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About fourteen hundred workers who make Kellogg Company’s cereals – including Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, Froot Loops, Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes – left work on Tuesday, October 5, when their five-year contracts expired. Signature stores are located in Battle Creek, Michigan (the company’s hometown and corporate headquarters), Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Memphis, Tennessee and Omaha, Nebraska. Although it includes only part of Kellogg’s global workforce of 31,000 people, the strike covers all of Kellogg’s grain factories.
Workers say the strike is made necessary by pressure from the company to expand a two-tier system, previously agreed to in their contract, which created a “transitional” category of employees with lower wages and benefits. Currently, this class cannot constitute more than 30 percent of the workforce. Workers say Kellogg is looking to lift that cap, widening the gap between existing employees and new hires and paving the way for a future with work primarily on the lower level.
“They want to prevent new hires from accessing salary and benefit increases so that there is no longer a way to go over the line,” says Kevin Bradshaw, a case sealer at the plant. Kellogg from Memphis, where he has worked for twenty years:
The difference between the lower level and the upper level is $ 13 per hour. In addition, anyone hired after this contract would no longer have the same benefits. They would have to start paying insurance premiums, and when they retire they would have no pensions or insurance.
Bradshaw is vice president of Local 252G of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Millers Union (BCTGM), which represents workers at all striking factories. In explaining the workers’ objection to Kellogg’s proposal, Bradshaw also points out the deleterious effects of a two tier system for any union.
“Why would a worker in the future want to be part of a union that sold them and allows them to work the rest of their lives without insurance and benefits after retirement? ” he asks. There are few more effective tools for dismantling and breaking up an existing union than using ranks to pit workers against each other, arousing resentment and mistrust.
The BCTGM recently carried out a series of strikes in the food industry when contracts expired: first at a Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas, then at Nabisco facilities across the country. Commenting on this latest strike, Anthony Shelton, Chairman of the BCTGM, said: “Kellogg’s response to these loyal and hardworking employees has been to demand that these workers give up quality health care, retirement benefits and paid vacation. “
Aligning contracts can be a strategic move for unions seeking to maximize workers’ power and influence. Given that these strikes took place at Frito-Lay, Nabisco and Kelloggg, all well-known brands, one could imagine a push to take on employers simultaneously. While that has not happened in this round of bargaining, the workers are not ready to back down. As in so many other recent union struggles, they say the demanding experience of working during the pandemic fueled their willingness to strike.
“In our factory, it’s seven days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day, with mandatory overtime,” says Bradshaw. Trevor Bidelman, a Kellogg employee in Battle Creek, Michigan, said Vice that at his factory, some workers worked 120 days in a row without a day off. The company announced in September that the Battle Creek plant would lose 212 jobs; Kellogg has built up a workforce in Mexico, taking advantage of the country’s cheaper labor costs, and the threat of further job losses underlies ongoing contract negotiations.
Scheduling and scheduling control has proven to be a central job issue in recent months, as employers are working harder than ever with existing employees. The issue was at the center of the Frito-Lay and Nabisco strikes and helped spark an ongoing strike at the Heaven Hill Distillery in Kentucky.
Kellogg reported net profit of $ 380 million for the last quarter of 2021, with sales up 2% from a year earlier, which in turn saw grain sales across the board. industry jump 9%. Steve Cahillane, CEO of Kellogg, made around $ 11.6 million last year. The company said it was “disappointed” by the workers’ decision to strike.
Although there is no official boycott of Kellogg, a spokesperson for the BCTGM told the Huffington Post that “supporters and consumers could certainly support Kellogg workers and their fight for a fair contract by choosing not to buy Kellogg grain during the strike.” However, Bradshaw is unequivocal on the matter. “No one should be buying anything made by Kellogg’s right now,” he says.
Picket lines are in place and operating at striking facilities, and there are strike funds for those who wish to support Kellogg workers. While Kellogg said he was “implementing contingency plans” to try to reduce the strike’s effectiveness in disrupting production, it did not shake workers’ resolve.
“We’re here to fight them one day longer than, one day stronger than we have to,” says Bradshaw. “We’re fighting corporate greed, and it’s a big ugly monster to fight.”
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