponents of WA ‘millionaires tax’ submit signatures to qualify for ballot — Recent polling shows that only a minority of state voters would choose to overturn the tax if the question were to appear on ballots. Research that Democratic polling firm GBAO published at the end of June shows Heywood’s initiative losing by 19 points, with 38% in favor of repealing the tax and 57% opposed. “[The repeal measure] is sloppily written and fiscally irresponsible, and this new polling shows that voters aren’t impressed,” said Erik Houser, spokesperson for the coalition to save the millionaires tax.
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