Iowa’s manufacturing industry cut 3,500 jobs in the past year.
And a good portion of that was from the 1,000 jobs cut in the last year at Whirlpool in Amana. (Also: The company is laying off its entire second-shift production line, or 288 workers, by July 5.)
On Monday, one of those workers went to Washington to advocate for those corporations to start paying their fair share.
Ashley Ehlen of Belle Plaine spoke alongside U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, Tina Smith, and Ed Markey, as well as laid-off workers from Apple and Spirit Airlines, in a push for a bill that would tax America’s richest 5% of their wealth over $1 billion.
Ehlen worked at Whirlpool in Amana until she was laid off, along with nearly 1,000 others in the past year, as Whirlpool moves production to countries where labor is cheaper—all so shareholders can profit the extra cash.
“That’s what corporate greed costs,” she told the crowd at the Workers vs. Billionaires rally. “ It’s real lives, real towns, real families.”
She was in Washington, DC, at the International Association of Machinists Legislative Conference this week, one of several speakers—including US Senator Bernie Sanders—in support of the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act.
That bill would impose a 5% wealth tax on the estimated 938 Americans whose net assets exceed one billion dollars.
“I didn’t ask for this fight; None of us did,” she said. “But I’m standing here today because somebody has to say it out loud: Working people are not disposable. We are not line items on a spreadsheet. We are the reason these companies exist in the first place.”
The bill itself would massively help the working class: Sanders, who helped introduce the bill, estimates it will raise four-point-four ($4.4) trillion dollars in just the first ten years.
The money would go toward reversing Medicaid cuts, making housing and childcare more affordable, guaranteeing public school teachers are paid a minimum of $60,000 per year, and providing direct, $3,000 payments to Americans in households making under $150,000.
So it is very much worth your time to hear what Ashley had to say about Whirlpool and how it has devastated the town:
Transcript below:
ASHLEY EHLEN: “For nearly eight years, I worked at the Whirlpool Amana factory in Amana, Iowa. It was the kind of job that built a life for me and my family, the kind of job that built that whole town. It was a job to be proud of and one we thought we could build a future on.
“Then the layoffs started. Nearly 1,000 jobs have been cut at that plant since 2025. I was one of them in this latest round of layoffs.
“It’s not just a number on a spreadsheet in some corporate office. It’s real people, people whose livelihoods and futures have been affected, and not just in Amana, but all of the surrounding small towns and cities in Iowa.
“It’s people wondering how they’re going to pay their mortgage. It’s families deciding which bills get paid this month and which ones wait. It’s neighbors who worked side by side for years now standing in the unemployment lines together.
“And here’s what makes me angry: This didn’t happen because the company couldn’t afford to keep us. It happened because keeping us wasn’t profitable enough.
“Whirlpool made a choice. They chose the shareholders over the people who actually built their appliances—the people who showed up every single day and gave that company everything we had.
“I think about the next generation in my town wondering if there will even be good jobs left for them. That’s why I’m here in Washington today, because Congress has the power to do something about an economy that’s rigged in favor of billionaires and against the people who do the actual work.
“The Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act is a step toward fixing that. It says the wealthiest people and corporations and this company need to pay what they owe instead of building their fortunes on the backs of workers like me and you.
“I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for fairness. I’m asking for an economy where a paycheck is enough, where loyalty means something, and where the people who do the work get treated like they matter, because we do.
“To the billionaires who think we’ll just stay quiet: we won’t.”
