On the Picket Line
By Marie Kelly posted on July 21, 2021
Frito-Lay production never slowed production during the pandemic. Mark Benaka, business manager for Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) Local 218 and a Frito-Lay retiree after 37 years, commented: “I’ve learned that when something’s hitting Americans beneath the belt, the two main items that never suffer are snack foods and alcohol.” (labornotes.org, July 2021)
Snacks strike
Exhausted by working seven days a week, 600 workers walked out on strike July 5 at the Frito-Lay plant in Topeka, Kan. The Bakery Workers hit the picket line to demand an end to abusive working conditions endured since before the pandemic.
Frito-Lay, Topeka union workers on strike agree on tentative deal
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Topeka Frito-Lay strike: What to know as negotiations continue
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The human cost of Doritos: Claims of 84-hour work weeks and stagnant wages at Frito-Lay factory where workers are on strike Alex Woodward © AP
Ron Sadler, a 32-year employee at Frito-Lay’s facility in Topeka, Kansas, joins a union strike. - AP
As of midnight on 5 July, hundreds of employees at one of the nation’s largest snack manufacturers went on strike, demanding better workplace protections and an end to forced overtime that has pushed Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, Kansas to the brink.
For nearly two weeks, roughly 600 workers at the Frito-Lay plant have been on strike, calling for better pay, stronger workplace protections and an end to unpredictable overtime schedules and staff shortages that workers say have endangered their lives on the job and stretched them too thin despite years of warnings.