Kent EA | Affordable child care | Corporate tax break

Friday, February 27, 2026

LOCAL

► From KOMO — Kent teachers keep jobs for next year, amid budget shortfall & public pushback — The Kent Education Association (KEA) said over 400 provisional teachers, in their first three years of teaching or first year with KSD, were going to receive non-renewal letters from the school district on Friday in an effort to cut roughly 150 teaching positions. The proposed staffing reduction is tied to a projected $30.5 million budget shortfall KSD faces for the 2026-27 school year, which district officials report as tied to a decline in enrollment and potential changes to state and federal funding. After three days of negotiations, KEA President Tim Martin said the teachers’ union and KSD reached an agreement on Wednesday to keep these provisional teachers in their classrooms for the next school year.

► From the Camas-Washougal Post-Record — PNW strives to move away from fossil fuels, but goal proves complicated — A recent report from Washington nonprofit Clean & Prosperous found some 250 green energy projects in the state “ready to advance if development pathways become more efficient and predictable.” These projects, however, face five key hurdles long before they can ever start powering people’s homes here…All these projects need to connect to the grid, either to draw power or add more of it. They require not only connections but upgrades to the grid itself before it can handle the big boost in energy. The long wait times are proving to be a hang-up for renewable energy companies wanting to bring their clean energy projects online…“Lengthy and uncertain” permitting poses another hurdle, Gray said.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From ESPN — USLPA authorizes strike with season kickoff looming — “With one week until kickoff of the 2026 season, United Soccer League Players Association players remain without a new collective bargaining agreement following 547 days of negotiations with the United Soccer League and its USL Championship clubs,” the USLPA said in a statement to ESPN. “The Players Association has bargained in good faith throughout that time, including spending four hours this week in mediation with a federal mediator, with additional sessions scheduled. “This week, around 90% of the player pool participated in a vote on the League’s latest proposal. Approximately 90% of the players rejected it and authorized the player-led bargaining committee to take all necessary steps, including calling for a strike if required, should negotiations fail to produce a satisfactory agreement.

► From the New York Times’ Athletic — What a March CBA deal would mean for WNBA free agency, expansion and the draft — The league told teams and players on Monday that if a handshake agreement is not in place by March 10, the 2026 schedule will be impacted…This already promised to be a chaotic and packed offseason without negotiations delaying the timeline. Almost every league veteran is a free agent. Two new teams are entering the league via expansion. And the college draft will alter some rosters. No way around it: There’s a lot to get done and not a lot of time to do it. Here’s how the rest of the offseason could proceed to ensure that the season tips off on May 8.

► From NBC Bay Area — SFO passenger service workers set to rally amid contract negotiations — As things stand, SEIU United Service Workers West (SEIU USWWW), the union representing around 2,000 passenger service workers at SFO, is in negotiations with five different employers. The workers’ contract has expired; however, it has been extended until April, which postpones the potential for a strike at this time.

► From E & P — WGA East members at HuffPost ratify fourth union contract — The contract establishes critical protections against Artificial Intelligence (AI), including guaranteeing human review of all content published (e.g., AI-generated story summaries) and advanced notice of implementation of new AI tools. AI cannot be used to impersonate employees without their consent, and unit members are guaranteed an additional three weeks of severance if AI is a direct cause of layoffs. The company has also agreed to maintain a standards desk AI policy and an AI working group with unit members to discuss use of AI at HuffPost.

ORGANIZING

► From Labor Notes — How We Organized a Union at Whole Foods — To reach the 300 workers at our store, we brainstormed a list of people in each department we thought might be pro-union and willing to talk. We included all types: young and old, veterans and new hires, shy and outgoing, leftists, liberals, and conservatives, every race, gender, and ethnicity at our store. We needed an organizing committee that was representative of the workforce, or our co-workers wouldn’t put their trust in it…To build a sense of community and a feeling of joining something larger than ourselves, we organized group meetings, a group chat, and even a book club. Meetings were held every three weeks at a bar or outdoor cafe, and became a way of constantly integrating new members into the union community.

NATIONAL

► From Blackpress USA — OP-ED: One Hundred Years of Black Workers Telling the Truth — What later became Black History Month grew from that project of memory and resistance. From its earliest days, Black history celebrations were about more than remembrance. They also were acts of resistance, challenging the ongoing use of law, fear and surveillance to silence Black workers and suppress the truth about power in this country. That pairing matters: The birth of Negro History Week alongside the rise of an apparatus built to monitor and suppress Black labor dissent. The same government that denied Black people their history also treated them as a threat when they spoke collectively as workers. When Black workers asserted their right to organize and be heard, they faced not just employer retaliation, but state repression.

► From CNN — Block lays off nearly half its staff because of AI. Its CEO said most companies will do the same — Block, the company behind Square, Cash App and Afterpay, is cutting its staff by 40%. The reason: “intelligence tools,” according to a letter to shareholders by co-founder Jack Dorsey. Dorsey thinks most companies will follow suit in the near future. The company is laying off more than 4,000 people, reducing the workforce to just under 6,000…Investors have reacted well to the gutting of jobs. Block’s shares soared up to 24% after the announcement.

► From Hoodline — Roxanne Brown Breaks Steel Ceiling As New USW Boss In Pittsburgh — Roxanne Brown is set to take the helm of the United Steelworkers this Sunday, stepping into the union’s top job after a months-long leadership handoff. When she is sworn in, she will become both the first woman and the first person of color to lead the USW, which represents roughly 850,000 members across North America. Her arrival at the top job comes with instant pressure tests in contract talks, political work, and the energy transition that will shape the union’s next four years.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Seattle Times — House Democrats push to strip corporate break from ‘millionaires tax’ — In a letter sent this week to the House committee leadership, the lawmakers said Senate Bill 6346 — which would impose a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million annually — should move forward only if a provision accelerating a major corporate tax break is removed. At issue is a section of the bill that would end a surcharge on the state’s Business & Occupation (B&O) tax for large corporations in 2028 rather than 2029. Legislative estimates project that change would reduce future state revenue by approximately $550 million…[Rep. Scott] tied the estimated $550 million revenue impact directly to current budget debates. “When you add together the reductions that have been proposed in the governor’s supplemental budget for child care and the Senate’s supplemental reductions to K — 12 schools, you’re talking about roughly the same amount of money that this amendment could help preserve,” Scott said.

Editor’s note: The millionaires tax passed out of House Finance this morning, amended to remove the corporate tax break. Reps. Berg, Mena, Ramel, Santos, Scott, Springer, Street, Wylie, and Zahn voted to advance the bill. 

► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Tacoma families deserve affordable child care. This bill could help — A bill before the state legislature would do just that by establishing a long-overdue Child Care Workforce Standards Board, a group that would be made up of parents, educators, businesses and community members who best understand the barriers that need to be broken down. The voices of those impacted most must be considered in a meaningful way, or we’ll still be talking about the child care gap for decades to come and our families, communities and economy will continue to suffer.

► From the AP — Republican voter ID bill stalls in Senate despite Trump demands — The tension has put the affable, well-liked Thune in a tough spot with Trump and many of his voters who argue that the legislation is necessary for a GOP victory in the midterm elections. Trump has already made clear that he will blame Democrats, and potentially Thune, if they lose their majorities in Congress in November — even though Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in 2024 without the bill’s requirements.

► From the Government Executive — Appeals court declines to block Trump’s anti-union EOs — A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that it could not uphold a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the Trump administration from implementing a pair of 2025 executive orders that cite a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to ban collective bargaining at most federal agencies, under the auspices of national security. That injunction had itself been put on hold by the appellate judges since last August.

► From the Washington Post — Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency — Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.

► From Bloomberg Law — NLRB Formalizes Return of First Trump Joint Employer Rule — The NLRB said in a final rule released Thursday it was replacing the text of the vacated regulation with that of a standard finalized near the end of President Donald Trump’s first term. The 2020 rule requires a company exercise “substantial direct and immediate” control over another firm’s workers to be classified as a joint employer…Joint employment has been a divisive topic in labor law chiefly due to its importance for franchise operators and companies that rely on outsourced labor. A business-to-business relationship that triggers a joint employment finding means the firms involved share labor law liability and union bargaining obligations.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the Hill — Argentina’s Senate convenes for final labor reform vote, as unions and opposition march in protest  — A coalition of labor unions, opposition parties and left-wing organizations marched through downtown Buenos Aires on Friday, in protest of President Javier Milei’s sweeping labor overhaul to be debated in the Senate in the coming hours. The bill, which grants employers greater flexibility in matters of hiring, firing, severance and collective bargaining, has drawn fierce opposition from labor unions and their Peronist allies, who argue it would roll back measures that protect workers from abuse and Argentina’s notoriously frequent economic shocks.

► From the Guardian — Green party wins Gorton and Denton byelection, pushing Labour to third place — Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority.

► From the Green Party:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Green Party of England & Wales (@thegreenparty)

JOLT OF JOY

Shakira’s nomination for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame underlines one of my favorite arguments to rile up “real rock” aficionados: that she’s one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time. Vindicated!

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