Iowa Worker’s Almanac: News, unionizing, and layoffs for Sept. 4, 2025

From the Iowa Worker’s Almanac: News you can use for the week of Sept. 4, 2025:

• Both corn and soybean farmers, the major row crops grown in Iowa, are sounding the alarm about prices dropping, high input costs, and fewer overseas countries to trade with because of Trump’s tariffs.
• Less than four months’ pay: As Starbucks workers continue to unionize and bargain a contract, they pointed out the cost of raises for all unionized workers would be less than 0.25% of the company’s annual revenue—or less than four months’ pay of Starbucks’ CEO. College students are invited to learn more about the campaign in a call tomorrow.
  
• Save Our VA rally attracts nearly 100: The American Federation of Government Employees union put on the Iowa City protest last week, opposing Trump’s cuts to the Veterans Administration. “We’re trying to communicate to people how serious the staffing issues are with the VA, not only here in Iowa City, but nationwide,” Patrick Kearns, a VA nurse and president of AFGE 2547, told the Iowa City Press-Citizen. “We’ve been on a hiring freeze now since Jan. 21, while the VA and its press releases deny that there’s a hiring freeze.”
  
• How much are Iowans struggling to afford groceries? Enough that one woman resorted to stealing them, because even a “middle-class” salary isn’t cutting it anymore.
• There isn’t a single immigration lawyer in Ottumwa, where hundreds are out of work and struggling to restart their work authorizations after Trump took away their legal pathways.
  
• Increased meatpacking line speeds is now a Congressional bill: The American Protein Processing Modernization Act, which the meatpacking industry is spearheading, would speed up lines at poultry and pork plants. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which represents thousands of those workers, called it “nothing more than a green-light for poultry and meat processing companies to run even faster line speeds, ignoring years of evidence that increased speeds endanger workers and compromise food safety.”
• Iowa restaurants are struggling, and up to 600 of them—nearly a tenth of restaurants in the state—may close this year, per the Iowa Restaurant Association. “We’ve hit that threshold of what we can charge,” President Jessica Dunker said, noting a third of households have cut back on eating out.
• Voting on a union: Twenty-four x-ray radiographers and lead workers with American Ordnance in Middletown vote Sept. 17 on whether to unionize with IAM Local 1010.
• 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. A total of 1,776 full- and part-time registered nurses and PRNs at UnityPoint Health in Des Moines filed a petition to unionize Aug. 21 with Teamsters Local 90.

Upcoming layoffs:

• Wells Fargo in West Des Moines is laying off 11 workers by Monday, 44 workers by Sept. 22, 10 workers by Oct. 4, and 10 workers by Oct. 18.
• Winnebago Industries is closing and laying off 18 workers in Charles City and 77 workers in Waverly by Monday, one worker in Forest City by Sept. 29, and 26 workers in Charles City by Dec. 12. Read more here.
• TreeHouse Foods in New Hampton is closing and laying off 48 workers by Sept. 12. Read more here.
• John Deere in Waterloo is laying off 71 workers at the Waterloo Works (Foundry) by Sept. 19. Read more here.
• Lennox Industries in Marshalltown is laying off 49 workers by Sept. 28, after laying off 62 workers Aug. 1.
• The Quad City Times in Davenport is laying off 49 printing press workers by Sept. 29. Read more here.
• Smurfit Westrock Company in Cedar Rapids is closing and laying off 100 workers by Oct. 4. Read more here.