Connect with us

NEWS ROUNDUP

Billionaire boom | $100/hour | $14k raises

Monday, March 30, 2026

 

STRIKES

► From KGW — PCC classified workers ratify deal as faculty strike continues — The Portland Community College Federation of Classified Employees bargaining team reached a tentative agreement with PCC on Wednesday. When it came to a vote, 89% of dues-paying union members cast a vote, with 82% in favor of ratification…”Monday, we return to work with the raises, benefits, and protections our members earned through their courage. We also acknowledge that the college’s lack of good-faith bargaining during our negotiations and the strike have left some of our members dissatisfied with the agreement.”

► From CPR News — Colorado JBS workers plan to strike for third week — Workers at a JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley are extending their strike into a third week after contract negotiations failed, the union said in a statement. “The company continued to decline to meet and bargain with the union and unlawfully conditioned further negotiations upon … agreement to terms negotiated with other, uninvolved unions,” the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 said in the statement…“Since the strike began, JBS has made no efforts to abate the unfair labor practices for which workers are striking, and instead has doubled down, insisting on the company’s ability to punish workers for exercising their democratic right to strike,” the union statement said.

Editor’s note: if you google “JBS strike” you’ll see a sponsored post from the boss at the top of search results. Apparently, the company would rather spend money on PR than get serious about negotiating a fair contract with the workers.

 

LOCAL

► From NCW Life — L&I probes Wenatchee Valley worksite accidents  — 24-year-old Ivan Garcia, 24, of Mabton died in a fall in January while working at the top of an electrical pole on South Lakeshore Drive. Chelan County Coroner Earl Crowe said the pole snapped beneath him as he worked. L&I says Garcia was working for Palouse Power, an energy infrastructure company based in Quincy that was under contract with the Chelan County PUD. Garcia had passed his electrical apprenticeship steps and was preparing to graduate as a journeyman lineman this month. In early February, a construction worker on the Majestic apartment complex in downtown Wenatchee fell two stories and was injured on the project. That incident is also under review by L&I.

 

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From CNBC — United Airlines, flight attendants reach labor deal for first raises since pandemic — United said the agreement will include immediate raises and top pay of $100 an hour at the end of the contract, as well as pay for flight attendants during boarding and “a signing bonus for every flight attendant worth a total of $740 million.” The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the flight attendants union, didn’t provide specific details about the deal but said that in addition to higher base pay, it includes additional compensation for flight disruptions and new restrictions on overnight flight assignments.

► From the City — NYU Faculty Union Reaches Agreement to End Strike — Under the terms of the deal, which is pending approval by union members, 95% of union members will make more than $100,000 annually, and the lowest-ranked faculty will make $91,000. “Everyone in our union will get a minimum raise of $14,000 by the start of the next academic year,” Hogan said. The immediate raises will be more substantial for long-time faculty, in order to address the issue of salary compression, according to the university. The five-year contract is retroactive to September 2025, the beginning of the current academic year, and includes 3.5% yearly raises for each year of the contract.

► From the Huffington Post — REI Workers Authorize Boycott Of Outdoor Retailer’s Anniversary Sale — The union said Wednesday that an “overwhelming majority” of workers from 11 organized stores voted in favor of the move this week. If the boycott proceeds, the union would be asking customers not to shop REI’s anniversary sale, scheduled in May. “The company is now unilaterally implementing cuts to benefits, starting wages, and raises for REI Union workers, which led union members to take this critical next step,” the union said in a statement. A final call on the boycott would be made by May 1, the union added, leaving open the possibility that the two sides could make progress in negotiations.

► From Bloomberg — SAG-AFTRA Actors Union Bargaining for ‘Tilly Tax’ On AI Film Characters — As adoption of artificial intelligence in the US outpaces efforts to regulate it, organized labor is providing an important check on how the technology gets used, according to the head of the Hollywood actors’ union. “Collective bargaining has been the fastest and most effective way for the regulation of AI technology,” SAG-AFTRA Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said Thursday at an AFL-CIO workers’ summit in Washington.

► From SEIU 925:

 

NATIONAL

► From the American Prospect — Billionaire Wealth Has Doubled So Far This Decade — Research conducted by Saez, Zucman, and others reinforces the stratospheric direction of the ultra-wealthy. The 19 richest households in America added $1 trillion in wealth in 2024, according to a Zucman study. This was the largest one-year increase on record and an amount that’s greater than the entire economy of Switzerland. That study also revealed there were 1,370 billionaires in the country in 2021 and 1,990 by 2024, a 45 percent increase.

► From Bloomberg — AI Schism Grips Washington as Tech, Labor Vie for Upper Hand — Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said the labor AI conference wasn’t planned as counter-programming for the tech-friendly events throughout the week, but she was glad it worked out that way. “We’re fed up with the focus on the tech companies, which are in full view right now, basically running our government,” Shuler said. “We’re fed up with these other casts of characters who don’t talk about work and workers.”

► From the WSLC:

► From CNN — ‘Playing with fire’: LaGuardia Airport collision renews concerns air traffic controllers are spread too thin — While it is far too early to know what caused the crash, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said there’s a systemic issue when positions are combined due to short staffing during the late-night hours. “Our air traffic control team has stated this is a problem, that this is a concern for them for years,” Homendy told reporters on Tuesday. “I can understand it’s a concern, especially if there’s a heavy workload.”

 

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Guardian — DHS funding freeze now longest partial government shutdown in US history — Trump signed a memo late on Friday ordering DHS to restore pay to TSA employees, who have missed two paychecks, but it is unclear where that money will come from and if he can legally direct the agency to pay the employees…Meanwhile, lawmakers in the House rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund much of the department, including Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Coast Guard, but excluding ICE and border patrol, opening up a fissure between Republicans in the upper and lower chambers…“I have never been more disgusted by the failure of elected leadership in my life,” [AFGE president] Kelley said. “No check. No relief. No apology as Congress packed their bags and left these American families to struggle alone.” “Come back to Washington. Honor your oath. Do your job,” he added.

► From Capital & Main — More States Are Taxing the Ultra-Rich — Washington Is the Latest — Washington isn’t the first state to pass a so-called millionaire tax, and it won’t be the last. Massachusetts’ millionaire surcharge has been in place since 2023, California may be voting to tax billionaires this fall, and at least a half-dozen other states are actively considering ways to balance budgets or help their working classes via taxes on the ultra-wealthy…“Part of it stems from the failure to address this situation at the federal level,” Collins said. “You know, we just gave the top 1% in all the states a massive tax reduction [via the so-called Big Beautiful Bill]. It’s a good time to make the case that wealthy, higher-income households should pay a bit more.”

► From the Everett Herald — Comment: A fair tax code is a health care issue. Here’s why. — [From WSNA President Justin Gill] If you’re wondering how our tax code has a direct impact on health care, let me describe a situation that anyone working in a primary care setting will recognize. A mom, working full time to provide for her family, has private health care coverage through an employer. But the high deductible limits how often she and her kids seek care. Patients like her may have a diagnosis like diabetes, but don’t get care as often as they need. They miss treatments because they’re out of financial reach, but then they contract a skin infection that could have been prevented. Or they come to my clinic with chest pains and heart complications because they couldn’t afford their medications or routine tests to monitor their diabetes. Our upside-down tax code means my patient pays a greater share of her income in state and local taxes, while those with the most — the wealthiest 3% — pay lower rates.

► From the Federal News Network — VA re-terminates AFGE contract for 300K employees, despite court order to restore it –The Department of Veterans Affairs has re-terminated a labor contract with its largest union — a move that a federal judge called “blatant disrespect” for her order to restore it…DuBose said that the VA’s disregard of her preliminary injunction “throws everything that the court attempted to do to clarify into chaos.” “For you to suggest that all of the work that was done prior to the re-termination is kind of mooted out, and we kind of disregard, is really a blatant disrespect for not just this court’s order, but for the rule of law,” she said. DuBose is giving the VA until the close of business on Tuesday, March 31, to explain why she shouldn’t deem the re-termination of the collective bargaining agreement as being in contempt of the court’s order.

► From Axios — SAVE Act would mean long drives for millions of American voters — More than 5 million voting-age Americans would have to drive an estimated hour or more to present their citizenship documents to register to vote, as would be required under the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. More than 21 million voting-age Americans lack the documents needed to register to vote under the SAVE Act, such as a birth certificate or passport, per an estimate from the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal public policy nonprofit.

► From the Center for American Progress:

► From the Hill — House discharge petition on TPS for Haiti secures enough signatures to force vote — A discharge petition for a resolution that would require the Trump administration to extend temporary legal protections for migrants from Haiti earned enough signatures on Friday to force a vote on the House floor. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) was the 218th signature on the petition, which also secured support from four Republicans: Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Penn.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.) and Don Bacon (Neb.).

► From Politico — Trump names chair for National Labor Relations Board — President Donald Trump has designated James Murphy as chair of the National Labor Relations Board, filling a leadership vacuum at the workplace watchdog that was largely inactive last year, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss the matter. Murphy, who spent nearly a half-century working at the NLRB before retiring during the Biden administration, is one of two Republicans appointed to the panel by Trump late last year, along with Scott Mayer. David Prouty is the sole Democrat on the board, and there are two vacant seats on the five-member panel.

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Karl de Jong is new Sedro-Woolley City Council member — De Jong, who previously served on the council, was sworn in on Wednesday, March 25, after he was selected. In an interview Thursday, March 26, he said he was “grateful for the council’s confidence” and ready to get to work. De Jong is a vice president for the Washington State Labor Council.

 

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

Related Topics:

CHECK OUT THE UNION DIFFERENCE in Washington: higher wages, affordable health and dental care, job and retirement security.

FIND OUT HOW TO JOIN TOGETHER with your co-workers to negotiate for better wages, benefits, and a voice at work. Or go ahead and contact a union organizer today!