As worker strikes at two different manufacturers stretch on for weeks, their employers’ tactics are changing. Kellogg Co., now facing a fourth consecutive week of striking, now says it's willing to reopen negotiations. Deere & Co., approaching a second week without union-represented workers, has hit picket lines with a series of legal actions. And elsewhere, the second-largest private employer in the United States, Amazon Co., is facing its second major push by activists to unionize.
Kellogg Co.
According to Bloomberg News, Kellogg is currently attempting to reopen negotiations with Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union leadership three solid weeks since 1,400 cereal packaging workers walked off production lines October 5.
In an email to BCTGM leaders, Kellogg offered to leave out its earlier proposal to eliminate the company’s “transition” model of employment. In that model, newer workers start at Kellogg with lower wages and a 401(k).
Those employees, if they stick around long enough, eventually graduate to “legacy” status, which comes with higher wages and a pension. In an early offer to employees, Kellogg proposed eliminating the transition system in favor of immediate wage increases for employees across the board, but union leadership have characterized that offer as unfair to less senior employees.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Kellogg said it was “willing to consider any proposals from the union, including proposals that would preserve a pathway” for new employees to reach legacy status.
The striking plants in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Michigan make Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, Froot Loops, Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes brand cereals.
Deere & Co.
John Deere tractor manufacturer Deere & Co., meanwhile, has shown few outward signs of coming to terms with its 100,000 UAW employees on strike since October 14, but Deere management has now pursued court orders against strikers at two of its Iowa locations. The tractor manufacturer successfully sued for a temporary injunction against strikers at its Davenport, Iowa, location near company headquarters, but a similar injunction failed to persuade a judge in Des Moines.
UAW representatives have protested against the Davenport injunction, which forbids lawn chairs and burn barrels from picket lines and limited the number of picketers on the line to four at each plant entrance, saying the injunction in question did not provide evidence of illegal or disruptive behavior.
Echoing those protests, Judge Paul Scott in Des Moines ruled against a similar injunction request against picketers at Deere’s Des Moines plant. Video evidence of picketers near driveways at the plant “shows vehicles have been slowed down by picketers in crosswalks,” Scott wrote, but “it fails to prove illegal conduct has occurred.”
Amazon
The National Labor Relations Board said organizers in New York have collected enough signatures from workers at Amazon warehouses to vote on forming a union. The latest push to unionize workers at the United States’ second-largest private employer comes from an independent would-be union called the Amazon Labor Union formed by a former Amazon employee.
The NLRB said the ALU has collected at least 2,000 signatures from Staten Island warehouses that employ about 5,500 people, allegedly meeting the 30% threshold needed to trigger a vote on whether or not to unionize. In a statement to the Associated Press, an Amazon spokesperson said the company was “skeptical” of the legitimacy of the signatures, which the company can challenge.
It’s the second such attempt to unionize the United States’ second-largest private employer this year after a vote run by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union at a warehouse in Alabama was defeated by 1,798 votes against to 738 for. In a sign of hope for the RWDSU, though, the NLRB said in a preliminary finding that Amazon may have interfered with the election.
