Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
A national Web site laying out the rights of workers both currently employed and recently laid off was launched last week.
The site, CanMyBossDoThat.com, is a project of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), a Chicago-based organization which calls upon religious values in order to educate, organize and mobilize the religious community in the U.S. on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits and working conditions for workers.
Areas covered include safety at work, rules to attaining unemployment benefits, access to COBRA health insurance plans and legal rights during layoffs. The site has increased relevance after national job figures showed the unemployment rate jumped from 7.6 percent in January to 8.1 percent in February, the highest level since late 1983. More than 651,000 jobs were lost in February, the third month in a row that job losses topped 600,000.
Iowa’s unemployment rate stood at 4.6 percent in December and is expected to be much higher when new figures are released this week.
(h/t Wendy Norris at the Colorado Independent)
Follow Jason Hancock on Twitter
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter