It’s Thursday, Apr. 17, 2025.

Amie here. Elon Musk told us DOGE (the “department” of government efficiency that isn’t a real department but definitely gets real taxpayer money anyway) was simply looking into all of our internal systems to tackle “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Turns out that DOGE, which is being mimicked by half of states (including ours), is actually creating those things, and also stealing people’s personal information to boot.

This week, a whistleblower said that included information about ongoing activities of labor unions at the National Labor Relations Board.

Per NPR:

“It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets—data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.

Meanwhile … members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access—evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.“

Of course, President Trump, who is theoretically overseeing all of this, doesn’t actually give a shit about the NLRB, or working people that form unions in order to get a better deal from their employer:

He’s fired mediators that help resolve disputes between unions and businesses (and is now being sued by several unions for it);
He’s unilaterally ended dues collection at federal unions without notice, which subsidize union staff and build strike funds;
He’s even contemplating overriding the NLRB to dictate labor law himself.

Are you worried about what DOGE is collecting?

Amie Rivers

Newsletter Editor, Iowa Starting Line

Member, COURIER UNITED/WGA East

Email me

Working class news you can use:

On strike: More than 100 workers with Teamsters Local 238 at the Keurig/Dr. Pepper plant in Ottumwa have been on strike since April 9. They’re demanding “fair treatment, secure benefits, and basic dignity and respect on the job.” Some haven’t had a single day off in two months. But the strike itself was started after the company “went so far as to pre-draft union withdrawal language and mail it to employees at home,” which triggered an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge, Drake Custer, lead negotiator with the union, told me. “Our members will stay out on this ULP strike for as long as it takes to get the recognition and dignity they deserve.”
Laid-off Whirlpool Amana workers will have a tougher time now than they would have prior to 2022, when Iowa Republicans slashed unemployment benefits. (Common Good Iowa)
Workers Memorial Day is April 28, an annual remembrance put on by the AFL-CIO for those who died on the job in the past year. There are at least a dozen events remembering Iowans lost on the job starting next week; find those here.
35% of Central Iowans live in poverty, or more than 92,000 households in Polk, Dallas, and Warren counties, according to one of the findings from the latest report from United Way.
Sign this: A petition to free the sheetmetal worker who was illegally deported to the torture prison in El Salvador. Read more about him and others like him here.
Trump is now going after those here legally on humanitarian parole in Kentucky.
Raising the wage: The federal minimum wage would rise to $17 by 2030 under a new bill, the Raise the Wage Act, introduced last week. It would raise the living standards of more than 22 million Americans if passed. (EPI)
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expiring. Hear from Iowa small business owners about how that would affect them in this virtual panel.
Moving because of abortion restrictions: It turns out that, yes, people do not like restrictions on abortion, and move away or won’t move here for a job because of it. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Some still standing up for workers: The Federal Trade Commission announced it would form a Joint Labor Task Force “to prioritize rooting out and prosecuting deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor-market practices that harm American workers.”
Iowa layoffs coming up in the next month:

– Lutheran Services of Iowa is laying off six workers in Des Moines, four workers in Sioux City, and two workers in Waterloo by April 25. It will lay off one more worker in Des Moines by June 27. Read more here.

– John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny is laying off 72 workers by Apr. 28. Read more here.

– Ascent Professional Staffing in Muscatine is closing and laying off 32 workers by May 2.

– Corteva Agriscience in Johnston is laying off 44 workers by May 9.

– BHFO Inc. in Cedar Rapids is laying off 32 workers by May 15.

– RTX in Cedar Rapids is laying off four workers by May 15.

Before you punch out 🥊

Sean Dengler tried driving back and forth from Des Moines to keep his family’s farm going for as long as he could, he wrote in the Register.

But it wasn’t just the drive that killed his dream: It was the corporate ag monopolies that pushed him, and other young Iowans, off the farm.

And he’s got the numbers to back up why.

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