Listening to rural working families

Storm Lake native Jesse Case and Teamsters Local 238 are set on amplifying the voices of rural Iowans around issues that are important to working families like better schools, health care, roads and labor rights.

Case leads Iowa’s largest local union out of Cedar Rapids, and founded the community organizing group TeamCAN. He said he’s been listening to members the past couple years who believe that neither party represents them — especially in rural counties dominated by one party.

Hence, some 700,000 Iowa registered voters opt out of the system. They are a group that are experts at describing what rural Iowans are facing, if anyone talked their language. Case has been listening for years.

“Our members are fed up,” Case said. “They’ve had enough.”

Case is bringing together unions and community organizers to press a “Working Families Agenda” to make sure the voices of his members are heard.

The agenda is built from focus groups in rural counties, and surveys of Teamsters members statewide.

Top concerns are funding for K-12 education, after-school programs for students with both parents working, closing 175 rural hospitals in the past 20 years (Keokuk among them), mental health care/substance abuse, erosion of worker rights and protections (collective bargaining, unemployment and workers compensation) and basic local infrastructure.

Case says that rural workers are keenly focused on bread-and-butter issues surrounding strong families. He said one focus group in Centerville identified residents upset about cutting its shop program in school. They want to know that a good hospital is near. They want their children to be in healthy environments after school. They fear meth, and want counseling services to be available.

They want to be heard, Case said.

“Anytime you elevate voices of the voiceless you can change policy,” he said.

Local 238 just came off a two-week strike with manufacturer Amcor. The United Auto Workers are striking the Big Three Detroit automakers. Gallup polling shows approval of unions at its highest point since 1965. Workers have the public’s attention for the first time in a long time.

“We’re seeing and feeling the excitement for this agenda,” Case said. “Workers want to know where they can sign on and take up the fight.”

He said that the pandemic made painfully clear how the working class was told it was essential but workers weren’t treated as if they were. It brought into relief the huge income gap between the wealthy — even in Iowa — and those who can barely afford to make rent.

The agenda’s opening statement:

“Our two-party system is broken and is not serving the interests of working Iowans. Over 750,000 Iowans are registered Independents and have chosen not to affiliate with our two main political parties. We have seen that leadership in Des Moines has continued to legislate/vote against the interests of their voters/constituents and have made life impossible for working Iowans — especially in our rural communities. 

“Partisan interests, large corporations, and their lobbyists have a tight grip on our political system. We need to organize everyday workers to counteract the influence of big money on our state government. Our government must serve the interests of working people, and not large corporations and the politicians they support.”

It argues against vouchers for private-school families. Case said survey groups understand well the impact on education. It demands better roads and bridges. The agenda calls for restoration of bargaining rights in the workplace. Nothing fancy, but the message is powerful. Other unions are joining with the Teamsters.

“When workers are cornered, they fight back,” Case said.

Legislators who mindlessly vote for their corporate paymasters are not listening. Rural interests ignored for the last generation might finally get a hearing. Case doesn’t mess around. Case is listening as his members in rural Iowa talk about what makes for a livable community. That is a threat to the existing order of things, which is the reason he gets up in the morning.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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