U.S. food workers launch rare strikes

OMAHA, Neb. — A summer of labor unrest at U.S. food manufacturers has stretched into fall, as pandemic-weary workers continue to strike for better pay.

Around 1,400 workers at Kellogg Co.’s U.S. cereal plants walked off the job this week, saying negotiations with the company over pay and benefits are at an impasse. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a strike by 420 workers against Heaven Hill Distillery is in its fourth week.

The actions come on top of strikes earlier this summer by 600 workers at a Frito-Lay plant in Topeka, Kansas, and 1,000 workers at five Nabisco plants across the U.S. In June, Smithfield Foods narrowly avoided a strike by thousands of workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The number of actions is unusual. Kellogg says this is the first time its U.S. cereal workers have gone on strike since 1972. Nabisco workers last walked off the job in 1969.

But after a difficult 18 months, which saw many workers putting in 12-hour shifts and mandatory overtime to meet pandemic demand, employees are in no mood to compromise.

“We’re drawing a line in the sand,” said Rob Long, a production mechanic who has worked at Kellogg’s Omaha plant for 11 years. Kellogg workers are also striking in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Long said he and others are upset about a two-tiered system of employees that gives fewer benefits and less pay to newer workers, creating a wedge within the ranks. Long said the company wants to get rid of a provision that currently caps the lower tier of workers at 30% of the workforce.

After decades of watching companies chip away at pay and benefits, food workers sense that they have a rare upper hand in the wake of the pandemic, says Patricia Campos-Medina, the executive director of The Worker Institute at ILR Cornell.

Labor shortages mean companies can’t easily find replacements for food-production workers, she said. And the pandemic put a spotlight on the essential —— and sometimes dangerous —— nature of their work.

“Workers in general are demanding that companies invest more in the workforce and not just use the profits for the shareholders,” she said.

The Associated Press First shift worker Travis Huffman joins other BCTGM Local 3G union members in a strike Tuesday against Kellogg Co. outside the Kellogg plant on Porter Street in Battle Creek, Mich. Workers in Battle Creek, Lancaster, Memphis and Omaha walked out at 1 a.m. Tuesday, demanding livable wages and better benefits.