Iowa

Meatpacking Plants Pollute Poor, Non-White Communities Disproportionately

January 4, 2025 John McCracken and Monica Cordero, In These Times. Educate! EPA, Iowa, Meatpackers, pollution, Systemic Racism, Water

Postville, Iowa — In March, officials in Postville shut down its water treatment facility for two days as city employees worked to prevent polluted water from a meatpacking plant from entering the water supply. Agri Star Meat and Poultry had discharged more than 250,000 gallons of untreated food processing waste — blood, chemicals and other solid materials — into the city’s wastewater system. Chris Hackman, the city’s wastewater operator for the past 25 years, said it was one of the worst incidents he could remember. “We’ve never seen anything like that,” he said.

Challenging Land Use and Abuse In Allamakee County

November 14, 2024 Dave Rollo, Resilience. Strategize! Big Ag, Factory Farming, Iowa, Land defenders, Land Rights, Mining

Allamakee County lies in the northeast corner of Iowa, bordering Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is part of a three-state region that, unlike most of the upper United States and Canada, escaped glaciation during past ice ages. This geological oddity is immediately obvious to visitors by the dramatic terrain of bluffs, hills, and valleys. Expansive plains characterize most of the rest of Iowa, where miles-thick glaciers moved over the land like a bulldozer, lowering elevated areas, filling in depressions, and depositing rich, deep till. In contrast, the unglaciated northeast of Iowa, referred to as the Paleozoic Plateau for the geologic era of ancient sea bed limestones visible at the surface, contains thin soils and exposed bedrock.

The Cost Of Corporate Profit In US Health Care Reaches $2 Trillion

November 10, 2024 Pete Dolack, ZNetwork. Educate! Big Pharma, Health Care, Iowa, Medicare for all, Worker Rights and Jobs

As has long been the case, the U.S. health care system is by far the world’s most expensive while providing the worst results among the world’s advanced capitalist countries. And that expense continues to get larger and more unaffordable. Just how large is the cost of private profit in health care? Almost two trillion dollars! Unbelievable? It certainly seems so. But that is indeed how much more money the people of the United States spent on health care in 2022 than they would otherwise have spent if the U.S. had a single-payer system.

The Private Pilots Flying Abortion Seekers Across The Midwest

September 9, 2024 Lucas Frisancho, Next City. Create! abortion access, Abortion Bans, Abortions, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Mutual Aid, Reproductive Rights, Transportation

In the fall of 2022, Mike climbed into the pilot’s seat with an idea. For the past few months, the private pilot had been volunteering with the Illinois-based Midwest Access Coalition, an abortion support fund that he’d come across in his post-George Floyd anti-racism journey. “I thought, there’s gotta be people out there helping people travel for abortions, because it’s not like every medical facility you go to provide abortion care,” says Mike. Next City has agreed to use Mike’s first name only to protect his safety and privacy as he engages in this sensitive work. “So I reached out to say, hey, I want to volunteer for anything you might need – driving, hosting, whatever.”

Iowa Governor Signs Dangerous Rollback Of Child Labor Laws

June 8, 2023 Jennifer Sherer and Nina Mast, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Arkansas, Child labor, Iowa, Workplace Safety

In a March 14 report, we documented how states across the country are attempting to weaken child labor protections, just as violations of these standards are on the rise. The trend reflects a coordinated multi-industry push to expand employer access to low-wage labor and weaken state child labor laws in ways that contradict federal protections. And the recent uptick in state legislative activity is linked to longer-term industry-backed goals to rewrite federal child labor laws and other worker protections for the whole country. Last Friday, this concerted attack on child labor safeguards further expanded. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed an expansive bill enacting numerous changes to the state’s child labor laws.

Can Iowa Meatpacking Workers Take On Tyson?

April 25, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Organize! Iowa, Meat Packers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Gloria Ortiz’s parents spotted a sign one day looming over the fields of strawberries in California’s Central Coast. It was announcing $11-an-hour wages for meatpacking in Iowa. They had been picking strawberries for $35 a day. “So we came from Santa Maria, California, to this town, for Tyson,” Ortiz says. Her parents took jobs at the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, in 1994, just as the meatpacking industry was in a race to the bottom. In the 1980s, meatpacking companies had begun vertically integrating their operations to control the whole supply chain, from the farmers who raise the animals to the workers who kill them and package the meat.

The US Has A Child Labor Crisis; Lawmakers Are Trying To Worsen It

April 21, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! Child labor, Human Rights, Iowa, State legislature, Worker Rights and Jobs

Many assume that child labor in the US is a remnant of the past. In reality, child labor is a hidden crisis. Children of the working class are frequently exploited with devastating consequences, including injury and death. Child labor violations are on the uptick, with migrant children at special risk of being put into dangerous occupations at a young age. At the same time, lawmakers across the country, sponsored by industry giants, are trying to worsen the existing tragedy. In Iowa, the State Senate just passed one of the most extreme pro-child labor bills in recent times. SF 167, introduced by State Senator Jason Schultz, lifts restrictions on hazardous work, extends work hours, and lowers the age for child workers serving alcohol to adults.

Attacks On Child Labor Laws Aren’t Going Away

March 27, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network. Educate! Arkansas, Child labor, Iowa, Ohio, State legislature

While we Americans like to believe that child labor is a thing of the past, an antiquated detail of a dark history that is safely in our rearview mirror, the sad reality is that, even today, in the year of our Lord 2023, the exploitation of children and their labor continues to be a dismal feature throughout the production and supply chains behind many of our favorite brands and companies, including Lucky Charms, Cheetos, Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Fruit of the Loom, Ben and Jerry’s, etc. There are kids farming the produce that we buy in the supermarket, kids making the parts that end up in our cars, kids cleaning industrial bone saws, office buildings, and houses, kids on construction sites and in the backs of restaurants.

Queering The Family Farm

January 9, 2023 Bennet Goldstein, In These Times. Create! Community, Family Farms, Food and Agriculture, Iowa, LGBTQ

Shannon and Eve Mingalone avow that their farmers market booth is “very gay.” They hang strings of pride flags and sell rainbow stickers to help pay for gender-affirming care, like hormone replacement therapy, for Eve. Sometimes, when parents and their teenagers pass the booth, the adults glance, then speed ahead. The kids pause for a second look. Shannon, 34, hopes it means something for them to see LGBTQ professionals out and succeeding. People often share stories. The middle-aged woman who confided that her daughter is transgender. The teen who stood in the middle of the Mingalones’ booth and said, “This makes me feel safe.” “That means everything to me,” Shannon said.

The City That Kicked Cops Out Of Schools

December 13, 2022 Andy Kopsa, In These Times. Create! Education, Iowa, Police in Schools, Restorative Justice

Des Moines, Iowa - Wearing bright yellow Crocs, carrying a backpack and holding a clipboard stacked with papers, Ahmed Musa listens intently to a student. You would be forgiven for thinking Mr. Musa was a student himself; it is “staff dress like a student” day during spirit week at Theodore Roosevelt High School, and Mr. Musa looks the part. Then again, Mr. Musa, 24, was a Roosevelt student not too long ago. He graduated in 2017. He is talking with senior Jackie in a second floor hallway. She is animated, her purple and white braids falling across her baby blue N95 mask as she explains a problem. She is the president of the K-Club and there was an incident among members.

The Insidiousness Of Iowa’s Chapter 20 Anti-Union Labor Law

October 21, 2022 Caleb Klipowicz, Left Voice. Educate! Iowa, Labor Movement, Public Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

Iowa City, Iowa - On a chilly Friday morning In Iowa City, a handful of graduate students and members of UE Local 896 enter their union office and prepare to call as many fellow workers as they can. Most calls go to voice mail, but those who answer will hear something like this: “Hi there, this is Caleb from our labor union. We’re just checking in with folks to see if you’ve had a chance to vote in our recertification election?” We briefly explain the importance of the election to those who don’t know. We need a majority of all 1,932 TAs and RAs, not just members, to vote yes to keep the union legally recognized. If you don’t vote, you are counted as a no against the union. And this is all because of a 2017 law change here in Iowa. Currently, we are in the second week of the recertification election process, and we’re not alone.

Farm And Construction Equipment Workers Strike In Iowa And Wisconsin

June 2, 2022 Jonah Furman, Labor Notes. Resist! Farming, Iowa, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Eleven hundred workers who manufacture agricultural and construction equipment for CNH Industrial in Burlington, Iowa, and Racine, Wisconsin, have been on strike since May 2. At the core of the strike is the company’s three-tier pay system. Workers hired before 1996 make $6 to $8 more per hour than those hired after 2004; those hired between 1996 and 2004 earn somewhere in between. Workers want to see at least the bottom tier abolished. Workers are also fired up that their counterparts at CNH’s non-union plants make an estimated $5.50 more per hour than the average union worker, according to UAW Local 807 President Nick Guernsey. “We're wanting parity between us and non-union plants,” Guernsey told the Hawk Eye.

Grinnell College Becomes First Fully Unionized Undergraduate School

May 4, 2022 Lexi McMenamin, Teen Vogue. Organize! Education, Iowa, Student Activism, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Grinnell, Iowa - On April 26, student workers at Iowa’s Grinnell College elected to create the first wall-to-wall undergraduate student union in the country, expanding their Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) to include all hourly student workers. On March 4, UGSDW and Grinnell College signed “a first-of-its-kind neutrality and election agreement,” which, members of the union explained in Labor Notes, “legally binds the College to respect the results of an election.” On the night of the 26th — delayed from April 21, the original ballot-count date, after a toxic gas leak at the local National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) offices — the UGSDW voted to expand, with 327 voting for the expansion and 6 voting against.

Why More Students Are Walking Out At Iowa Schools

April 19, 2022 Nikoel Hytrek, Iowa Starting Line. Resist! Education, Iowa, Student Activism, Walkouts

Johnston, Iowa - In light of recent education bills at the Iowa Legislature, whether it’s promoting vouchers for private schools or restricting what teachers are allowed to mention in class, many Iowa students are getting fed up. And they’re standing up. Friday afternoon in Johnston, a group of close to 100 students walked out of class and stood on school grounds to talk about those bills, explain how they’re impacting Iowa students and teachers, and encourage their peers to register to vote and to elect different legislators. “I think the biggest thing now is putting people in positions of power that actually will do the work and will care and represent the student voices that are speaking out about this,” said Waverly Zhao, a junior at Johnston High School who helped lead the walkout.

The Bee Project

April 12, 2022 Elena Smyrniotis, Resilience. Create! Bees, Community services, Environment, Iowa

Iowa - One might see children playing around the installation, like the boy in this photograph, admiring the bee made from a Rubik’s cube – he thinks it’s such an inventive idea! He, his younger sister, and their cousin made their bees from plastic bottles and tape and added them to the installation a few weeks earlier. Now they are often checking on their own and other people’s creations: there is an enormous bee made from two biking helmets, there is a tiny one from the nail polish bottle, there is a bee crocheted from yellow and black yarn, there is one made from old plastic toy and used kitchen mixing bowl! Furthermore, it’s a great place to hang out with friends! And there is more to come. Starting this April, two more public works by Russian American multimedia artist Elena Smyrniotis will be installed in Iowa.

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