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While workers had previously voted to go on strike last week, negotiations between Local 218 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union and PepsiCo, Frito Lay's parent company, had continued in a bid to reach a deal. Union leadership and management reached a tentative, two-year deal this week but roughly 400 of its members voted it down after two days of voting, which culminated Saturday.  Union members have criticized the company for working conditions at the plant and have pressed for a pay hike in their next deal. Mark Benaka, business manager for Local 218, ...

Still, the president of the union local suggested Friday that members might reject that contract. "The sentiment we are getting is that the membership is ready to walk," said Brent Hall, president of Local 218 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union. Employees represented by Local 218 were voting Friday and Saturday on whether to approve a tentative agreement reached Thursday between representatives of their local and PepsiCo, said Mark Benaka, business manager for that local. PepsiCo's seven divisions include Frito-Lay, one of the largest snack-sellin...

Executives from the state's labor federation turned out Wednesday for the third picket outside Topeka's Frito-Lay plant this year. The protest, which drew executives from Kansas AFL-CIO and other local labor leaders, is likely the last picket union members at Topeka's Frito-Lay plant will hold before taking a vote on whether to accept or reject a recent contract proposal made by the company. If the contract offer doesn't pass, local union members may vote to strike. "We're here to support them," said John Nave, executive vice president of Kansas AFL-CIO. "These brothers and sisters out here...

Frito-Lay was scheduled to renegotiate union contract in September Benaka said Frito-Lay made a last, best final offer to the union Wednesday that fell short of members' expectations. He cited inadequate pay raises, noted the company wanted to increase the union's contract term from three years to four and said Frito-Lay indicated it would yank retroactive raises if union members didn't agree to the most recent proposal. Frito-Lay was originally scheduled to renegotiate its contract with the union in September, so any raises agreed to now were expected to be retroactive through that month....

On March 6, 2017, Frito-Lay employee Caity Renfro was getting ready for her 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift at the local plant when tornado warnings were issued for Shawnee County. Renfro, of Silver Lake, said she was in the direct path of a tornado, so she took shelter at home instead of making the nearly 20-mile drive to work. "The coordinator on our shift at that time tried to reach out to me," she said. "He didn't want people to be worried about calling in because he thought that the clause in the contract would cover that, where it specifies that something way out of your control would not be...