Search
Sen. Amy Klobuchar shared the details of her newly released plan for the future of work Thursday afternoon at the Machinists Union Lodge in Des Moines. Klobuchar spoke for nearly an hour with a table of Iowans about the new challenges workers and businesses face in a...
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 55 has made Christmas wishes come true for dozens of Iowa families throughout the last five years. Ever since union membership voted to create the Helpful Elves program, Local 55, partnering with the Local 145,...
Americas PAC, a Marion-based super PAC, largely is funded by a wealthy Illinois man who has made dismantling labor unions a key focus of his campaign donations. Todd Dorman, a columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette, wrote this week about Americas PAC and how it is...
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Dubuque is expanding its footprint by adding some nontraditional members to its ranks — hotel workers. In June, there was only one unionized hotel in Iowa. Casino and hotel workers at Prairie Meadows in Altoona...
It has been a busy week for the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Local 110 of Cedar Rapids. Nearly 700 workers of the RWDSU Local 110 ratified a new contract agreement with Quaker Oats last night, narrowly avoiding a strike. What's more, the 500 RWDSU workers...
Guest op-ed from Adam Kenworthy, a Des Moines attorney. All pivotal movements in our nation’s history draw from the principles enshrined in the very first line of our founding document that reads: “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect...
Since the fall of 2017, tens of thousands of public sector employees in Iowa have participated in annual recertification elections to maintain their union representation. Recertification became a mandatory requirement for public sector unions across the state when the...
Presidents of two major international labor organizations are praising Vice President Joe Biden’s new plan to protect unions. The plan takes a number of steps to protect workers’ rights by holding CEOs responsible for interfering with organizing efforts, ensuring...
AFSCME’s public sector union workers will cast their votes for the third year in a row next week to recertify their unions. This year’s voting cycle runs from 8 a.m. Oct. 15 through 9 a.m. Oct. 29. Iowa’s public sector union workers have been forced to recertify...
From self check-out lanes at Walmart to automated ordering kiosks at McDonald’s, workers in Iowa and across the country are being replaced by machines. The idea that automated intelligence is taking over good-paying jobs may seem like something that doesn’t need to be...
A few 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have proposed creating a sectoral collective bargaining system in the United States, or plan to rewrite the law forcing unions to negotiate solely with their employers. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed...
Union workers haven’t been forgotten when it comes to 2020 Presidential candidates’ plans to combat climate change. Good-paying union jobs were included in many of the Democrats' proposals and discussions during last night's marathon CNN forums. Elizabeth Warren said...
The Polk County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday morning to designate the month of September as "Labor Union Appreciation Month." "Whereas, hard working men and women across the state of Iowa prove that our community is filled with the most creative, dynamic, and...
A union family helped propel Minnesota senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar from the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth, Minnesota, to Yale University and Chicago Law School. Union members helped make her the Hennepin County Attorney and a...
Dave Stephen, a carpenter from Cedar Rapids, enjoyed his day off on Monday by attending the Hawkeye Area Labor Council’s Labor Day Picnic at Hawkeye Downs, where five presidential candidates mingled with the crowd. His wife, Margie Stephen, has already retired. She’s...
Workers will be able to join a union if the want to under 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Beto O’Rourke’s six-point labor plan that he recently released while in Iowa. According to O’Rourke’s 21st Century Labor Contract that he will enact between workers,...
Union workers who have spent decades bargaining for their health care plans might see all that negotiating go out the window under several Democratic proposals being discussed in the presidential race. Several candidates are backing versions of Medicare for All that...
Kindergarten teacher Kathie Card used to work in Iowa. She still lives here. She has a house in Armstrong, in Emmet County. But now she’s teaching in Fairmont, Minnesota, ever since the Iowa legislature stripped public employees of their right to collectively bargain...
Giving $1,000 to every American citizen over the age of 18 is the key to bolstering unions, Andrew Yang said while answering questions at the Asian & Latino Coalition in Des Moines last evening. “This becomes a built-in strike fund for every worker,” Yang said of...
Former Vice President Joe Biden issued a rallying cry to unions while he addressed hundreds of people gathered at the UAW Local 838 hall in Waterloo Wednesday night, promising to create 10 million good-paying, middle-class jobs and saying, "We can out-compete anyone."...
The 1,800-member UFCW Local 230 of Ottumwa has endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders. UFCW Local 230 political director Frank Flanders announced the endorsement during an event in Iowa City on Tuesday evening. "UFCW 230 is taking leadership on behalf of all working Iowans...
Photo from Bernie Sanders in a march with striking McDonald's workers in Cedar Rapids three weeks ago. In a show of solidarity with labor, Bernie Sanders' Iowa campaign used their extensive email list to help rally union members in Southeast Iowa for a march this...
The Iowa Professional Fire Fighters union has voted to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for the 2020 Iowa Caucuses. "Vice President Biden is honored and humbled to have the endorsement of the Iowa Professional Fire Fighters. Every day, Iowa's firefighters put...
Iowa firefighters showed up for Joe Biden during his latest two swings throughout Iowa, but state union members have yet to officially endorse him. The state group won't offer an endorsement to any candidate until after its state convention June 20 and 21, when...
President Donald Trump traveled to Iowa yesterday to tout his administration's record on the economy, immigration, and rural America issues. Just before his visit, Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann boasted about Trump's "ground-breaking policies that...
Senator Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign staffers are now among several hundred 2020 campaign workers who have unionized. In doing so, the campaign joins the likes of the staffers who work for the presidential campaigns of Julián Castro, Eric Swalwell, and...
Congressman Steve King announced that he would bring one half of the far-right YouTube star duo Diamond And Silk to the State Of The Union as his honored guest. Each member of Congress gets one ticket to give out to the balcony seats for the President's address on...
Iowa Starting Line Podcast host Pat Rynard discusses with labor rights attorney Nate Willems the latest Kim Reynolds private jet scandal and the recent unionization of some Iowa Democratic Party campaign...
The defeat of Missouri’s anti-union “right-to-work” law is likely to carry national repercussions. These unions’ huge success in a largely red state that Trump won with 54% suggests that voters support and believe in the value of unions. The right-to-work law was...
State Senator Nate Boulton will report having raised over a half million dollars for the January 1 to May 14 reporting period, bringing his total raised in the gubernatorial race to $1.6 million, his campaign tells Starting Line. He'll close out the last two weeks of...
