Worker’s Almanac

News about and for the working class Share with a friend “Allegiant needs to invest in their people and their pilots.”   So says Tyler Heavey, a captain with Allegiant Airlines for the last six years.   He told me he loves his job. But he doesn’t love the way the company has treated him…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend “The pressure keeps rising.”   That’s what Jacob Scroggins told me recently. (If you don’t remember him from my earlier article on it, he’s a shift supervisor at the Merle Hay Road Starbucks in Des Moines who helped organize workers to form the fourth…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend After a delayed vote because of the government shutdown, hundreds of nurses at four UnityPoint hospitals in the Des Moines area are voting this weekend on whether to unionize with Teamsters Local 90—an election being closely watched by non-union nurses across Iowa who are also…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend The kidnapping goon squad gutting our workforce keeps rolling to more cities across the US. Its newest target is Charlotte, North Carolina, and soon ICE and Border Patrol will bring their terror to New Orleans.   But deportations of immigrant workers continue to happen…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend As I mentioned last week, Case New Holland (CNH) announced it would close its Burlington plant by mid-2026, with 200 workers laid off as a result.   The company blamed it on the agricultural industry downturn broadly affecting sales. (US Sen. Chuck Grassley said…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend Well, it happened: SNAP benefits ended Nov. 1 for 42 million Americans for the very first time in history. That includes 267,000 Iowans, 40% of whom are children, going without their grocery money this week.   It’s because of the ongoing federal government shutdown,…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend Saturday is Nov. 1, and Nov. 1 is when the monthlong federal government shutdown—assuming it hasn’t been lifted—will become very personal and very real.   There are two big reasons for that.    First: Nov. 1 is when SNAP benefits will end for 42 million…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend   A correction from last week: Meghan Holloran graduated from Drake University with a degree in multimedia journalism, not environmental journalism.   Amie here. The ongoing federal government shutdown is resulting in lots of Iowans not being paid—and it’s not just federal workers.  …

News about and for the working class Share with a friend   Amie here. Another young college graduate from Iowa can’t find any sort of entry-level job, she told me last week. And AI may be to blame.   Meghan Holloran just graduated from Drake University this May with an environmental journalism degree. She did…

News about and for the working class Share with a friend   Amie here. Another group of workers won a pension back; it’s spreading!   Around 186 workers at Kemps, a dairy plant in Le Mars, have won raises, a new health care plan, and a defined benefit pension in their first-ever work stoppage at…