SW Side Nabisco workers vow solidarity during strike
A strike at the Nabisco plant on the Southwest Side is in its second week with no talks scheduled and union members vowing to continue round-the-clock picketing, even in the summer heat.
Union leaders said members remain strongly opposed to a company proposal for alternate work schedules of 12-hour days that they said would eliminate premium pay for weekend work. Mondelez International, which owns Nabisco, said the change would not apply to most workers but would give it flexibility in meeting consumer demand.
“We have no idea how long this might last,” union steward April Flowers-Lewis said Friday. The strike here is part of a job action affecting six locations across the U.S. “We’ve been sending messages to the people at the other plants. Everyone is holding strong,” Flowers-Lewis said.
The Chicago strikers are members of Local 1 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. They started the walkout Aug. 19, part of a strike that began earlier in August in Portland, Oregon.
Veronica Hopkins, a business agent at Local 1, said the union has about 325 members at the Chicago plant, 7300 S. Kedzie Ave.
Mondelez has proposed in certain cases alternate schedules of three or four consecutive 12-hour days, with the same number of days off. “For employees, it offers greater predictability in scheduling,” Mondelez spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati said. Hopkins said it would eliminate higher pay on weekends, disrupt family time and result in people getting checks for 36 hours one week, 48 hours the next.
Other sticking points include health care, with the company offering a less generous plan for new hires that Guzzinati said mimics a benefit at a unionized plant in Naperville not part of the strike.