The newsletter for the Iowa worker.
It’s Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024.
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Hey folks, it’s Amie. Happy New Year!
At a time when folks’ pocketbooks are pressed and national health insurance signups are at record highs (enroll now through Jan. 16!), at least we know Iowa’s underprivileged kids won’t go hungry in 2024….
JUST KIDDING. Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, turned down federal funding for a program that would have given poor kids access to food when the school year ends.
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The USDA’s Summer EBT program fed around 240,000 children in Iowa last summer. This year, however, Iowa’s leaders opted out of the program, with Reynolds making this non-sensical statement about it in a press release: “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Click here for the full story.
Here in Iowa, we help each other—even when those in power won’t. Here are three things you can do about it right now:
I guess feeding children is political now?
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Job of the Week: Wastewater operator
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“Nobody graduates high school and says, ‘I want to be a wastewater operator,’” said Drew Lammers.
But the guy who found his calling as the superintendent of the award-winning North Liberty wastewater treatment plant told Starting Line’s Ty Rushing that he encourages others to give the industry a chance.
Here’s why.
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Pay raise for me, but not for thee: Twenty-two states raised their minimum wage on Jan. 1, meaning better pay for an estimated 9.9 million workers this year. Yet 20 states still use the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour—and Iowa is one of them. But guess who IS getting a pay bump? Gov. Reynolds’ closest staffers got big raises last year, which Iowa Republicans thought was a perfectly fine use of taxpayer money.
‘Buy American’ is now the law for defense contracts: In a big win for unions like the AFL-CIO and International Association of Machinists, President Biden’s ‘Buy American’ executive order is now law for all defense programs. That means 60% of each product bought using taxpayer dollars must now include components made in the USA or our trade allies. That number ramps up to 75% by 2029.
- Union organizing, charges against unfair practices up: Nearly 2,600 petitions for union representation were filed in fiscal year 2023, a 3% increase over fiscal year 2022, according to the National Labor Relations Board. And organizers are less afraid to call out their bosses: Unfair labor practice charges were also up 10%, to 22,448 cases—the highest the agency has seen since 2016.
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New year, new union election: Seven project scientists and equipment coordinators at Alliance Technical Group in Hiawatha will vote Friday on whether to unionize with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1362.
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For more information or to register by Jan. 12, click here.
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A report that surveyed 1,484 Amazon workers at 451 facilities in 42 US states found something startling:
41% of workers report being injured at an Amazon warehouse.
And among those that had worked there for at least 3 years, more than half had been injured on the job.
Burnout was common, with 52%-60% reporting feeling burned out, and nearly 70% of workers reporting they’ve had to take unpaid time off because of that burnout.
“[Amazon’s] drive towards ever-greater speed and efficiency carries significant costs that are being displaced onto its workforce,” the report concludes. You can read it in full here.
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Thanks for reading.
This newsletter was written by Amie Rivers.
Iowa Starting Line is happily free to read for everyone.
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