Boeing TA recommended | 190k health workers | No on I-638

Wednesday, September 23, 2026

LOCAL

► From NW Public Broadcasting — Journalists in Washington and Idaho laid off, part of nationwide cuts from McClatchy — Puneet Bsanti is another Tacoma News Tribune reporter who was laid off last week. She wonders what might be missed after she’s left the paper. Bsanti covers East Pierce County, which includes  Sumner, Eatonville and Orting. “ In my opinion, every town, every city deserves to have fair, accurate news coverage,” Bsanti said. “And the fact that they laid me off, and that there is going to be that gap is really concerning, and I think people should be concerned about a risk of that area being a news desert.”

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From SPEEA — Prof and Tech Councils recommend ‘yes’ votes on contracts — The offers “meet most of the needs of the members,” the two councils said. The vote came at a special meeting of the two Bargaining Unit Councils (BUCs) on Sept. 22. Members of the two councils heard a presentation on the offers on Sept. 17 and spent 1.5 hours questioning the Negotiations Team and SPEEA support staff about the offer before beginning debate tonight…[member] Voting will start at noon Thursday (Pacific) and will conclude at noon Oct. 1 (Pacific).

ORGANIZING

► From the New York Times — Powerful New York Labor Group Seeks to Unionize 190,000 Health Workers –Labor leaders said that nearly 70,000 caregivers had signed union cards, a pivotal step in triggering a vote on whether to unionize. On Tuesday, Local 1199 petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election for workers to decide whether to join the union…“They are struggling to put food on their own tables,” Yvonne Armstrong, the president of Local 1199, said. “They are watching the cost of groceries, rent, gas and health care climb while their pay falls behind.”

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — Microsoft and OpenAI Workers Worry About ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History — “Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” said one internal Microsoft document from 2023. Inside OpenAI, there was also worry that its ChatGPT chatbot could lead people away from reading news elsewhere. In a June 2023 memo, Nick Turley, who led the team developing ChatGPT, wrote that A.I. posed an “existential threat” to publishers…The documents show concern within the companies that the news industry could not survive if its work was taken. Large A.I. models “are a product that destroys its supply chain,” Dr. Hecht wrote.

► From NPR — It’s getting harder to afford rent in the U.S., even for middle-income families — One in every five middle-income renters surveyed by the institute said that at some point during 2025, they could not afford to pay the full amount of rent when it was due. That’s a significant jump from the year prior, when about 14% reported being unable to pay their rent…A similar number of renters — slightly more than 20% — also reported struggling to pay for gas, oil or electricity last year.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — Trump administration’s WA voter roll lawsuit dismissed — A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday tossed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Washington seeking the state’s voter rolls, in line with many rulings across the country. This marks the 25th case that the U.S. Department of Justice has lost in its push to access sensitive voter information. The Justice Department has sued many states for voter rolls, and has yet to have a judge rule in its favor.

► From the Stranger — OPINION: Vote No on I-638 To Protect Me and My Teammates — I play varsity high school girls basketball, and if I were old enough to vote, I would vote NO to stop ballot Initiative 638 from passing this November…Did you know that girls drop out of sports at higher rates than boys by age 14? A humiliating exam or testing that inflicts financial burdens on families —they will not be covered by insurance—will certainly affect girls’ participation in athletics now and for years to come…Even little girls playing middle school sports (and some elementary school sports) will be examined. Boys who play sports are exempt from this new requirement. Tens of thousands of us girls are not.

► From the Seattle Times — Trump endorses Baumgartner, attacks Conroy, WA ‘millionaires tax’ — Within hours of when the video was published, Conroy seized the opportunity to ask supporters to donate to her campaign, arguing that the attack was evidence that the historically reliably Republican seat was in play. “Trump knows this seat is in play,” the Conroy campaign said in a fundraising email. “He never gets involved in races until the GOP is in real trouble — and that’s why he’s paying attention to Eastern Washington today.”

► From NW Public Broadcasting — Pierce County invests $300k in training programs at technical college — The county is trying to reach disconnected young adults, people who are not working or in school. In Pierce County, over 14,000 people between the ages of 16 and 24 are not going to school or working, according to a report from WorkForce Central. “ It’s an astronomical number. It’s really shocking. And that’s not good for those young people’s future. It’s not good for our local economy,” Mello said.

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