Posts tagged ratification
WA state workers OK new contract with retroactive pay hikes
September 18, 2025 // Those affected work at 14 community colleges and in nine state agencies. Among them are the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Revenue, the Liquor and Cannabis Board and Department of Agriculture. By law, public sector unions in Washington must approve a new contract by Oct. 1 to be considered by the governor for funding in the ensuing two-year budget. The spending plan Ferguson signed in May funds multiple public employee union contracts with pay hikes of 3% on July 1 and 2% next July. These agreements contain other salary-related changes, including raising the starting wage for state workers to $18 an hour. But last fall, Washington Public Employee Association members voted down their tentative agreement in pursuit of larger wage hikes. They didn’t get them, eventually ratifying an accord on April 3 with pay provisions mirroring those they’d rejected earlier.
Providence, nurses union reach new tentative deal in 6-week-long strike
February 26, 2025 // The strike, which started Jan. 10, is the longest in Oregon’s health care history. Nearly 5,000 nurses walked off the job at Providence’s eight hospitals in Oregon in Hood River, Medford, Milwaukie, Newberg, Seaside and Oregon City and two in Portland. The strike also included nurses, physicians and other staff at Providence’s six women’s clinics in the Portland area and hospital physicians at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in southwest Portland. The physicians and clinic union members approved their deals but the nurses rejected the early agreement by more than 80%.
Boeing and IAM announce new contract vote on Nov 4
November 1, 2024 // With the assistance of Secretary of Labor Julie Su, the International Association of Machinist (IAM) 751 & W24 will be allowing its 33,000 members on Monday, November 4, to vote on an updated contract offer by Boeing with hopes to ending a 49-day strike that has cost billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Food 4 Less workers reach tentative labor deal, avoid strike
June 27, 2024 // The union representing thousands of Food 4 Less workers reached a tentative contract agreement Tuesday with the grocery company, averting a potential strike. Workers had previously authorized a work stoppage if labor talks failed. But on Tuesday, representatives of United Food and Commercial Workers Locals 8GS, 135, 324, 770, 1167, 1428 and 1442 announced that they had reached a tentative deal that includes "substantial wage increases for all workers, more guaranteed hours and other contract improvements."
Facing Decertification Vote, UAW Quickly Settles Contract At NJ Nissan Facility
April 20, 2024 // If the election moves forward, and the majority of employees decide to keep the UAW, through their attorneys at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, it would seem that the employees opposed to union representation could object to the company and union settling a contract as interfering with their right to ‘free and fair’ election. However, if employees do object, given the pro-union nature of the current National Labor Relations Board, it remains a question whether election interference by a union would constitute grounds for setting aside the election.
California State Union Approves Tentative Deal, Despite Dissent
February 22, 2024 // . Some members publicly campaigned against the deal, expressing disappointment that the strike didn’t last longer. “We know that some members had strong concerns about the process and questions about the result,” Sharon Elise, the union’s associate vice president of racial and social justice, South region, said in the release. “We will only be successful if we’re working together to continue building a CSU that empowers students and provides work environments that support faculty and staff.”

Local 33 and Yale reach historic tentative agreement
December 12, 2023 // In the tentative agreement, Yale agreed to recognize the union until 2031, even if changes in federal labor guidelines void the status of graduate students at private universities as union-eligible workers. Although the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, ruled in 2016 that private school graduate workers have the right to unionize, policy experts have long theorized that a Republican-appointed NLRB might attempt to overturn that ruling. The tentative agreement protects the right of Local 33 to exist for the next two presidential administrations.
Here’s why the UAW’s record deals with GM, Ford and Stellantis aren’t getting full support
November 16, 2023 // At least three major assembly plants representing 9,730, or 21%, of GM’s 46,000 UAW-represented employees have voted against the pact. They include 61% against at Lansing Delta Township plant in Michigan, which builds Buick and Chevrolet crossovers; 67.5% rejection at a Cadillac and GMC crossover plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; and 52% opposed at GM’s Flint, Michigan, truck plant. A handful of other smaller plants also have voted against the deal. At Ford, the automaker’s Kentucky Truck Plant — its largest in terms of employment and revenue — had 54.5% of members vote against it. The UAW reached tentative deals with each of the automakers, so each is voted on separately. One or more could fail, while another ratifies. They are not contingent on one another.
How the UAW’s drive to ‘end tiers’ will change GM
November 5, 2023 // GM, Ford and Stellantis, which faced a coordinated UAW strike, have said tiers of workers allows them to keep costs down and remain competitive with non-union factories operated by Tesla and foreign makers' U.S. plants, and the Detroit Three have warned that the strike-ending deals present major financial challenges. Eliminating tiers of lower-paid UAW workers at the Detroit Three was a top priority for Fain and UAW bargainers. Fain and UAW members would often wear red t-shirts printed with the slogan "End Tiers" at rallies and on picket lines.
UAW and Ford reach tentative deal to end strike
October 26, 2023 // The Ford deal includes the biggest contract wins the UAW has secured in years, including a 25 percent hike in base wages through April 2028, the union said. The agreement provides cost-of-living adjustments to wages that will help raise the top hourly wage by over 30 percent to more than $40 by the end of the contract, union officials said. The starting hourly wage will grow to more than $28. The deal also shortens the time it takes new workers to reach the top wage, and eliminates wage tiers that left newer workers on a lower pay scale, the UAW said. It also boosts Ford’s contribution to retirement accounts.