Are we really getting the nation’s biggest steel plant?

October 1, 2026

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Welcome to Thursday’s Almanac, for and about Iowa’s workers.

If break time’s over, here’s the tl;dr:

Trump says Iowa is getting the US’s biggest steel plant by 2030. But will it really happen, or is it a midterm mirage?
Dubuque nurses sound the alarm on cardiac cuts;
Upcoming Iowa layoffs and worker news;
“The farmers love me” might not hold true anymore

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that Mesabi Metallics, a Minnesota-based company owned by an Indian conglomerate, would build a $15 billion steelmaking complex in Iowa.

Tomorrow, state lawmakers will meet to decide if they want taxpayers to help finance it.

Mesabi claims the plant would be the largest in the US once built, will take 6,000 workers to build it, and will need another 1,750 workers to run it.

That would be excellent news to Lee County, which has lately had one of Iowa’s highest unemployment rates, at 4.6%.

But will it actually happen?

Read this week’s top story, or watch it on your preferred platform below.

Would you support using state funds for this? Reply and tell me.

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Amie Rivers

Newsletter Editor, Iowa Starting Line

Member, COURIER United (WGA East)

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Heart attacks during working hours only: UnityPoint Health-Finley in Dubuque has cut the hours of its cath lab—which provides cardiac procedures—to just nine hours instead of round-the-clock, citing “hiring struggles and a lack of demand.” Hospital officials will transfer patients outside of those hours.

“You do not close a fire department because there aren’t enough fires in a particular area to justify the expense,” said Abby Butler, a nurse who has worked at Finley for four years. “The purpose of a fire department is to be there when the emergency happens.”
John Deere hired back some of its laid-off workers recently, including 375 in the Quad Cities and 60 workers in Waterloo.
Tyson workers in the Quad Cities region are still fighting to reopen the Illinois plant that closed recently, laying off 2,500 workers.
Teachers and school administrators, take note: A court has finally defined “sex act,” which Iowa Republicans couldn’t be bothered to do in their law banning books containing them. Here are the clarified rules.
Union endorsements: The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Locals 222IN, 431, 1846, and the UFCW International Union, endorsed Josh Turek for US Senate on Wednesday. “Josh has sponsored legislation to raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to join a union in Iowa,” said UFCW Local 431 President Simplice Kuelo. “That kind of leadership is what Iowa’s workers and UFCW members in our state deserve.”