Amie Rivers

Amie Rivers is Iowa Starting Line’s newsletter editor. She writes the weekly Worker’s Almanac edition of Iowa Starting Line, featuring a roundup of the worker news you need to know. Previously, she was an award-winning journalist at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier; now, she very much enjoys making TikToks and memes and getting pet photos in her inbox.

Have a story tip? Reach Amie at amie@new.iowastartingline.com. For local reporting in Iowa that connects the dots, from policy to people, sign up for Amie’s newsletter.

Latest from Amie Rivers

  • News

    Meet The Iowa Election Deniers Running For Statehouse Offices

    People who deny that Joe Biden is the President of the United States aren’t just a fringe group in Arizona or Florida anymore. They’re right here in Iowa—and they want to be in the Iowa Legislature. You might remember the traveling Ohio math professor peddling the Big Lie in Independence, trying to drum up more…

  • News

    Ingredion Strike Surpasses 2004 As Company CEO Makes Millions

    Monday marked 78 days on strike for about 120 workers at Ingredion in Cedar Rapids, whose company tells them they can’t afford to pay a living wage or save the jobs workers are demanding despite the company’s CEO profiting handsomely off their labor. That’s a notable number because it’s the same amount of days that…

  • News

    What Is Recertification And Why Does Iowa Make Public Unions Do It?

    Nearly 180 public unions in Iowa are currently in the midst of being forced to vote on keeping their union, or else the state will take it away. It’s called “recertification,” and it’s mandatory of certain public unions in Iowa since the Republican-majority legislature passed an anti-union law five years ago. Changes to Chapter 20,…

  • Local

    Amie Takes A Hike: Hartman Reserve Nature Center Is ‘Un-be-leafable’ In The Fall

    I’m hiking every beautiful place I can think of around my home state, to showcase the beauty Iowa has to offer. Follow along on social media using #AmieTakesAHike to pass along your suggestions and see where I’m headed next. It’s been a minute since my last hike. But as the leaves are beginning to really…

  • News

    Report: Iowa Employers Steal $900M A Year From Workers

    If you’ve ever been denied overtime pay or been paid less than minimum wage, it’s likely you’ve been a victim of wage theft, which a new report shows has grown to become a nearly billion-dollar problem in Iowa. According to Common Good Iowa, employers were stealing over $900 million per year from a quarter of…

  • News

    How Local Iowa Grocers Are Fighting Back Against Dollar General

    Second in a two-part series on Dollar General coming into rural Iowa towns, and how rural grocers can still compete with them. Read Part 1 here. When Dollar General opened a store in Paullina, a small Northwest Iowa town, in 2018, Prairie Market Owner Laura Palmer thought the days were numbered for her small grocery…

  • News

    Dollar General’s Threat To Rural Iowa’s Community Grocery Stores

    First in a two-part series on Dollar General coming into rural Iowa towns, and how rural grocers can still compete with them. Read Part 2 here. Scott Vogelaar started working at his parents’ grocery store, Sanborn Foods, when he was 12 years old. Around 11 years ago, Vogelaar and his wife bought out the store…

  • News

    Iowa Workers Asked To Sacrifice For Italian Billionaire Owner

    As union workers at Case New Holland plants in Burlington, Iowa and Racine, Wisconsin continue their labor strike, it’s worth considering how easily the company could give workers everything they wanted—and more. That’s because the company is raking in healthy, even record profits, while its owner is drenched in extreme wealth. But those profits are…

  • News

    Union Says Ingredion Puts Cedar Rapids At Risk By Using Scab Workers

    Striking Ingredion workers in Cedar Rapids say it’s more than their livelihoods at stake if the company refuses to negotiate with them: Hazardous and potentially explosive chemicals and starches used to make Ingredion products are now being manufactured by replacement workers with unknown training. It’s especially dire because Ingredion is located not in an out-of-the-way…

  • News

    As Iowa Workers Strike, Executives Get Rich On Stock Buybacks

    Maybe you’ve noticed a trend of companies giving shareholders and executives even-bigger piles of money while offering their employees a pittance. One recent example from Iowa: Case New Holland International (CNHi), which has a plant in Burlington where 440 United Auto Workers members are on strike, noted in late July it had amassed “record consolidated…