Iowa unions celebrate, educate during returned Labor Day event

CEDAR RAPIDS — Leaning over a table piled with red union T-shirts next to a box gathering “strike fund donations,” Mike Moore told The Gazette during an annual Labor Day picnic in Cedar Rapids on Monday that unions are stronger now than they have been in a decade.

“The unions are finally standing up to corporate greed, going out — like we are — on strike to fight for what they think is right,” said Moore, president of BCTGM Local 100G — the Cedar Rapids chapter of the Bakery Confectionery Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union, representing manufacturing, production, maintenance and sanitation workers across North America for generations.

The Cedar Rapids BCTGM chapter went on strike Aug. 1 in an effort to end Ingredion Inc.’s job outsourcing and boost pay.

Educating the public and spreading mission awareness were among the union aims on display Monday at the Labor Day picnic — organized by the Hawkeye Area Labor Council, which represents 26 counties, including Linn, Johnson, Black Hawk and Tama.

“I think people need to be educated about what unions do,” Moore said. “Unions fight for fair wages, for weekends, for Labor Day. If it wasn’t for the unions, we never would have had Labor Day.”

This Labor Day, American support for worker unions is at its highest since 1965, according to a new Gallup poll. Seventy-one percent of Americans approve of labor unions, according to results from Gallup’s annual Work and Education survey, collected Aug. 1-23 and made public last week.

That’s 23 percentage points above the survey’s low of 48 percent in 2010. The last time U.S. labor union support was higher was nearly 70 years ago in 1953, when it garnered 75 percent approval.

“I think that there’s been an awakening,” said Rick Moyle, executive director of the Hawkeye Area Labor Council and organizer of Monday’s event, which he expected to draw around 2,000 guests.

The pandemic played a role in that resurgence of support, Moyle said. Blue-collar workers were tagged as essential, highlighting their importance, and made to show up despite the risks.

“That was kind of an awakening to folks that, you know what, we're not livestock,” he said. “We shouldn't be used like that. We should share in the profits.”

Iowa’s union membership generally has held steady, Moyle said, conceding membership in the public sector dipped some when lawmakers in 2017 stripped their collective bargaining rights. Excluding public safety workers, the changes eliminated public employees’ ability to bargain for insurance, hours, vacation, holidays, overtime and safety measures — unless employers agreed to negotiate those terms.

That left bargaining to wages alone for many of Iowa’s public worker unions — including those at Iowa’s public universities. And while it didn’t directly affect those serving the private sector, “We believe that an injury to one is an injury to all,” Moyle said.

“So when something happens to someone in the public sector, that's potentially down the road going to hurt the private sector,” he said. “Because whatever they can take away there, they’ll eventually take it away from everybody else if they can.”

Although the Iowa law change didn’t directly affect the Carpenters Union Local 308 in Cedar Rapids, its business agent Bob Doubek told The Gazette on Monday, “It’s a tear-away at organized labor in general.”

Unemployment data

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August report showed the national unemployment rate rose from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent — increasing the number of unemployed by 344,000 to 6 million.

Iowa’s unemployment rate remains among the lowest in the nation — at 2.5 percent in July.

Just eight other states had lower rates that month, including the bordering states of Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. The number employed in Iowa grew from 1.6 million in January, when unemployment was at 3.7 percent, to 1.7 million in July — although that’s not quite back to pre-pandemic levels.

Back after a hiatus

Due to COVID, the Hawkeye Area Labor Council took the last two years off its traditional Labor Day picnic, which this year included free food, live music and a car show at Hawkeye Downs.

Emily Carson, 34, of Cedar Rapids, said she was happy to be back — having come for 10-some years. Now with her two kids ages 3 and 8, Carson said she has family members who’ve served in unions.

“I’m just a big supporter of knowing your rights.”

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