As Funds Dried Up, Nonprofit Immigration Group Hired Anti-Labor Law Firm to Crush Union

As the two executives of immigration advocacy group Washington Immigration Solidarity Network (WAISN) burned through cash and as donations dropped, a unionization effort from their workers led them to do something unthinkable for a Washington nonprofit allied with labor unions. WAISN hired Davis Grimm Payne & Marra, a top union-busting law firm in the Pacific Northwest whose work has eroded unions’ right to strike across the US.

The “Network” in WAISN’s name includes labor unions, including MLK Labor, a Seattle-based AFL-CIO affiliate that’s on WAISN’s steering committee, which advises the nonprofit. MLK Labor only learned about WAISN retaining the law firm from The Stranger’s inquiry.

“MLK Labor supports every worker’s right to organize and form a union at every employer, no exceptions. Workplace democracy is a foundational workers’ right,” said Katie Garrow, MLK Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer. “Your email was the first I heard that WAISN hired Davis Grimm. If that’s true, that’s extremely disappointing.”

Another steering committee member who advises WAISN, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, called the hiring of this firm “disturbing” and they feel workers’ “dignity and labor have not been honored.”

During the course of reporting this story, The Stranger reached out to some members of the WAISN board, and learned that two of the five board members resigned “recently.” One board member declined to comment for this story when reached by phone, and announced his resignation the next day, citing continuing health issues. It’s unclear if the other board member resigned before or after the revelation.

The contract between WAISN and the firm was discovered in open government records by the nonprofit watchdog LaborLab, and confirmed by The Stranger. Using publicly available rates information, LaborLab estimated WAISN paid around $20,000 to the firm to carry out the layoffs at the end of September, which The Stranger reported.

“Rather than investing that energy in collaboration, transparency, and protecting the services communities depend on, leadership chose to direct resources toward… preventing workers to fully exercise their collective rights,” the WAISN Worker Collective representing the nonprofit’s aspiring union members said in a statement.

WAISN’s directors hired the law firm—which they said in an email statement was one of six they interviewed—after a year of hemorrhaging cash. Failing to meet fundraising targets and unwilling to curb spendy events, the organization had already lost 71 percent of its cash on hand, according to a previously unreported budget document obtained by The Stranger.

This story also relies on accounts of five people affiliated with WAISN who are referenced anonymously due to fear or retribution by WAISN’s co-directors, who routinely required non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment, and non-disparagement agreements as a condition of layoff benefits.

According to two people working at WAISN at the time the firm was hired, executives at the nonprofit blamed workers directly for having to spend the money on the firm, saying it was their fault for trying to unionize. They told workers it was to ensure that nobody’s rights were violated.

Davis Grimm Payne & Marra is particularly known in the labor movement for its representation of Glacier Northwest, a Washington subsidiary of West Coast cement giant CalPortland in their lawsuit for damages against the Teamsters filed after striking workers walked off the job with wet cement still in their trucks. While the Washington State Supreme Court followed precedent keeping most labor arbitrage under the purview of the National Labor Relations Board rather than the legal system, the United States Supreme Court disagreed.

The nation’s top justices ruled in favor of the cement company in 2023, a major blow to organized labor, which lone dissenting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said would “erode the right to strike.”

“Retaining the firm does not mean WAISN endorses the positions taken by its other clients,” WAISN said in the email, adding the firm was willing to start “within the timeframe we needed.”

According to US Department of Labor (DOL) records, the law firm has helped dozens of corporations oppose employee union campaigns and pressure workers to take management’s side during collective bargaining over the past decade and a half. The firm’s clients include the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Sound Publishing (the largest owner of small newspapers in the state), Paratransit Services, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Puget Sound, and many others.

On their website, Davis Grimm Payne & Marra offers to train employers in topics such as “How to Legally Respond to a Union Organizing Drive,” Understanding Why Employees Unionize,” and “Negotiating a Pro-Management Collective Bargaining Agreement.”

For instance, US DOL records show Davis Grimm Payne & Marra worked recently with Spokane green energy contractor Northwest Renewables to “persuade employees to vote ‘no’ and explain disadvantages of union representation” during a union drive by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 713. Despite nearly $8,000 worth of lawyering, the workers voted to unionize.

As for what services Davis Grimm Payne & Marra provided to WAISN, DOL records list the immigrants rights nonprofit paying the union-busting firm “$150 per hour to $425 per hour” after the WAISN Workers Collective organized to “persuade employees to exercise or not to exercise, or persuade employees as to the manner of exercising, the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” and “explain advantages and disadvantages of union representation.”

“During this challenging time for the organization, we hope the focus can stay on the immigrant and refugees that WAISN serves. Immigration enforcement activity is increasing in Washington,” WAISN’s co-directors Brenda Rodríguez López and Catalina Velasquez said in a statement. “We appreciate the cooperation, support, and solidarity of the community at this time.”

The directors also say they are committed to keeping WAISN’s programs and resources running.

WAISN’s Deportation Defense Hotline that used to answer calls from concerned migrants is still operating. But due to laying off all operators it’s only taking calls from 7 a.m. through 2 p.m. That’s hobbled its ability to answer calls and make resource referrals, for which the City of Seattle is paying the organization $22,000 this year, according to details of a $50,000 contract provided by the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA).

The hotline was also an organizing tool for mobilizing to quickly help communities following ICE activity. For example, volunteers observed police activity, helped secure vehicles, or put loved ones in touch with a detainee. WAISN used to coordinate these actions on a daily basis, but virtually never do anymore, says laid-off Rapid Response organizer Alex Fayer, one of at least three laid-off workers who have gone public after refusing to sign a non-disparagement during the layoffs.

“WAISN inadvertently left me in an internal Signal chat,” Fayer says. Despite being laid off in September, Fayer had access to a Signal chat until last week, which gave him “direct visibility into the dramatic collapse of WAISN’s rapid response capacity from the layoffs.”

The Stranger confirmed the shift with members of ICE observer groups across King County, which have pivoted to reporting ICE activity internally instead of calling the hotline, but have some communication with remaining WAISN staff.

WAISN is still carrying out programs funded by Seattle’s OIRA and pro-immigrant nonprofits. They successfully administer bonds to immigrants seeking release from detention, according to groups who have made referrals. WAISN still hosts online legal resources and pair accompaniment volunteers to go with immigrants to ICE check-ins or visit them in immigration detention.

The budget obtained by The Stranger documents plummeting cashflows. The organization’s co-directors have blamed the layoffs on a drop in institutional funding, which had spiked after Trump unleashed his mass deportation agenda in 2025. WAISN leadership haven’t held a town-hall-style forum to discuss their finances, and it’s unclear how many months of runway they have after laying off 18 people—nearly half of their staff—this year. Most of those laid-off staff made between $70,000 and $75,000 annually.

The directors say they’ve taken pay cuts, though declined to provide proof when The Stranger asked for pay stubs. The co-directors were each making $185,000 at the start of the year, according to two people familiar with the salaries. If they took the pay cut, reportedly 25 percent, in September, their salaries are now a combined $277,500 per year.

Internal financial records obtained by The Stranger suggest they may have painted themselves into a corner financially. They started 2026 with more than $3.5 million cash and were down to around $1 million in September, only 29 percent of their starting funds, according to an approved FY2026 budget authenticated by a third party. A DC-based spokesperson for WAISN did not dispute the authenticity of the document.

WAISN’s leadership says the board approved the budget knowing they would spend more than they would raise, and points out that many other nonprofits do this.

But two former workers with knowledge of the company’s operations say that the directors ignored direct warnings in the spring that the organization was in poor financial health.

Members of the WAISN Worker’s Collective say the directors wasted a lot of money this year, even after they knew what they were facing. They point to event spending in August that would lose the organization $60,000, according to the budget document, and a failed fundraising strategy that shelled out a $360,000 annualized salary to a grant-writing consultant who didn’t appear to achieve much. And earlier in the year they spent $35,000 on recruiting director-level positions that were likely laid off or never filled in the first place.

Laid-off workers say more of the financial issues, and the cuts to services, should be released and discussed with stakeholders.

“The distrust WAISN is experiencing within its community and among its partners is not something that appeared overnight. It is the result of leadership decisions and a continued unwillingness to meaningfully engage with the people who have built, maintained, and relied on these programs,” the WAISN Worker’s Collective says.