Kellogg’s Employees Back to Work

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Labor




http://labornotes.org/blogs/2014/08/kelloggs-employees-back-work


The strategy of relying on a judge to get members back to work worked—but only after they faced 10 months without pay on a picket line. Had the union known what to expect, says President Kevin Bradshaw, “we would not have been so nice.” Photo: BCTGM.


August 19, 2014 / Steve Payne

Memphis residents who drive down Airport Boulevard have become accustomed to passing a small picket line of six to 10 workers. A prominent sign atop the factory behind them reads “Kellogg’s Cereal.”

It was a surprise move in negotiations last October when Kellogg’s locked out the plant’s 220 workers. For the next 295 days, they picketed just to get back to work. Workers spent their holidays this way. They endured the Memphis summer heat.

They also watched daily as scabs entered the plant through a back entrance, and trains dropped off supplies and picked up finished cereal north of the picket line.

But on August 12, without any apparent hitches, workers finally reentered the factory.

Lockout Ruled Illegal, Eventually
The lockout is part of a long-term effort by Kellogg’s to produce its cereal with cheaper labor. The company has spent a decade systematically shifting work from union factories in the U.S., Canada, and Australia to non-union plants in Mexico and Southeast Asia.

FULL story at link.

[Demeter]

1. Betcha it wouldn't take 10 days if the shoe were on the other foot