No more green chile dip? Creamland Dairy workers strike over stalled union contracts - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
Creamland Dairy’s beloved green chile dip may soon be harder to find.
Workers at Creamland plants in Albuquerque and Farmington went on strike Wednesday night, alleging the company is deliberately delaying negotiations for a new union contract.
Seventy-seven employees, including pasteurizers, warehouse staff and truck drivers, are participating in the strike, according to Jesus Vidaca, vice president of Teamsters Local 492, the union representing the workers.
Vidaca claimed the company had been stalling negotiations for the contracts, which he hopes will guarantee employees higher wages and improvements to working conditions and benefits.
Union officials on Thursday said Creamland workers are prepared to strike until the company, a subsidiary of Dairy Farmers of America, is ready to negotiate in good faith.
“(The company) has been stalling and stalling,” Vidaca said. “We’ll go negotiate, sit there for hours just waiting on them…we meet a week later and they’re still not even ready to give us a proposal.”
Vidaca also alleged Creamland broke federal labor law by banning union members from wearing Teamsters pins while at work.
“We decided that the company has been violating their rights,” Vidaca said.
In a statement to the Journal, a Dairy Farmers of America spokesperson denied the allegations of bad-faith bargaining, adding that the company is committed to a “respectful, constructive bargaining process that offers competitive wages and benefits.”
“We are disappointed that the Teamsters walked away from the process and have initiated a strike at the Albuquerque Creamland Dairy plant. While we respect their right to take this step, we believe a strike does not serve the best interests of our employees, our customers, or the communities we serve,” the spokesperson said.
The Creamland strike is affecting production and distribution of all of Creamland’s cultured dairy products, including milk, sour cream, cottage cheese and the company’s line of dips, according to pasteurizer JJ Akers, who said before the strike, Creamland was producing 22 large containers of cottage cheese per week.
“There’s no way they’re producing 22 vats a week right now,” Akers said. “There’s no way they’re going to get that product out the door, and without the drivers, you’re not going to get it delivered.”
Creamland also supplies milk and dairy products to Albuquerque Public Schools, though APS spokesperson Martin Salazar said management at Creamland had assured school officials that the company “has a plan to continue supplying schools with what they need.”
Local 492 Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Palmer said contract negotiations have been ongoing since late March.
“We’re willing to negotiate with the company, but our members are going to withhold their labor until the company gets serious about negotiating,” Palmer said.
Akers, who has worked at Creamland for 28 years, said he hopes to win a better pension.
“I’m ready to retire in three more years, so it’s going to benefit me,” Akers said.
Though workers said this is the first strike at the Albuquerque plant, it’s not the first time Creamland has been accused by the union of unfair labor practices.
In January 2021, Local 492 filed a charge against Creamland, contending that the company had engaged in bad-faith bargaining and had illegally retaliated against employees, according to filings with the National Labor Relations Board.
The strike comes on the heels of grocery workers at Smith’s and Albertsons stores across New Mexico narrowly avoiding one of their own in July, when the two companies reached an agreement to finalize new union contracts with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1564.
NM Education Department shares initial $5B request for FY27 - Leah Romero, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Public Education Department shared its initial $5 billion budget request for Fiscal Year 2027 with lawmakers this week during the Legislative Education Study Interim Committee in Gallup. The $5.09 billion request marks a 1.7% decrease from the previous year, according to Public Education Secretary Mariana Padilla’s presentation.
However, Padilla noted several missing elements in the request, including compensation bumps; insurance costs; and all of the components of the court-ordered remedial action plan for the long-running Yazzie/Martinez education equity lawsuit, as it’s not due until October.
She asked the committee and LESC staff to take this information into account as they develop their own budget requests for public education over the next several months.“This budget has been submitted by the department about three months sooner than we typically do,” Padilla told lawmakers. “A lot of hours go into looking at our programs, looking at the needs. Deep discussions with our staff, as well as our stakeholders.”
Padilla said the budget also does not include an increase in K-12 Plus Program funding due to enrollment declines and shorter calendar years. The K-12 Plus Program provides schools with additional funding for days added to the calendar above the legislatively required 180 days for five-day learning weeks.
“The average school calendars statewide have been reduced by two school days,” she said. “Schools, as they set their own calendars — as they do every year — we’re seeing on average two fewer days. We’ll be able to finalize our K-12 Plus numbers in October when we go through that reporting period.”
Padilla’s presentation highlighted several areas of priority, including educator recruitment and quality; literacy; student nutrition; accountability; academic interventions and supports; math and STEAM; special education; graduation; and school safety. The budget includes $37.3 million for educator and leadership training and teacher pipeline programs.
The secretary pointed out that New Mexico public schools had about 681 teacher vacancies last academic year, or a 3% statewide vacancy rate. The request for training funds also includes money for implementing and growing the newly required school board training requirement, to ensure school leaders are knowledgeable in state law and their responsibilities to the schools, educators and students.
The department’s budget also includes $57 million for literacy, including implementing structured literacy and training, as well as summer reading programs. Padilla told lawmakers that she hopes to include math in the summer programs next year to expand interventions for students struggling in the subject.
A separate $9.8 million is included in the budget specifically for math and STEAM subjects and introducing a method for teaching the topics that is similar to the structured literacy approach.
LESC Chair Sen. Bill Soules (D-Las Cruces), a former math educator, told committee members that the PED’s budget request is a good place to start the conversation for the committee’s budget and possible bills to introduce in the 2026 lLegislative session that begins on Jan. 20, 2026. He also said the LESC might look at boosting funding in its budget proposal for several areas, including math and science.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that we ought to ask for what we want and not negotiate against ourselves as educators, and make somebody else have to make the cuts rather than think what they’re going cut and do it for them, and then they’re going to cut more anyhow,” Soules said during the meeting. He added that the state is in a good financial position and should be looking at devoting more funds to education rather than allocating so much to the permanent fund for investment.
“We’re a wealthy state, we are sending billions of dollars a year into the permanent fund,” Soules said. “We need to be taking care of New Mexico, New Mexicans and the investments we make in our kids will have bigger dividends than the 5 or 7% that’s going to be churned out by putting the money into the permanent fund.”
Candidate Darren White alleges Keller used the State of the City as a campaign rally - By Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal
Albuquerque mayoral candidate Darren White alleged this week that Mayor Tim Keller used the Aug. 23 State of the City address as a campaign rally that may require his campaign to reimburse the city.
White submitted a letter on Wednesday asking Albuquerque’s Office of the Inspector General to review expenditures, advertising, promotional materials and rhetorical content associated with the event.
White highlighted the timing of the event — 73 days before the Nov. 4 election — and comments in Keller’s address as evidence that the event served as a “campaign rally” the letter said.
White singled out comments Keller made during the address, including “For the first time, we are seeing what is working. Now is not time to abandon the progress we have made,” as an example of campaign rhetoric.
“Upon review of the remarks, it is evident that this event did not constitute a neutral State of the City address, but rather a campaign rally in support of the Mayor’s reelection,” White wrote in the letter.
A spokesman for Keller’s office rejected White’s allegations Thursday and said that nothing about this year’s State of the City differed from those of previous years.
“We schedule the State of the City as a community event based on a number of factors including when venues are available, weather, and any obligations the city may have,” city spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said in a statement.
“We also publicize the address in virtually the same way every year, and we show videos of city councilors talking about the communities they represent,” Gallegos said. “Last year, the address was also in mid-August based on those factors. We didn’t do anything different this year than we did in previous years.”
Previous State of the City addresses were held in August 2024, May 2023, June 2022, March 2021 and January 2020, according to Journal archives.
White, a former Bernalillo County sheriff and former secretary of the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, is one of eight challengers seeking to oust Keller from the office he has held since 2017. Keller is seeking his third term as mayor.
An OIG spokesman acknowledged Thursday that office staff had received White’s letter and are evaluating whether it is appropriate for review by the OIG.
White said Thursday he sent the letter to the city’s inspector general because he considers the case one of “waste, fraud and abuse,” which is appropriate for the OIG to investigate. White is asking the OIG to require Keller’s campaign to reimburse the city if the investigation finds violations of city policy or state law.
White alleged that the city spent “tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars” promoting the event, including television and radio ads, billboards and “branded materials” such as T-shirts.
“What benefit is it to the taxpayers?” White said Thursday in a phone interview. “I would say that with this speech they turned City Hall into a campaign headquarters.”
Governor announces special session focused on federal budget cuts to start Oct. 1 - Dan Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will call lawmakers back to the Roundhouse starting Oct. 1 for a special session focused on a state-level response to federal spending reductions to Medicaid and food assistance programs.
The Governor’s Office announced the special session date Thursday, after weeks of intrigue and uncertainty about whether such a session might be called.
The special session, which will be the seventh called by Lujan Grisham since she took office in 2019, could allow lawmakers to — at least temporarily — blunt the impact of federal bills signed by President Donald Trump, in part by providing stopgap funding for a rural health care fund and public broadcasting stations.
“New Mexicans should not be forced to shoulder these heavy burdens without help from their elected officials,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “After discussions with legislative leaders, we’ve resolved to do everything possible to protect essential services and minimize the damage from President Trump’s disastrous bill.”
Republican lawmakers reacted to the special session news by criticizing the Democratic governor for not including crime-related issues and changes to New Mexico’s child welfare system on the special session agenda.
“It appears to me to be a taxpayer-funded anti-Trump rally,” Senate Minority Leader William Sharer, R-Farmington, said in an interview, while pointing out most of the federal funding changes to Medicaid and food assistance programs are not scheduled to take effect until 2027 or later.
“If we’re going to have a special session and try to solve a problem, then we should try to solve a problem,” Sharer added.
Top Governor’s Office staffers have been meeting with Democratic legislative leaders in recent weeks about a special session spending package that could exceed $400 million, according to lawmakers involved in the discussions.
That funding would come from nearly $3.5 billion in unspent money in state reserve funds, as state revenue levels have surged to record-high levels in recent years.
The federal budget bill signed by Trump in July could lead to more than 90,000 New Mexico residents losing health care coverage and the possible closure of rural hospitals, state health officials have warned. In addition, the federal budget bill is projected to cost the state an average of $206 million per year over the next five years, executive and legislative branch economists projected.
But GOP lawmakers have questioned those estimates, while citing tax breaks and other provisions in the federal bill that could benefit New Mexico residents.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the large tax package signed into law this July, trimmed close to $1 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare and subsidies from the Affordable Care Act and $230 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, spending over the next 10 years.
Special session outlook
The special session will be the first called by Lujan Grisham since a July 2024 session focused on crime-related issues that ended with the Democratic-controlled Legislature adjourning without taking action on most of the governor’s proposed agenda.
That prompted the governor to say legislators should be “embarrassed” for their unwillingness to pass sweeping public safety legislation.
Top-ranking Democratic lawmakers appear to be more on the same page with the governor entering this year’s special session, based on statements released Thursday by the Governor’s Office.
Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, described the special session as “essential” to protecting rural health care providers and safeguarding Medicaid coverage.
“New Mexico cannot stand by while Washington’s reckless budget cuts inflict generational harm on families and communities across the state,” Wirth said.
House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, sounded a similar note, saying, “New Mexico is not going to allow Trump and the radical right to take food off your table or kick your family off your healthcare plan.”
It’s unclear how long this year’s special session will last, though most special sessions called in recent years have wrapped up in a matter of days — if not shorter. Special sessions are limited to no longer than 30 days under the state Constitution.
Going back to 2020, the average daily cost of a special session is $57,000, according to the Legislative Council Service. Last year’s single-day special session cost $92,883, a figure that includes compensation for necessary session staffers.
Debate on some issues postponed for now
While announcing the special session’s start date, the Governor’s Office also confirmed debate on some hot-button issues will be delayed until the start of the 30-day regular session in January.
That includes legislation targeting New Mexico’s three federal immigrant detention centers, which generated testy debate during a recent interim committee hearing. The three detention centers run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are located in Chaparral, Estancia and Milan.
The governor’s chief general counsel had told lawmakers in July that legislation banning New Mexico local governments from entering into contracts with federal agencies to detain immigrants for civil violations could be included in the special session mix.
Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, one of the sponsors of that legislation, said Thursday there were ongoing discussions about specific bill details.
She also said she believes there is growing momentum for such legislation, saying, “I feel like our legislative body is definitely seeing the realities of why we need to address ICE detention in our state.”
While the governor has not yet issued the formal special session proclamation, debate on a slew of bills dealing with juvenile crime and firearm restrictions is also expected to be delayed until next year’s 30-day session.
But leading Republican legislators said they still plan to draft bills dealing with criminal penalties, New Mexico’s child welfare system and the state’s medical malpractice system, even if Lujan Grisham does not include the issues on the special session agenda.
House Minority Leader Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, described those topics as “real emergencies” facing the state.
“New Mexicans deserve a special session that takes these issues seriously — not another round of political theater dictated by the 4th floor of the Roundhouse,” said Armstrong.
Luján pushes bipartisan bill to restore forests - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
U.S. senators from New Mexico, Colorado and Idaho introduced legislation Wednesday to increase funds for local partnerships to prevent water pollution and restore watersheds.
The Headwater Protection act, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Colorado Democratic Sens. Micheal Bennet and John Hickenlooper and Idaho Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch, will increase funding for two U.S. Forest Service programs.
The bill, if passed, would triple the yearly funding for the Water Source Protection Program for the U.S. Forest Service in order to provide more than $30 million per year for farmers, ranchers, water utilities and local and tribal governments for restoring forests or cleaning up watersheds. The legislation would prioritize giving funds to projects to improve drinking water quality and harden forested areas to wildfire and climate change.
New Mexico is still reeling from the 2022 Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire, the state’s largest wildfire, which burned more than 485 square miles in Northern New Mexico. On Tuesday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham authorized more emergency funding for flood damages in Mora County and Las Vegas residents have had to drink bottled water for months as the city still tries to recover drinking water supplies since the fire.
Luján said in a statement that the introduced legislation would allow acequias — New Mexico irrigation systems — and land grant-mercedes (areas of land granted by either Spanish or Mexican governments) to apply for these funds for the first time.
“Water is essential to the health and safety of our communities. Protecting and improving our watersheds is critical to ensuring reliable access to clean drinking water and making our forests more resilient against wildfires,” Luján said. “The Headwaters Protection Act will strengthen these efforts by investing in watershed management and pollution prevention.”
A second provision in the bill would require the U.S. Forest Service to update its manual for restoring watersheds and require national forests to be managed to prevent further degradation.