Newsletters
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🧑🔧 6 Anti-Worker Policies Passed By the Iowa Legislature
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. If you care about workers’ rights, or upholding federal child labor laws, or even being fiscally responsible with your tax dollars, you should know what your elected leaders have been up to in the Iowa Legislature before you fill out your ballot. Iowa Republicans…
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🪧 Cargill Strikers: ‘Don’t Forget About Us’
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. At last Thursday’s rally at Cargill Corn Milling in Cedar Rapids, where around 100 Teamsters-affiliated workers have been on a Cargill strike since Oct. 1, workers talked about the disrespect they say they’ve gotten from their company during negotiations. (Read my stories about how…
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🥾 ‘Respect’ Biggest Issue For Cargill Strikers
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. I went to the strike line at Cargill Corn Milling in Cedar Rapids last week, visiting with a few of the roughly 100 Teamsters-affiliated workers who have been on strike since Oct. 1. And those workers kept coming back to one major issue: Respect.…
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🌱 Cargill Workers Strike in Cedar Rapids
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. Around 100 workers at Cargill Corn Milling in Cedar Rapids are officially on strike. The three-year contract between Cargill—with corn milling and soybean processing plants in the city—and workers unionized with Teamsters Local 238 expired at midnight Tuesday. But workers didn’t vote to…
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📄 Iowans Sued Over Noncompetes
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. I heard from two workers being sued by an Iowa company over a noncompete agreement they say is unfairly keeping them from finding other jobs. Seneca Companies was started in 1972 by Chris Risewick, who sold petroleum equipment. Over the decades, the Des Moines-based…
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🤑 You’re Not Stupid, It’s the Economy
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. Eight Iowans were killed on this day 23 years ago in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Read their stories from Notes on Iowa. Did you watch the debate last night? (Watching clips on social media counts!) Tell me your thoughts, and I’ll run them in…
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🍕 Casey’s Workers: $15/hour. Casey’s CEO: $10.6M
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. Monday was Labor Day in the US, and Iowa Federation of Labor President Charlie Wishman came out swinging against inequality in his Labor Day message: “Labor Day is for you, but as we reach the end of the summer of 2024, it feels like…
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✊ Putting the Labor Back in Labor Day
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. This Monday is Labor Day, but only in the US and Canada (where it’s Labour Day). And, since this is the Worker’s Almanac, it’s more than a day off for us! Most other countries celebrate International Workers’ Day, or May Day, on May 1…
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✊ At DNC, Unions Take Center Stage
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. The heads of several unions spoke on Monday, the first night of the Democratic National Convention, which continues through tomorrow in Chicago. Showing up to praise the Biden-Harris administration, and denounce how Trump treated working Americans, were: Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, an…
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🗳️ Who Is Tim Walz and Is He Pro-Worker?
Share with a friend It’s Worker Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate—arguably a progressive pick, given the laws Walz has signed as governor that have propelled Minnesota into an escape state for many of Iowa’s more liberal-minded folks. But picking Walz also…
