From Amazon to Starbucks, US companies are seeing a resurgence in the power of worker unions and collective bargaining.
Several hundred workers at Kellogg’s plant, the company that makes Cheez-Its, won a new contract that would boost wages by more than 15 percent over three years after 1,400 workers at the company’s grain plants went on strike. nearly 3 months at the end of 2021.
The wage and benefits improvements secured by the 570 workers at the Kellogg plant this week are the largest seen by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Union (RWDSU), Wednesday for know.
U.S. companies are struggling to fill more than 11 million job openings around the country, representing nearly two opportunities for all unemployed, and workers are demanding more after holding for factories to operate during the coronavirus pandemic.
The US Labor Department reported this week that job numbers hovered at a near-record high for the second straight month in February.
“This contract is further proof of the power of union voices and collective bargaining,” said RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum.
Kellogg’s, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S.A., was not immediately available for comment Wednesday on the contract it offered its workers in Kansas City, Kansas.
In addition to strikes at Kellogg’s plants in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee last fall, workers also went out last year at a Frito-Lay plant in Topeka, Kansas and at five homes. Nabisco machines nationwide. And packers won substantial wages as their contracts reached factories around the country.
Unions in other industries, including one representing more than 10,000 John Deere workers, also went on strike last year. John Deere workers get a 10 percent increase and improved benefits after a one-month strike.
Workers have also voted to unionize at more than half a dozen Starbucks stores nationwide, and unions are trying to organize at about 140 other stores nationwide. And Amazon is trying to stop unions at two of its warehouses in New York and Alabama, where the ballots are being counted right now.
Experts say the ongoing labor shortage has given unions more leverage than they had in decades in contract negotiations.
A spokesman for the International Coalition for Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Cereal Mills representing Kellogg’s grain mill workers said the strike and other strikes across the industry in The past year has helped it secure substantial profits for workers at other companies.
Cheez-Its workers will receive a 6% raise in the first year of the new contract, a 5% raise the following year, and a 4.5% increase and a $500 bonus in the third year. Workers will also see improved health and retirement benefits without increasing their health insurance premiums. And new employees will quickly rise to higher salaries.
“These pay increases will help us better provide for our families and improve our quality of life,” said Larry Smith, local union leader at Kellogg’s factory.
