Iowa Worker’s Almanac layoffs and news for Sept. 18, 2025

• Union rallies for Fort Madison prison workers: Prison health care workers unionized with AFSCME Council 61 held a rally Wednesday against a proposal from the state that would outsource prison health care across Iowa. “Whenever we see privatization, it’s not about looking out for the good of citizens,” said Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor. “(This proposal by the State is) about introducing a profit motive into taking care of people.”

• Unemployment rate up in Iowa, nationally: The latest report from August shows Iowa unemployment rose by a tenth of a percentage, to 3.8%, up from 3.7% in July. Nationally, the rate also rose by a tenth of a percentage and now stands at 4.3%. The number of unemployed Iowans has risen by nearly 10,000 since last year. “Instead of focusing on job growth and fixing an economy that is the worst in the nation, Republican lawmakers have pursued tax cuts for corporations and the richest Iowans,” said Iowa House Democratic Leader Brian Meyer. “Today’s workforce report proves they’re abandoning Iowa’s workers.”

• Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol is still stalling a union contract a year into his tenure, despite more than 12,000 workers at nearly 650 Starbucks stores across the country voting to unionize.

• Trump’s tariffs are now increasing prices for things, which is increasing inflation, too.

• Immigration raids are ‘direct attacks on worker rights and safety,’ the nonprofit National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) said in a statement after ICE raids in Georgia and New York this month. “Immigration raids are not about safety or justice,” said Jessica Martinez, Executive Director of National COSH. “They are intentional tactics to undermine workers’ safety and rights and embolden employers to violate labor laws by silencing workers. We cannot allow ICE enforcement to become a weapon that strips workers of their rights and dignity.” Some workers are holding trainings on how to fight back against ICE at their workplace.
  
  
• Employers are lobbying to expand the H-2B visa program, which allows companies to hire migrant workers for temporary jobs (in part because the Trump administration is deporting so many of their workers). They’re asking to expand H-2B to year-round work like meatpacking, which EPI and others argue would lower wages around the country. “Temporary work under the H-2B program is harmful by design and in practice,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which represents thousands of meatpacking workers. “It forces workers to live in constant uncertainty, often in unstable and unsafe housing, and leaves workers vulnerable to abuse, setting up a situation where speaking up can mean losing their job or being sent out of the country.”
• Won a union: Twenty-four full- and part-time radiographers with American Ordnance in Middletown are now unionized with IAM Local 1010, after a vote of 15-4 to do so.
• Voting on a union: A total of 1,776 full- and part-time registered nurses and PRNs at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Blank Children’s Hospital, Methodist West Hospital, and Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines vote Oct. 5-7 on whether to unionize with Teamsters Local 90. Sign a petition in support of the effort here.
• Starting up a union: Fifty full- and part-time workers at River Hills Community Health Center in Ottumwa refiled a petition to unionize Aug. 8 with River Hills United/Teamsters Local 90.

Upcoming layoffs:

• John Deere in Waterloo is laying off 71 workers at Waterloo Works (Foundry) by Monday, and 101 workers at the East Donald Street site by Oct. 20. Read more here and here.
  
  
• Wells Fargo in West Des Moines is laying off 44 workers by Monday, 10 workers by Oct. 4, 10 workers by Oct. 18, and 12 workers by Nov. 14.
• Lennox Industries in Marshalltown is laying off 49 workers by Sept. 28. Read more here.
• The Quad City Times in Davenport is laying off 49 printing press workers by Sept. 29. Read more here.
• Winnebago Industries is closing and continuing to lay off, including one worker in Forest City by Sept. 29, three workers in Forest City by Oct. 10, and 26 workers in Charles City by Dec. 12. Read more here.
• Smurfit Westrock Company in Cedar Rapids is closing and laying off 100 workers by Oct. 4. Read more here.
• Maverik in Des Moines is laying off 100 workers at its corporate headquarters by Oct. 6. Read more here.
• Fox River Mills in Osage is closing, relocating to North Carolina, and laying off 105 workers by Oct. 10. Read more here.