Kellogg’s cereal workers at four U.S. plants voted to approve a new five-year labor contract, ending a strike that began in early October, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) announced Tuesday.
The strike involved 1,400 workers at plants in Battle Creek, Michigan, Omaha, Nebraska, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Memphis, Tennessee, which produce such popular Kellogg’s cereals as Frosted Flakes and Apple Jacks.
“Our striking members at Kellogg’s ready-to-eat cereal production facilities courageously stood their ground and sacrificed so much in order to achieve a fair contract,” Anthony Shelton, president of the union, wrote in a statement. “This agreement makes gains and does not include any concessions.”
The new deal includes wage increases, maintenance of cost of living raises, a clear path to regular full-time employment, a moratorium on plant shut-downs and expanded health and retirement benefits.
“The new, five-year contract furthers our employees’ leading wages and benefits, with immediate, across the board wage increases and enhanced benefits for all,” the company said in a statement.
“Our entire Union commends and thanks Kellogg’s membersm” Shelton said. “From picket line to picket line, Kellogg’s union members stood strong and undeterred in this fight, inspiring generations of workers across the globe, who were energized by their tremendous show of bravery as they stood up to fight and never once backed down.”
Shelton also credited AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler for their victory, as well as “the outpouring of fraternal support we received from across the labor movement for our striking members at Kellogg’s,” calling their solidarity “critical to this great workers’ victory.”
Kellogg’s had previously said it would hire permanent replacements for the 1,400 striking workers, which drew swift condemnation from a number of high-profile individuals, including President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods,” President Biden said last month. “I have long opposed permanent striker replacements and I strongly support legislation that would ban that practice. And such action undermines the critical role collective bargaining plays in providing workers a voice and the opportunity to improve their lives while contributing fully to their employer’s success.”
“I urge employers and unions to commit fully to the challenging task of working out their differences at the bargaining table in a manner that fairly advances both parties’ interests,” he said.
“During the early parts of the pandemic these people were considered to be heroes and heroines, which in fact they are,” Sanders told The Washington Post. “But now, according to Kellogg’s, they are simply disposable workers. To just replace them is extraordinarily ugly.”
