1000s walk out | SPEEA update | Baristas v. billionaires

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

WALKOUT WITH WASHINGTON

► From the Washington State Standard — WA state workers stage walkout amid clash over pay demands — “We’re not going to agree to furloughs. We’re not going to agree to cuts,” said Ashley Fueston, vice president of the Washington Federation of State Employees. “We’re not going to agree to takeaways. That’s not acceptable.” Statewide, employees from more than 100 worksites delivered similar messages as talks on a new collective bargaining agreement enter their final month. Another rally is planned for Saturday at the state Capitol.

► From the Seattle Times — WA state workers stage walkout to protest pay proposals from Ferguson — Higher pay — consistent with inflation, at the very least — rang out as their central demand as workers scribbled their definitions of a fair contract onto picket signs and testified about their hardships. Brown, the 26-year-old library technician, lives with friends in Kirkland and sometimes has to rely on the roommates who earn higher pay to cover costs of food and groceries…Getting a “zero percent raise” in contract negotiations is “insulting,” Brown said.

► From KNKX — Washington state workers stage walkout over proposed agency cuts — Phillip Martin is a groundskeeper who works for the Department of Enterprise Services, an agency that is currently negotiating a new contract. “When we start doing budget cuts at the lowest level, we are taking things away from people in this state,” Martin said. “If we don’t have employees to man the desks, then those services that people rely on won’t be there anymore.”

► From the Spokesman Review — Thousands of state employees temporarily walk off the job as contract negotiations continue — Outside the Spokane Veterans Home, employees popped out intermittently to sign messages of support for the bargaining team before returning to their work…“Everybody here is kind of struggling with money,” said Nesbitt, who sat outside the veterans home to picket for about an hour on his day off, collect signatures and pass out snacks to his coworkers during their breaks. Two retired state workers from the Spokane Chapter of the Retired Public Employees Council waved signs at passing cars in support of those negotiating the contract and the employees in the building who couldn’t step away from their duties.

► From the Tri-City Herald — WA public employees in Tri-Cities join thousands statewide in walkout — The low pay the state is putting forward in its compensation proposals will feed into recruitment and retention issues, particularly as inflation and the rising cost of living puts pressure on workers, according to WFSE. As vacancies persist, state agencies are increasingly relying on outside contractors, which may cost substantially more than retaining experience public employees, it said.

► From NBC Tri-Cities & Yakima — WFSE walkout highlights contract fight for state workers  — Nancie Dodd, a social service specialist and local union president in Benton and Franklin counties, said she had seen staffing problems up close. In a previous DSHS role, she said most of her team’s workload rose by almost 70%. “If we can invest the money that are going towards those lawsuits back into adequate staffing and safe caseloads, that’s going to be a benefit for Washington, young and old, in between and saying that there’s just not a dime available, it is honestly a slap in the face to state workers,” said Dodd.

► From the Olympian — Washington state employees walked out of Olympia offices on Monday. Here’s why  — Sierra Pokeough is an accountant for the state Department of Social and Health Services. She waved a picket sign at passing cars on Capitol Way, accompanied by her 13-year-old son, Asher. Pokeough used a vacation day to attend Monday’s walk out, hoping to secure a fair contract and show her son how a union stands together. Asher said he felt excited to support his mom.

AEROSPACE

► From Reuters — Boeing, engineers union to resume contract negotiations on Sept 8, union says — The two ​sides met on Monday to ​discuss resuming negotiations. SPEEA members said in an ‌internal ⁠survey that their top priority is getting higher general wage increases from Boeing in ​the next ​offer.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From KING 5 — Seattle teachers, district remain in talks with first day of school less than 24 hours away — Seattle Public Schools and its teachers union remain at odds over pay, staffing and special education with less than 24 hours until classes are scheduled to begin…“We are past capacity in a lot of our different programs,” said Marla Rasmussen, a special education assistant at a Seattle high school and a member of the union’s bargaining team. “There are some places where we’re past capacity, and it really creates an unsafe position for our students and staff to be in.”

► From the Corvallis Advocate — City Employees Approve Strike, City Officials Essentially Silent — According to Stephen Whitener, who is on the AFSCME Local 2975 negotiation team, 159 of the local’s workers voted, an 89% turnout. 90.2% of those votes favored authorizing a strike. Library patrons may know Whitener, he’s been working as a specialist there for about two decades. Neither the City nor Local have declared an impasse, a formality that would by state law start a thirty-day clock before any actual strike could legally take place. The strike vote was a preparatory step toward a declaration that would have teeth.

► From KXAN — Austin game developers push for union contract amid Microsoft’s Xbox layoffs — July’s layoffs overlapped ongoing bargaining between the CWA and Microsoft. Alex Doblado, Local 6215’s vice president, said negotiations date back three years…Following the July layoffs, the CWA has filed unfair labor practices against Microsoft. One filing with the National Labor Relations Board alleged the company of “bad faith bargaining” and “coercive action.”

ORGANIZING

► From the NW Labor Press — Parking workers at Moda Center join Laborers Local 737 — Parking garage workers in the Rose Quarter voted 23 to 1 to unionize with Laborers Local 737 in a tally announced Aug. 1. They have nowhere to go but up. They work for Rip City Management, which was recently acquired together with the Portland Trail Blazers for $4.25 billion by a team of billionaire investors led by Texas subprime auto loan mogul Tom Dundon.

NATIONAL

► From the Guardian — ‘Revenge of the Rust belt’: Starbucks film-maker on Baristas vs Billionaires — In the new documentary film Baristas vs Billionaires, Starbucks workers in Buffalo recount their experiences with the billionaire Howard Schultz descending on the city to attempt to quell the unionization efforts…Mori sees the Starbucks union-organizing drive as a counter to the drastic decline of the manufacturing industry in the US midwest in recent decades that has decimated the working class. “I call it the revenge of the Rust belt. Many of these kids are the children or grandchildren of the steelworkers from Bethlehem Steel in Buffalo, the grain silos in Buffalo, all of these factories across the Rust belt that were shut down. Their parents and grandparents lost their pensions, lost their homes, and these kids don’t see any future,” said Mori.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From Semafor — Unions gain ground among voters in both parties — Seventy-one percent of American adults approve of unions, matching a 2022 peak; the reading hasn’t been higher than that since the 1950s. Notably, 52% of Republicans said they approve of unions, marking the second time in the last 25 years that a majority of the party has held this view. However, partisans differ in how much influence they want labor to have. Seventy-three percent of Democrats want unions to wield more influence, compared to only 19% of Republicans. Still, the polling underscores unions’ growing political might, as candidates from both parties compete for their leaders’ and members’ backing.

► From the AP — Postal Service work to comply with Trump’s executive order is rushed and sloppy, a whistleblower contends — The disclosure from the unidentified whistleblower contends that the Postal Service has been scrambling to try to build a complex system that would normally take a year or more in only three months, sometimes in defiance of the judge’s orders halting work. The goal is to have it ready for use in the midterm elections. The disclosure contends that, due to the new procedures, a single scanning error in a batch of tens of thousands of ballot envelopes could prevent any from reaching voters. It details a system that election officials have already warned could not be implemented before the first mail ballots begin going out Friday in North Carolina.

► From the Washington Post — With shutdown looming, House leaders aim to quickly pass funding bill — House lawmakers, fresh from their August break, are expected to vote this week on a Senate-passed measure that would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11, avoiding a government shutdown before the Nov. 3 midterm elections…The House passed its own stopgap funding measure in July, but it lacked support in the Senate. Senate appropriators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Patty Murray (D-Washington) instead drafted their own stopgap bill, which passed the Senate on a bipartisan 90-6 vote.

INTERNATIONAL

► From Reuters — Australia’s Qantas Airways ground crews vote to strike over ‘rock bottom’ pay — The Transport Workers Union said ​97% of 350 workers who voted backed industrial action, including work stoppages ranging ‌from one hour to 24 hours. No date has been set for a strike. The union is required to give three days of notice before taking industrial action.

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