2021 Nabisco strike

Nabisco and the BCTGM Nabisco is a subsidiary of the American confectionary company Mondelez International that is well known for its various brands of snack foods, such as Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, and Ritz Crackers, among others. However, by mid-2021, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the company closed their Atlanta and Fair Lawn facilities, which resulted in the loss of about 1,000 union jobs. the labor contracts between Nabisco and the BCTGM expired without replacement contracts in place. As a replacement, the company instituted a 401(k) program, though the union was seeking the reinstitution of the pension plan. Some employees at the three plants also expressed concerns that their jobs could be outsourced to Nabisco plants in Mexico that had recently opened, though Nabisco has claimed that the plant closures in Atlanta and Fair Lawn did not result in those jobs being outsourced to the Mexican plants. Despite this, a local union at one of the American facilities filed a Trade Adjustment Assistance petition with the United States Department of Labor. In an interview with Vice in August, one employee stated, "There’s a constant threat of if you don’t agree to concessions, we'll leave". According to a representative for BCTGM Local 364 (representing the workers in Portland), the existing pay system included time-and-a-half pay for overtime and any work on Saturday and double pay for any work on Sunday, but the new system proposed by Nabisco would see a flat pay rate, regardless of days, until the worker reached 40 hours for a week. Nabisco was pushing for these changes during a time when the company was reporting increased revenue, with a revenue increase of about 12 percent compared to the previous year. Additionally, Nabisco's parent company nearly doubled their profits in the most recent fiscal quarter of 2021. Prelude to strike action By August 10, Local 364 had been negotiating with Mondelez for about three weeks. On that day, with a breakdown in negotiations, workers at the facility performed a walkout, initiating strike action against the company. The strike action came approximately a month after the 2021 Frito-Lay strike, This also marked the first strike action at Nabisco in 52 years, with the last incident lasting 56 days in 1969, and occurred amidst a nationwide labor shortage. == Course of the strike ==

The strike began at the Portland facility on August 10 with a walkout that involved about 200 workers. On that day, they began picketing outside of the plant. Other union workers at the Portland plant, such as electricians and machinists, agreed to not cross the picket line in solidarity with Local 364. On August 13, the company erected a fence around the property, causing the picket line to move closer to the nearby thoroughfare in what one union representative claimed was "definitely an intimidation thing". In addition, members of other bakery unions began organizing a boycott of Nabisco products in solidarity with the BCTGM strikers. A spokesman for Union Pacific later stated that they were not servicing the facility due to the strike. == Strike spreads to other locations ==

Shortly after the Portland strike began, local unions at other Nabisco facilities began preparing for additional strike action. On August 12, BCTGM Local 26 in Aurora began their own strike, with the local union further claiming that Nabisco had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by trying to negotiate directly with employees at the facility. On August 16, about 400 members of Local 358 in Richmond also went on strike. That same day, Mondelez issued a press release where they stated that they were dedicated to continuing to bargain "in good faith" with the union. August 19 saw Local 1, representing workers at a production facility in Chicago, also join in striking against Nabisco, picketing the facility in the city's Marquette Park neighborhood. The strike action also affected a distribution facility in nearby Addison, Illinois. With the strike action at the Chicago plant, WBUR-FM reported that "all major U.S. bakeries" that produce Nabisco products were on strike. Also following the start of strike action in Chicago, it was reported that over 1,000 workers were now involved in the strike. On August 23, Local 42 at a distribution center in Norcross, Georgia (near Atlanta) also joined the strike. With the Norcross action, all Nabisco bakeries and distribution facilities in the United States were now involved in the strike. As the strike spread, many supermarkets began to stock up on Nabisco products, predicting a shortage as the strike continued. == Politicians and celebrities voice their support ==

On August 18, actor Danny DeVito tweeted a statement in support of the striking BCTGM members and the boycott of Nabisco products. Following the tweet, DeVito's Twitter account was temporarily unverified, which was reported on by several sources. Twitter later stated that the incident was unrelated to the tweet and was due to issues regarding his account information. On August 24, members of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Caucus of the Oregon Legislative Assembly sent a letter to Mondelez International that urged the company to negotiate for a new contract with the strikers. Oregon State Senator Lew Frederick, who is a member of the BIPOC Caucus, represents the area of the state that is home to the Nabisco plant. The caucus was joined by both of Oregon's Senators (Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden) and U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer, who also sent letters to Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put in support of the strikers. In addition, Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek stated her intent to join with strikers on the picket line as a show of support. while Portland commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty and Carmen Rubio did so on September 4. == Continued strike action ==

On August 23, representatives for both the union and company met to discuss negotiations, during which time the company stated that they were standing by their initial offer. The Portland-based alternative newspaper Willamette Week also reported on the use of strikebreakers at the Portland facility in an August 26 article, stating that workers were being bused in daily. On August 31, Nabisco sent a cease and desist letter to the bakers union at the Portland facility warning legal action for continued interference in their operations, and several days later on September 2, officers from the Portland Police Bureau removed strikers from near the train tracks where they had been protesting. According to some strikers, this came after Nabisco hired a surveying company to confirm that the strip of land near the railroad tracks that the strikers had been protesting in was owned by the company. as well as increases in both annual wages and 401(k) matches. On September 8, Nabisco announced a collaboration with The Pokémon Company with the release of limited edition Pokémon-themed Oreos. The announcement was widely reported on in light of the boycott against Nabisco products, with articles published in Kotaku and AsiaOne questioning the ethicality of purchasing them. Over the course of the strike, the boycott gained attention over social media sites such as Reddit and Facebook, with some supporters of the strike posting pictures of fully-stocked shelves of Nabisco products at stores as proof of the boycott's effectiveness. Also on September 2, AFL–CIO President Liz Shuler met with picketing strikers in Richmond to voice the AFL–CIO's continued support for the strike. The following day, at a consumer conference, Van de Put stated that production levels at Nabisco were "not to the same level" as before the strike and that another round of discussions between the company and union were scheduled for the following week. These would be the first direct discussions between the two groups since July. Reporters from local television station KATU reported increased incidents of confrontations between protesters and security guards hired by Nabisco, and on September 14, a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who had been protesting with the striking workers filed a federal lawsuit against Huffmaster, claiming that one of the guards had committed assault and battery on him. That same day, members of the National Women's Soccer League team Portland Thorns FC joined the picket line in support of the striking workers. == End of the strike ==

On September 15, BCTGM and Mondelez released statements saying that the two had come to a tentative agreement that could see an end to the strike. While the details of the agreement were not made public at that time, BCTGM President Anthony Shelton stated that the proposed contract would be presented for a vote by union members in the next few days. On September 18, the union announced that the contract had been ratified by its members, with the strikers to return to their jobs that week, thus ending the strike. The four-year contract was retroactive to March 1, 2021, and, according to the union, included increases to pay and 401(k) contributions as well as other policy changes. While neither the company nor union revealed specifics, the progressive media organization More Perfect Union stated that the contract included a 2.25 percent pay increase for 2021 and $0.60 hourly wage increases for each year after that. Additionally, workers would receive a $5,000 bonus and Nabisco would increase its 401(k) matching contributions from 25 percent to 50 percent, up to 6 percent of the worker's total pay. The contract was approved with over 75 percent of the vote. Despite this, some workers at the Portland facility expressed dissatisfaction with some of the terms of the agreement, including provisions that they stated would lead to broader alternative scheduling. == See also ==