Amie Rivers

Amie Rivers

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@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

    Five Flags Center Workers In Dubuque Now Unionized

    When “the show must go on” at the Five Flags Center in Dubuque, it’s backstage workers that make it happen. Now, those workers are making sure the show goes on for themselves. Backstage technicians employed by ASM Global who work at the multipurpose facility in Dubuque voted unanimously to be represented by the International Alliance…


  • News

    Autopsy Report: Maquoketa Caves Shooter Stabbed, Strangled Victims

    Warning: graphic descriptions. The man authorities say killed three members of a Cedar Falls family at an Iowa state park campground last month shot, stabbed and strangled them, according to the autopsy report released Thursday morning. Tyler Schmidt, 42, died from a gunshot wound and “multiple sharp force injuries,” according to the medical examiner’s office.…


  • News

    Cedar Rapids Factory Workers Go On Strike

    After months of negotiating over their contract, workers at an eastern Iowa manufacturing plant are on strike until a deal is struck. Ingredion workers affiliated with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco, and Grain Milling union, or BCTGM Local 100-G in Cedar Rapids, took a contract vote at 9 a.m. Monday that all 116 voting members voted…


  • News

    Amie Takes A Hike: Wildcat Den State Park Still Leaves A Mark

    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. I hadn’t been venturing around Wildcat Den State Park near Muscatine since I was a kid.…


  • News

    Union, Bridgestone Reach Tentative Agreement To Avoid Strike At Des Moines Plant

    Just minutes before their contract expired, United Steelworkers officials announced to workers they had a tentative agreement in place with Bridgestone in Des Moines, avoiding a strike for the moment. “We have a TA,” the USW Local 310 page posted at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, half an hour before workers’ previous contract expired at midnight. “There…


  • News

    Burlington Case Workers Still On Strike After Nearly 3 Months

    After nearly three months of a union strike in southeast Iowa, workers say there’s no sign of an agreement in sight. More than 1,000 unionized workers at CNH Industrial (CNHi) in Burlington, Iowa, and Racine, Wisconsin—where they manufacture Case and New Holland agricultural products—began striking at noon on May 2. Burlington has around 440 of those…


  • News

    Planned Parenthood Workers, Including In Iowa, Unionize

    More than 400 health care workers at Planned Parenthood locations across five Upper Midwest states including Iowa are now covered by a union. Across 28 Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, 429 workers—with 90% of them voting in favor—won the right to form a union last week. The news…


  • News

    Iowans Are Struggling On Low Wages, And It’s Only Getting Worse

    Chris Pietropinto knows what it’s like to have to choose between bills. For the last two decades, the Cedar Rapids woman and her husband have lived on one income, after a disability at 23 meant Pietropinto could no longer work. Instead, she did her best to balance their books. “He’s worked everything from lube tech…


  • News

    Beloved Cedar Falls Librarian And Family Remembered After Slaying

    The Cedar Falls community is reeling after the sudden, violent deaths of a beloved librarian, her husband and their young daughter. Sarah Schmidt, 42, along with her husband, Tyler Schmidt, 42, and their daughter Lula, 6, all of Cedar Falls, were victims of what appears to be a random act of gun violence while they…


  • News

    4 Dead, Including Shooter, At Maquoketa Caves Campground Friday

    Three people were killed in an early-morning shooting at Maquoketa Caves State Park’s campground, and the alleged gunman later took his own life a short distance away, officials said Friday morning. Mike Krapfl, special agent in charge of major crimes with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office was called…