Iowa Labor News

The income tax is a way Iowans come together to lay strong foundations that create opportunity and help people thrive. Governor Reynolds and legislative leaders want to eliminate Iowa’s personal income tax — a virtual promise to decimate the services that make Iowa a better place to live, work and raise a family.

Here are important facts to help you make sense of the coming debate, along with an alternative agenda that rejects forced austerity in favor of sensible investments to meet our common needs and aspirations. 

Six cautions about eliminating the personal income tax:

Organized labor is in Liz Shuler’s DNA. The AFL-CIO president grew up in a union household, with a father who was a power lineman at Portland General Electric and a mother who was an estimator in the company’s service-and-design department. The first time Shuler bargained, she was an 11-year-old babysitter trying to match what a friend earned. After college, she worked several gigs to make ends meet before following her parents to Portland General Electric, where she got a job in the payroll department. There, she tried and failed to form a union among clerical workers. Though the outcome was not what she hoped, Shuler learned that there was a place for her in the labor movement.

WASHINGTON – As the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Office of the Solicitor continue to find serious illegal employment practices in the meat and poultry processing industries, a California poultry processor and supplier to supermarkets and food distributors — including Ralphs, ALDI, Grocery Outlet and SYSCO Corp. — has agreed to pay nearly $3.8 million in back wages, damages and penalties after the department found the company endangered young workers recklessly in Southern California.

FLORENCE, WI – Despite federal regulations barring young workers from operating dangerous machinery, the management of a Wisconsin sawmill allowed several minors workers to perform maintenance on equipment without training or following required safety procedures.

On June 29, 2023, a 16-year-old worker became trapped in a stick stacker machine as he tried to unjam it. The young worker remained trapped until he was found and freed, and then transported to the hospital where he passed away two days later.

Union members and labor experts agree that a collective sense of job insecurity and frustration over wages and working conditions are driving activity in the region.

President Biden will travel to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland on Thursday to deliver remarks highlighting how a signature piece of legislation is capping prescription drug costs.

THE NEXT DOMINO: The NCAA’s decision in 2021 to abruptly drop their opposition to college athletes profiting off their names, images and likenesses has led to a patchwork of unequal and unregulated marketplaces — and has done nothing to deter advocates from pushing for a greater share of revenues for athletes.