Kellogg’s Worker’s Strike: No Concessions, Only Gains

The 11-week long strike by Kellogg’s cereal workers has finally come to an end. Previously, employees who started working after 2015 were paid at a lower scale than “legacy” employees. After being fed up with working under a two-tier benefit system, the 1,400 affected workers took to the streets and elsewhere to protest the unfair conditions held by their company, Kellog. Once they started protesting, Kellog threatened to replace striking workers at the Nebraska, Michigan, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania plants, thus igniting strong criticism from the Biden Administration.

Thankfully, the collective bargaining agreement ratified over the weekend has brought only gains, no concessions. The ratified agreement has brought an end to the permanent “two-tiered system,” as well as facilitating better wages and benefits by implementing immediate, across-the-board wage increases and enhanced benefits for all employees.

The union said that it also secured job security for employees, with a cemented agreement that no plants would close through October 2026, “a major increase in the pension multiplier, and a clear path to full-time, regular employment.”

It is time for American corporations to listen to their workers and pay a living, equal, equitable wage, and make sure that their benefits are that which enable a healthy and stable life. It should not take striking workers and countrywide support for these companies to do the right thing.

This is a victory for unions and for workers everywhere, but this is only the beginning. We must never stop applying pressure for the right thing to be done, and only when every worker is paid fairly and it doesn’t take a nationwide pause on production to do so, can we say that we have truly won.

No concessions. Only gains.