Striking Kellogg workers gain a big supporter in Bernie Sanders
Washington DC – Striking Kellogg workers got a big boost on Thursday from none other than Bernie Sanders!
Sanders joined fellow Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, and Sherrod Brown in sending a strongly-worded letter to Kellogg CEO Steve Cahillane.
"We have spoken with your employees who tell us they have asked for fair pay and benefits, equity, and basic protections on the job," they wrote. "We have been told that, in response, you and your company have threatened to move their jobs to Mexico."
Sanders and co. called these negotiating tactics "un-American and unacceptable."
They then called out Cahillane directly: "During the peak of the global pandemic, in 2020, your company's profits grew by over 25 percent. In addition, it has been reported that your compensation was extremely generous at $12 million last year."
"Those company profits did not occur by accident," the senators continued. "They occurred because your employees were on the job, working tirelessly in the midst of a pandemic, providing food security for families across the world."
"Now, at a time when Kellogg is making record profits, the company wishes to diminish the security and wellbeing of its workers, rather than improve them. That's just not right."
Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) in Battle Creek, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee, have now spent over three weeks on strike demanding substantial changes to their working conditions at Kellogg plants.
In their letter, the lawmakers echoed workers' demands that the company provide better wages and benefits. They also called for an end to Kellogg's two-tier system, in which newer workers must forgo pensions and settle for lower wages and higher health insurance premiums.
"Your employees deserve better," the seven Democrats insisted.
Cover photo: IMAGO / UPI Photo