The families of four people who died of COVID-19 in 2020 after working at the Tyson meatpacking plant in Waterloo are asking the Iowa Supreme Court to let their lawsuits against company leaders continue.
The workers’ families are asking the Iowa Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s decision that dismissed their claims as a workers compensation issue.
Attorney G. Bryan Ulmer III on Thursday told the justices that Tyson executives and supervisors committed fraud and gross negligence that caused the four employees to die of COVID. He says Tyson leaders told employees the virus wasn’t spreading at the plant and told workers with COVID symptoms to keep coming to work.
“All the while supervisors were placing bets on how many positive COVID-19 cases would result from the outbreak. The end result was the largest workplace outbreak of COVID-19 in the entire country,” Ulmer said.
Lawyers for Tyson leaders say the claims should be in the workers’ compensation system and that the plaintiffs’ allegations don’t fit the definition of fraud. The Iowa Supreme Court has until the end of June to issue a decision.
*Iowans have elected the first transgender representative to serve in the state legislature.
Democrat Aime Wichtendahl of Hiawatha won the race for the open seat in Iowa House District 80 in the Cedar Rapids area.
“It was a lot of different emotions processing on Tuesday evening. Excited to be elected to the House of Representatives and excited to do the people’s work. But also concerned about the trends we saw both statewide and nationwide as I believe a lot of people are concerned for,” Wicktendahl said.
Wichtendahl also made history in 2015 as the first transgender elected official in the state when she was voted onto the Hiawatha City Council.
She joins a Democratic minority in the Iowa House that lost ground in this year’s elections. Republicans held enough seats to form a supermajority in the Iowa House in 2025.
*Elsewhere in the Iowa Legislature, state Senate Republicans this week have reelected Jack Whitver as Senate Majority Leader.
Whitver has held the Senate’s top position since 2018. Senate Republicans also reelected Amy Sinclair as Senate President.
Iowa Senate Democrats still need to elect a new minority leader with the retirement of Pam Jochum.
*The unemployment rate in Iowa ticked up in the month of October to 3.0 percent.
The Iowa Workforce Development release on the monthly employment statistics said there were job cuts in the manufacturing and construction fields.
The number of unemployed Iowans grew from 49,000 in September to 51,00. The number of working Iowans is 1.63 million people.
Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate is now 4.1 percent, the same as last month.
Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend said the October report showed Iowans were worried about the state of the economy in the leadup to the November general election. Townsend said with the election over, she expects employer hesitations on hirings to dissipate.
In related news, South Dakota News Watch is reporting that presidential election years create movement for the candidates elected to office, but generally stall moves for a lot of other Americans.
Businesses tend to wait and see who the next leader is and for them to solidify their economic policies. That means a lot of companies in the United States tend to put a hold on long-term investments and employee relocations.
And that translates like clockwork every four years that a South Dakota moving business sees cross-country moves by people taking a dip.
Tim Allen, owner of Tobin Transfer in Mitchell, said such cross-country shipments are down 7 percent so far in 2024.
The current high interest rates for housing loans added to the problem by making some people hesitate to upgrade to a newer house, meaning fewer moves even at the local level.
Allen said he expects cross-country travel to pick up in February, March and April.
