Tag Archives: Labor Unions

News

Increased Drug Use on King County Buses Raises Safety Concerns for Employees

by Ronnie Estoque

According to data provided by King County Metro, there were 46 drug-related reports made by operators and customers on King County Metro buses in 2019. That amount grew exponentially to over 1,885 reports in 2022 alone, according to Jeff Switzer, a public information officer with King County Metro.

“The following drug-related reports are employee-reported and are not verified. Metro has worked diligently with frontline staff to encourage reporting and to streamline the incident reporting system,” Switzer said. “We are seeing the results of that effort with an increase in reports coming over the last 18 months, which has allowed us to deploy transit security resources to where they can be most effective.”

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Voices

OPINION | Tukwila’s Minimum Wage Vote Should Spur More South King County Cities to Act

by Sandy Hunt, Debbie Aldous, Julianna Dauble, Tim Martin, Shannon McCann, and Elaine Hogg

On election night, Tukwila voters sent a clear message that the statewide minimum wage is too low for our high-cost region. City of Tukwila Initiative Measure No. 1, which raises the city’s minimum wage to parity with the higher standards in SeaTac and Seattle, passed by a large margin.

We lead the Highline, Tukwila, Renton, Kent, Auburn, and Federal Way Education Associations. Together we represent several thousand educators working in communities all across South King County. We think it’s time for more cities to follow Tukwila’s recent example and raise their minimum wages.

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News

Local Grocery Store Workers Protest Kroger-Albertsons Merger

by Ronnie Estoque

Sam Dancy has worked at the QFC in Westwood Village since the store opened in 1991. He is also a shop steward for UFCW 3000 and was involved in advocacy efforts on behalf of the union for grocery store worker hazard pay during the early part of the pandemic. Dancy, alongside other representatives of UFCW 3000 and other unions across various states, is currently protesting the possible merger between Kroger and Albertsons, which was announced last month.

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News

KUOW Journalists Picket for a New Contract

by Ronnie Estoque

On Monday afternoon, Oct. 24, KUOW’s unionized staff held an informational picket outside the KUOW studios, emphasizing the importance of livable wages for all KUOW positions in a new contract. The action received a large response via social media from KUOW listeners vocally expressing their own support. The KUOW union is represented by SAG-AFTRA, which represents approximately 160,000 media and entertainment professionals.

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News

Slim Gains for South End Educators Echo After Weeklong Strike

by Ari Robin McKenna

For the next three years, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ratified by the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) Board and the general membership of the Seattle Education Association (SEA), the union representing teachers, instructional assistants (IAs), and office workers, will be in effect. 

Though the contract includes an across-the-board pay raise and a number of other significant gains, most SEA members do not seem to have gained much ground in their stated priority areas, particularly in their first and third priorities: “Adequate support for special education and multilingual education,” and “Living wages for all SPS educators.” These are issues that impact South Seattle especially. Students of Color are disproportionately represented in the overall special education population, the majority of SPS’ multilingual learners attend South End schools, and the educators not making a living wage are more likely to be People of Color who live here.

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News

Striking Rainier Valley Educators Describe Special Education, Multilingual Learner Challenges

by Ari Robin McKenna

On either Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, Sept. 7–9, Seattleites wouldn’t have had to go far to notice people picketing in red T-shirts. In front of the more than 100 public school buildings across the city, educators and school staff held up signs that read “On Strike!,” “Fair Contract Now!,” and “#ListenToStudents, #ListenToEducators,” often with parent and student support, food, shade tents, and music blasting. They were buoyed by the frequent yells and honks of passersby.

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Voices

OPINION | Labor Day Throwback: Remembering the 1987 NFL Strike and the ‘Seattle Sub-Hawks’

by Shaun Scott

While Sunday football is for many an escape from the stressors of the workweek and the anxiety of an increasingly rancorous era in American history, a seldom-recalled episode in U.S. labor history once collapsed the distance between passive spectatorship and the country’s political state of affairs. Thirty-five years ago this autumn, players in the National Football League staged a high-profile strike against stingy owners and team management, withholding their very visible labor power in hopes of securing better pay, bigger pensions, and more freedom of mobility as workers. 

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News

Nothing Without Us: Unions Stop Work in Area Actions

by Guy Oron

(This article was originally published on Real Change and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

Striking Seattle-area workers have shut down workplaces throughout the region this summer in an attempt to win better wages, working conditions, and other changes.

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News

Pay Is Peripheral as Kent Educators Strike, Demand a Quality Experience for Students

by Ari Robin McKenna

While last Thursday, Aug. 25, was supposed to be the first day of school, three dozen educators from Meeker Middle School were outside of the building in the 90-degree midday heat. Passing cars on Southeast 192nd Street honked every 10–20 seconds in support of the striking educators; many of the educators wore red and held signs reading “KENT Education Assoc. ON STRIKE!”

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News

NEWS GLEAMS | Starbucks Pushes to Suspend Union Elections Nationwide, Community Storytelling Series in the CID

A round-up of news and announcements we don’t want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

curated by Vee Hua 華婷婷

🖋️ Letter From the Editor 🖋️

Starbucks strikes continue to make local and national news, including their current request for the National Labor Relations Board to suspend union elections at all of its U.S. stores.

In continued coverage of safety concerns around transit, we share news of a developing story around a death at Mount Baker Station.

A community storytelling series will also be presented at Hing Hay Park, featuring Yuko Kodama, Anne Xuan Clarke, Christina Shimizu, Norma Timbang, and Luzviminda (Lulu) Carpenter.

—Vee Hua 華婷婷, interim managing editor for the South Seattle Emerald

Continue reading NEWS GLEAMS | Starbucks Pushes to Suspend Union Elections Nationwide, Community Storytelling Series in the CID →