Union Workers Vote to Accept New Five-Year Contract with Kellogg
The votes end a strike that lasted for more than two months. Union leaders say the Battle Creek-based cereal-maker’s threat to hire permanent replacement workers drove members to accept the deal.
Union workers at the Kellogg company have approved a new contract with the cereal maker.
Members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union voted on the new offer over the weekend. The offer includes cost-of-living adjustments and a $1.10 per hour raise for all employees.
The move ends a more than two-month long strike. Workers who have been on strike since Oct. 5 will return to work on Monday, Kellogg said, after the holiday.
About 1,400 Kellogg’s workers in four states — Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — walked off the job in October, protesting what they called long work hours and a two-tier wage system.
The president of the union local in Battle Creek, Trevor Bidelman, said the new contract continues a two-tier wage system that members fought to eliminate. Under the two-tiered pay system, newer workers are paid less and receive fewer benefits.
That pay system has been a sticking point during the negotiations, and Kellogg’s offer didn’t change on that part of the contract. The company has said it will allow all workers with at least four years of experience move up to the higher legacy pay level as part of this contract. Union officials previously said that plan wouldn’t let other workers move up quickly enough. The company has also proposed eliminating the current 30% cap on the number of workers at each plant who receive the lower wages.
“What we’re going to is something similar to what we already had … that we already did not like. And I see the same thing being able to be manipulated by the company as they did before,” Bidelman said.
Kellogg counters the new contract includes wage increases for workers, plus expanded health and retirement benefits.
Bidelman said members’ objections softened after the company vowed to keep cereal on store shelves by using permanent replacement workers.
“That is the single biggest issue that we have as far as the threat and the scare, the fear really that people had,” Bidelman said.
Numerous politicians, including President Biden, described the idea of Kellogg’s replacing union workers deeply troubling.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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