Bosnians back strike | Holding back ballots | Inflation jumps

Thursday, June 24, 2026

STRIKES

► From the Seattle Times — Seattle World Cup updates: Bosnia-Herzegovina beats Qatar for third place in Group B — Hilton hotel workers and members of the Unite Here! Local 8 union remain on strike outside of the Embassy Suites Pioneer Square hotel steps away from Seattle Stadium…“It’s been really good, positive feedback from people that have been walking by. They’ve been asking a lot of questions. They’ve been asking about our strike fund and they’ve been donating,” said Cara Peralta, a front-desk worker who said she’s been on the picket line for five days. Jake Douglas, a media researcher for Unite Here! Local 8, said a group of enthusiastic Bosnia-Herzegovina fans even gave strikers a drum to use.

► From UNITE HERE Local 8:

Bosnia fans really showing up for their team AND for workers on strike! pic.twitter.com/OJKyQrs5bj

— UNITE HERE! Local 8 (@UniteHereLocal8) June 24, 2026

LOCAL

► From the Daily UW — UW lays off 13 in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health, just four days after graduation — The advisers, represented by SEIU 925, strongly believe the timing was no coincidence. They argue the cuts don’t align with what the dean of the school of public health told them directly in April, and that they will leave graduates with far less support. “To move forward two days after graduation, as soon as we could possibly be done graduating students, is intentional,” Emily Bernet, one of the advisers laid off, said. “I know they must have been planning this for months.”

► From the Seattle Times — Longview pulp mill had reported other leaks at tank that killed 11 workers, records show — This week Washington’s Department of Ecology published a trove of documents, including past inspection reports, that show not only multiple leaks at the tank responsible for the fatal disaster in May, but also indicate that the company didn’t immediately repair the problem and then had difficulty when it did attempt to fix it.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Hollywood Reporter — Production Assistants Ratify Three Warner Bros. TV Union Contracts — Production assistants on three shows produced by Warner Bros. Television — Abbott Elementary, George & Mandy’s First Marriage and All American — have ratified their first union contracts. The staffers, about 15 in total, unanimously voted to ratify the three separate contracts in a vote that ended Tuesday, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Their union, Production Assistants United, is affiliated with the Hollywood laborers’ union LiUNA Local 724.

ORGANIZING

► From KOIN — PDX Sliders workers file to unionize, alleging unsafe conditions and wage theft — Union organizers say they are backed by the Coalition of Independent Unions (CIU), city councilors, and local labor allies. PDX Slider workers who voted to unionize have made several core demands to PDX Sliders. Organizers said these demands include scheduling security, ending wage theft, just cause protections, and accountability at all levels.

NATIONAL

► From the Seattle Times — Key inflation gauge jumps to 3-year high in latest sign of affordability challenges — Declining gas prices will likely pull down headline inflation next month, yet measures of underlying inflation remain stubbornly elevated and will be a concern for the Fed. Excluding the volatile energy and food categories, core prices rose 3.4% in May compared with a year earlier, up from 3.3% in April and the largest increase since October 2023. On a monthly basis, they rose 0.3% from April to May, the same as the previous month.

► From People’s World — AFT, Minn. AFL-CIO slam federal indictment of ‘Metro Surge’ protesters — Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham also hit hard on the failure to indict or arrest the murderers of Good and Pretti. Local prosecutors have concluded both cases are homicides. “Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renée Good and our union brother Alex Pretti, the Trump administration continues to weaponize the Justice Department to settle political scores and intimidate American citizens for being good neighbors and exercising their constitutional rights.”

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — Postmaster General Confirms Plan to Hold Back Mail Ballots Under Proposed Rule — Postmaster General David Steiner said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that under a new proposed rule, the Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots in states that decline to hand over sensitive data about voters to the federal government…Democrats and voting-rights groups have argued that the proposed rule is clear evidence that the Trump administration is trying to intrude on elections, which the Constitution gives the states the power to administer. Democrats fear that the president is using his push to assert control to try to give Republicans an electoral advantage, something Mr. Trump has not denied.

► From the AP — Federal judge bars Trump from implementing proof of citizenship requirement to vote — A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.

► From the New York Times — Trump Refuses to Sign Housing Bill Until Divisive ‘SAVE’ Voting Act Passes Congress — Hours after his own aides praised the bill and promised the president would sign it, Mr. Trump instead canceled a scheduled event at the Capitol. Eschewing an opportunity for rare bipartisan accord, the president opted to turn the bill into political leverage, aiming to force Congress — and members of his own party — to bow to unrelated demands over voting restrictions and the war with Iran…In many ways, the outrage and puzzlement that greeted Mr. Trump’s ultimatum on Wednesday underscored the tough political reality facing lawmakers with four months until the midterm elections. Affordability is a top-of-mind issue for many voters, who increasingly blame Mr. Trump for the nation’s poor economic trajectory.

► From the Hill — Our faces and voices belong to us. Let’s make it law. — Shockingly, our nation’s laws do not ensure that we all have the right to say “yes” or “no” to whether someone else uses our visual likeness or voice to create realistic AI imposters. When images and voices are stolen, a person’s words are no longer their own, and a sacred trust between people is broken…Speech that is falsely and realistically attributed to an unwitting person is, in fact, an abuse of that person’s freedom of speech. The public is essentially being lied to by the deepfake’s creator, who is fooling the world into thinking it is the actual person speaking.

► From the Oregon Center for Public Policy — Washington Just Showed Oregon The Path to Fixing Child Care — Oregonians should pay attention to a hopeful development on the other side of the Columbia River. While the creation of a new millionaire’s tax in Washington has received a lot of media attention, there is another great victory for working people worth noting: the creation of the first-ever childcare workforce standards board. This achievement will help strengthen a vital service for working families while improving pay and working conditions for all workers across the entire industry.

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