Kellogg's Workers Are Striking Against a "Two-Tiered" System of Workplace Inequality
A conversation with Dan Osborn, who has worked at the Omaha, Nebraska, plant for 18 years.
Maximillian Alvarez
Like Frito-Lay, Nabisco, John Deere, and Heaven Hill Distillery, cereal giant Kellogg’s has seen consumer demand skyrocket during the pandemic, reporting profits of $1.25 billion in 2020. To meet this demand, many workers in Kellogg’s plants around the US report pulling 12 to 16-hour shifts seven days a week, leaving little time for anything outside of work beyond sleep. But the creation of a two-tier employment system in 2015 has meant that newer employees in the lower “transitional tier” are earning significantly less than their coworkers for doing the same work. Demanding that the company raise the floor for all of its employees, Kellogg’s plant workers in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee have been on strike since Oct. 5. We talk about the ongoing strike with Dan Osborn, who has worked at the Omaha, Nebraska, plant for 18 years and currently serves as president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), Local 50G.
Additional links/info below…
- 5 Ways to Support the #KelloggStrike (includes links to strike funds)
- BCTGM Local 50G website
- Mel Buer, The Real News Network, “Kellogg’s Strike: Cereal Plant Workers Fight to Raise the Floor for All Employees as Sales Soar”
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- Jules Taylor, “Working People Theme Song”
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Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InTheseTimes.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.
