After a record-long, 43-day shutdown, the federal government is slowly coming back online. But workers in Iowa will slowly return to their jobs. Iowa AFL-CIO President Charlie Wishman said many government employees in Iowa have been going without timely paychecks.
“Whether it is men and women who work at Offit Air Force Base in Omaha that live in our state in the western part,” Wishman, “whether it is folks who live and live and work in Iowa and work at the Rock Island arsenal, or whether it’s out VA facilities around the state.”
Air travel and other government related services could take time to return to normal. While Des Moines International Airport was not among the 40 that were forced to restrict traffic during the government shutdown that short-staffed air traffic control centers, officials say the airport felt the trickle down effect from flights being canceled in major markets – including neighboring Chicago and Minneapolis.
Wishman said SNAP payments are still up in the air for Iowans who rely on the program’s food and nutrition assistance. The shutdown also put a union vote on hold for Iowa nurses at the Unity Point Health System, the largest in the state, because the Department of Labor was closed.
“Now, of course this gives managers, gives the company, the hospital, gets people more time to put pressure on nurses, to scare people,” said Wishman. “It gives more time for perhaps unjust discipline to be handed out to scare people into voting no. So, I’m concerned about how that’s going to go.”
There has not been a new date set for the nurses to vote on a labor contract.