Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein on Monday delved into the demands of striking Kellogg workers, as well as the company’s reaction to their efforts.
In an interview on Hill TV’s “Rising,” Klippenstein, who has been covering the strike, said he is hearing frustration from workers that “management was getting its side of the story across” more successfully. He noted that the company is “calling in over 1,000” replacement workers and “looking to hire them permanently.”
Last week, Kellogg North America President Chris Hood said the company would need to move forward its regular operations after having 19 negotiation sessions with striking workers.
About two months ago, roughly 1,440 Kellogg employees began striking when the company and their union, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, had a contract dispute.
After the employees rejected a proposed five-year contract, Hood said that Kellogg had “no choice but to continue executing the next phase of our contingency plan including hiring replacement employees in positions vacated by striking workers.”
During his interview, Klippenstein said such a decision is “something that’s illegal in a lot of countries.”
He said the employees “voted against a proposal from the company which would set up a two track pay system wherein new hires, new employees would not enjoy the same benefits which not only senior employees had enjoyed but junior ones in the past historically had been given.”
“This strike really is an act of sympathy from the older workers who want there to be one pay system partly out of solidarity with the younger workers but also because they recognize that setting up a two track pay system has a sort of downward and depressing effect on their wages at the top too,” he said.
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