workers rights

May Day events drew crowds around the Northwest. NWPB takes you to Yakima, Wenatchee and Moscow.

When workers go on strike in Washington state, they don’t earn a dime. A new piece of legislation could change that. This bill would allow workers to eventually access unemployment benefits, starting the second Sunday after they began withholding their labor. Workers could claim up to four weeks of benefits through the state’s unemployment insurance, according to co-sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Steve Conway.

To unionize, Tacoma Art Museum Workers United [TAMWU] needed the majority of its 26 workers to vote yes. After two days of voting in an election overseen by the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, the unanimous results came in Thursday evening — 26 in favor of unionizing.

The Tacoma Art Museum board of directors has indicated they will voluntarily recognize museum employees who have been organizing for the Tacoma Art Museum Workers United (TAMWU) union, through a privately arbitrated election.TAMWU organizers said they don’t support the conditions of that recognition, though.

(Runtime 1:07)Civil rights activist Dolores Huerta spoke at Washington State University’s Pullman campus on April 3 as the keynote speaker for…

The Tacoma Art Museum Workers United committee is still in limbo after a special meeting March 31 with the museum’s board of trustees. The board did not announce a decision on whether to recognize the workers’ union.