Union Community Services Committee

Today the Local UAW 2209 presented Fort Wayne Trails with a check for over $11,000 from the Pedal Poker Run! UAW 2209 have been amazing partners and we are so appreciative of their support of trails here in Allen County. If you know a UAW member give them a high-five for us!

Huge win for Grinnell and the labor movement in Iowa!

Michael Ramirez by Michael Ramirez for March 10, 2022 | GoComics.com View the comic strip for Michael Ramirez by cartoonist Michael Ramirez created March 10, 2022 available on GoComics.com

Bible's R**e, In**st Passages Read at Book Banning Senate Hearing - Iowa Starting Line Passages from a number of books that could be considered “obscene” under an enhanced legal definition of the word were read during a Thursday Iowa […]

“I’ve been at United Way of Central Iowa for nearly 30 years, as I started in 1993. Now I work with a program called Building New Careers, which is part of United Way of Central Iowa’s Central Iowa Works program. We work with clients from middle school on up to try and introduce them to different trade programs.

We go into schools, do career fairs, hold career talks, and work with many different organizations and shelters. The programs I work with offer livable wages plus good benefits, which is your health insurance, and they all have a pension plan. We consider it a career pathway, not just a job. Most of the programs I work with are four-year programs. You start out as a first-year apprentice and as you work up that ladder, or that career pathway, your wages go up each year.

There are 18 different crafts that we work with and a lot of them are located right here in Des Moines. We have a good working relationship with the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training. Depending on where the individuals want to be located, they can pretty well put us in contact with anybody across the United States. We have also gone into correction facilities and presented on all of the programs that are were available to those folks to hopefully get them on a path where they won’t return to incarceration.

It’s a good feeling when you can help somebody become self-sufficient and not have to worry about whether they're going to be able to buy food this week or to have to choose between food and medication. We try to take that stress out of people's lives.” bit.ly/thriving-workforce

— Bob