McClatchy strike | Nippon’s safety record | CEO pay

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

STRIKES

► From the Cascadia Daily News — Bellingham Herald journalists strike for one day — “None of us became journalists here to become super rich,” said Jack Belcher, transportation and recreation reporter for the Herald, at a picket in downtown Bellingham on Tuesday. “We’re not asking for insane amounts of money, we’re just trying to make enough to continue to do the job that we love here.” Bellingham journalists are among those who have protested McClatchy’s use of AI by withholding bylines on stories produced by an AI tool, The New York Times reported…Robert Mittendorf, a reporter who has worked at the Herald for 24 years, said he is striking to support his newsroom’s youngest workers. “Our company has the money to buy tabloids, has the money to buy A.I. software and architecture,” he said. “If they have that kind of money, they have the money to pay our employees to go out in the community and do in-person reporting.”

► From Nonstop Local — Tri-City Herald reporters strike over pay and AI  — Reporter Karlee Van de Venter, who used to work for NonStop Local and is now reporting for the Herald, said wages were the biggest issue right now. Although AI, quotas and retirement were also part of the dispute. “AI has been a big [issue]. Also quotas and retirement. But right now the big thing that we’re talking about is wages… None of us got into journalism because we thought it would make us rich. We do this because we love it, because we love this community and we want to serve this community. But if we can’t make a livable wage while doing this job, we can’t continue to report here,” said Van de Venter.

► From KREM — ‘We need a corporation that believes in us’: Idaho Statesman journalists protest alleged unfair work conditions — A picket began after the walkout and a news conference started at 10 a.m. Tuesday, where journalists answered questions from other media outlets regarding wages and the company’s AI policy. “Idaho Statesman journalists are struggling, and our corporate owners McClatchy Media do not care,” Michael Lycklama said. “That’s why we’re here today and we’re on strike.”…”McClatchy seems to care more about investing in AI than its own human reporters, the ones who have spent years building relationships, trust, and expertise in the Treasure Valley,” Lycklama said.

LOCAL

► From KING 5 — Longview paper mill had history of safety violations, KING 5 finds — The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) cited the company four times for safety violations between 2019 and 2025. L&I also has two open investigations into the Nippon company. One of those investigations was opened two months ago, sparked by an anonymous complaint about a valve on a tank holding aqua ammonia, which is a highly corrosive chemical. The investigation is ongoing. L&I officials told KING 5 that the investigation does not involve the tank that imploded on Tuesday.  The other investigation was opened in May after a complaint about a failed drain creating a sinkhole, according to L&I.

► From KUOW — Meta layoffs affect nearly 1,400 Washington state workers — About 700 of the eliminated positions were based in Meta’s Bellevue office, according to the notice. Other cuts affected Meta employees who worked in Seattle, Redmond, or from home. All affected employees were notified last week. Software engineers and engineering managers were the hardest hit in Washington, followed by technical program managers and data roles.

► From the Seattle Times — Zuckerberg’s superyacht lands in Seattle as Meta announces big local layoff — The $300 million vessel called Launchpad wasn’t exactly greeted by a welcome committee. GeekWire reports the yacht drew crowds — and insults — as it traveled from Elliott Bay through the locks toward Lake Union…Zuckerberg did not appear to be onboard, according to GeekWire. Private jet trackers show he’s possibly in Monterey, Calif. His Instagram shows him working out in a bulletproof camo vest in an ominously dark gym that doesn’t scream yacht vacation. However, that didn’t stop Seattleites from criticizing the boat as a display of wealth amid a time of hardship for Meta employees in the tech-driven city.

AEROSPACE

► From Reuters — Boeing increasing 737 production after consulting FAA — “We’re ​off and rolling at ‌the ⁠47 rate, and we should be there ​in ​the ⁠next couple months,” Ortberg ​said at ​the ⁠Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Becker’s Hospital Review — Tens of thousands of U of California workers ratify labor deal — The agreement, which expires Nov. 30, 2029, was ratified by 96.4% of voting AFSCME Local 3299 members, according to a May 22 union news release. According to the union, the agreement includes annual wage and step increases totaling about 21.5% through the life of the contract, a $1,500 lump-sum payment for eligible workers, a minimum wage that will rise to $30.10 per hour by 2029 and caps on healthcare premium increases. The agreement also includes expanded layoff protections and additional longevity payments for longtime employees.

ORGANIZING

► From Game Developer — Report: Wizards of the Coast is trying to discourage workers from unionizing — The CWA has since issued a firm rebuttal to those claims on Bluesky. “Saying ‘It may be helpful to understand how union representation works’ before proceeding to spread old lies about how union representation works is unfortunately both crazy and very predictable,” said the organisation. “A union is not a third party representing the workers. A union is the workers themselves.”

NATIONAL

► From Editor & Publisher — POLITICO agrees to shut down both AI tools at center of landmark arbitration — POLITICO will shut down Capitol AI Report-Builder, a tool that produced branded policy reports for POLITICO Pro subscribers without any editorial review, despite generating glaring factual errors. It also will not revive the “Live Summaries” AI feature, which generated error-riddled unedited coverage of major political events, including the 2024 Democratic National Convention and Vice Presidential Debate. Both uses were found by an arbitrator in November 2025 to have violated PEN Guild’s collective bargaining agreement.

► From the AP — Median pay for CEOs rose nearly 6% in 2025, but some compensation packages were eye-popping — At half the companies in AP’s survey it would take the worker at the middle of the company’s pay scale 200 years to make what the CEO did in one, up from 192 years in last year’s survey. Companies have been required to disclose this so-called pay ratio since 2018.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Guardian — White House proposes NDAs for federal workers to crack down on leaks to journalists — The office of personnel management (OPM), the human resources office for the US government, released a draft nondisclosure agreement designed for federal agencies to use with new and existing employees. Under the draft agreement, the administration could pursue civil and criminal penalties against employees who violate it. The US government would be entitled to all “royalties” that employees receive from disclosing information that violates the agreement, according to the draft…Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), said the Trump administration has long used nondisclosures and other similar agreements to pressure federal workers into silence.

► From the American Prospect — In Massachusetts Today, Uber and Lyft Drivers Went Union — Since independent contractors are excluded from coverage under the NLRA, a federal law, that means that individual states can enact laws concerning the rights of those contractors. Massachusetts voters did just that by passing a 2024 ballot measure, Question 3, which extended collective-bargaining rights to gig drivers, and enabled them to unionize once 25 percent of such drivers in the state had formed a union…Today’s victory, then, marks labor’s first success, not at amending the NLRA, but at going around it entirely. It is not a panacea for American workers generally, most of whom are still employees and still saddled with a dysfunctional NLRA. But, as Bryant told me, “Today’s victory goes further than rideshare drivers; there are plenty of other gig workers.”

► From the New York Times — South Carolina Redistricting: Senate Passes on New Map, Defying Trump — The South Carolina Senate abruptly adjourned on Tuesday without taking up a new congressional map that aimed to eliminate the state’s lone majority Black district and cement an entirely Republican delegation. By refusing to act, lawmakers defied pressure from President Trump and national conservatives to wade into the country’s redistricting wars before the November elections.

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