The economy is great again (LOL): Iowa Worker’s Almanac layoffs and news, Jan. 29, 2026

Iowa Worker’s Almanac news briefs:

• The economy is great again? That’s what US Rep. Ashley Hinson, running for US Senate, wrote in a Des Moines Register opinion piece this week in advance of President Donald Trump‘s speech where he tried saying the same thing while he was in Clive Tuesday. LOL, not even, retorted Iowa Farmers Union president Aaron Lehman, while columnist Ed Tibbetts called it “nonsense.” Second District congressional candidate Clint Twedt-Ball agreed. “This administration has put in place chaotic, across-the-board tariffs that have raised prices and made it harder for farmers to sell their crops,” Twedt-Ball said.
• Did Trump solve “affordability?” Most Americans don’t think so, according to a recent poll.
• Tax-free savings accounts will solve it? Hinson, meanwhile, is penning bills to expand tax-free savings accounts, which she thinks will solve everything from childcare affordability to our workforce issues. Except those only help when you have money to actually save. “The inability of many Americans to save stems from structural challenges in the economy that are stagnating the wages of working people, not the lack of a tax breaks that reward savings,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy wrote in 2018.
  
• Breaking their silence: More than 60 Minnesota companies jointly penned a letter “calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions” as ICE and Border Patrol agents continue to wreak havoc on the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro. But it wasn’t received well. “To call it milquetoast is charitable,” wrote Minnesota native Justin Stofferahn. How business owners could actually help? Becoming 4th Amendment worksites.
• Union endorsements: Local 125 Plumbers and Pipefitters endorsed Sen. Zach Wahls for US Senate this week. “He stands with working people, supports strong apprenticeship programs and fair wages, and he’s not afraid to take on corporate special interests that try to undercut our jobs,” said Mike Sadler, the local’s business manager.
• The opposite of solidarity: Alex Pretti, the latest observer gunned down by federal agents in Minneapolis, and the federal agent who killed him belonged to the same union.
• Year-round E15 is only a short-term solution for Iowa’s corn growers, who need new markets if they’re going to survive, a new study finds.
  
• NIOSH restored, thanks to lawsuit: The Trump administration said it will reopen the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and rehire all workers laid off, according to the International Association of Machinists, which had sued to reverse the cuts.
• Do you know about your Work Number? It’s how bosses are verifying your work history—yet it can be incomplete or wrong.
  
• AI=revolution? That’s the warning the AFL-CIO gave to world leaders last week, if they allow artificial intelligence to take a large portion of jobs away from people.
• Voting on a union: Forty full- and part-time drivers and monitors at Durham School Services in Urbandale voted on whether to unionize with Teamsters Local 90 last month; there is still no vote total posted to the NLRB website as of this writing. (Here’s why things may be backed up.)

Upcoming layoffs:

All information taken from Iowa Workforce Development’s WARN Act website. Read WARN Act and Iowa WARN Act criteria here.

• 10 Roads Express/10 Roads Service in Carter Lake is closing and laying off 42 workers by Friday.
• DRT in Carter Lake is closing and laying off 26 workers by Friday.
• CRST Expedited in Cedar Rapids is laying off 30 workers by Sunday.
• Medtec/CQ Medical in Orange City is closing and laying off 33 workers by Feb. 6.
• Wells Fargo in West Des Moines is laying off 25 workers by Feb. 6, and 33 workers by Mar. 20. Read more here.
• Winnebago Industries in Charles City is closing and laying off its remaining 23 workers by Feb. 20.
• MercyOne in Ottumwa is closing and laying off 40 workers by Feb. 27. Read more here.