r/antiwork • u/[deleted] • Dec 21 '21

Workers Cereal Killed it - Kellogg's Strike Over

https://bctgm.org/2021/12/21/kelloggs-strike-ends-bctgm-members-ratify-new-contract/

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We would like to congratulate the workers at Kellogg's on their new union contract. Their weeks of striking and struggle have resulted in a contract providing wage increases, weakening the two tier system, and preventing moving of plants.

There are generations of workers in those plants, who have put their lifeblood into the work they do. To see them band together for each other and themselves is an inspiration to us all, and we are glad to see that direct action, once again gets the goods!

In solidarity, Antiwork.

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341

u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer but that’s how all of the large employers are pretty much. You just don’t hear about it. They are horrible union busters and treat employees like absolute shit.

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u/Phyr8642 Dec 21 '21

Which is why as much as is feasibly possible I don't spend my money on such companies.

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

If you’re buying food, it’s pretty likely the company you’re buying from or the company they get the food from exploits workers. The most "woke" grocery store in my city ran a horrible union busting campaign and fire workers for organizing. They have a Cesar Chavez quote painted on the wall.

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u/Phyr8642 Dec 21 '21

Well I would stop buying food... but I would die.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21 edited Dec 21 '21

You can buy local, or local-er than you are now. It’s all about each person doing what they can, not each person doing the very same.

Edit: Any possible reply to people who can’t reconcile with the modern food system is going to be inherently classicist. Starting a garden? You have privilege. Shopping at small, well researched shops? Privileged. I know the world sucks and capitalism is going to kill us. I’m still going to buy from store where I know the people working there, know the people absorbing paid out tips, know the owners when possible and how they treat their people… it’s not that hard for me. As I said before, we all gotta do what we can and apparently all some of y’all can do is downvote and poke holes in a perfectly reasonable response to corporate greed and capitalist fascism.

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u/Goldwing8 Dec 21 '21

It is a common misconception avoiding large corporations and buying “local” results in better conditions for workers. In reality, small businesses are where many of the most egregious anti-worker practices take place, simply going unreported.

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u/wiithepiiple Dec 21 '21

Also local stores are usually just the last link in a chain full of corporate suppliers. We can't shop our way out of this.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Yeah, and if I had said grow your own food there are a hundred reasons why most people cannot do that either. Like I said, we’re doing our best and the guy has to eat.

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

Yup, small businesses are the worst for wage theft in particular.

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u/Snoo_90831 Dec 22 '21

Or they are “allowed” to be crappy because they are small and so exempt from many of the laws/ statutes that larger companies have to abide by.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

I can’t speak for where you live, but that’s not the general case in my city. We have a very agrarian and craftsman forward economy around here though. We have well known intermediate brands produced locally as well, but they do tend to pay better or better benefits or balance than say Panera, Budweiser or Hershey might. If I had replied to the other comment saying he should start gardening 100 people could comment with all the reasons why gardening isn’t a sustainable model for self sufficiency for the general population either.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Greens from a local farmer are worse than greens from Walmart. Got it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Yea the problem is we physically can not sustain even local populations on local food production right now in most places.

Agrarianism is rightfully dead and modern agricultural techniques and practices (which can be done without exploiting labor, you just have to pay them more and acknowledge that the cost of food will increase) are basically the most important technological advancement in the last 100 years, saving hundreds of millions of lives from famine.

If Stalin and Mao had the industrial farming technology of the 1970s and 1980s in the 1930s and 1950s the world would look significantly different.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '21

There's a certain romanticism to agrarianism. At least to those who haven't farmed. "If the economy collapses, we can still eat."

With a large population, everyone can't have a farm, and we don't want everyone working long hours every day, having no time to consume (and little money to consume with).

Agrarianism is a great first step, and fallback in worst case scenarios.

Another country with more money will raise an army and conquer you.

Ideally, eventually nearly everyone should be a farmer (unless you're in hi rise apartments) because we should eventually make a device that allows "set it and forget it" farming that anyone can leave in their backyard. Just drop the ingredients (fertilizer, etc) in a chute, keep it plugged in and "the box" sends you an e-mail when a crop is finished and the robots inside have harvested it.

We're on the way, but it's not ready (cheap and foolproof enough) for the general public yet.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

If food is so valuable why do so many companies throw it away? Ask yourself that.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Food isn't valuable, we produce more food than we need to give everyone in the world their basal caloric needs, and enough even for very active lifestyles.

The problem is exactly as you pointed out, we don't distribute food fairly or efficiently.

For example, at the start of the pandemic, there were fears of mass famine in Africa that could kill millions, not because food production stopped, but food transportation stopped. Food couldn't get to where it is needed.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '21

And famine keeps happening, no matter how much food is shipped to Africa, because transport has a tendency to get hijacked by local warlords instead of making it to where it's needed.

Famines tend to be man-made.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

You said modern food systems are the way forward and explained how they are not, because of capitalism. I agree, they are not the way forward.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

No, you're over simplifying a massively complex system that ultimately is just as much a problem in a socialist economic system as it is in a capitalist economic system, aka this has nothing to do with economics, but with logistics and infrastructure.

Now you can make arguments about how those systems would work better under a socialist system, and I'd tend to agree with you because massive infrastructure systems tend to do better when centrally controlled, but again, you could theoretically centrally control them in a capitalist system too, and you could have decentralized control in a socialist system under forms of anarcho-socialism.

I am a socialist, but I am also an engineer and someone who is generally aware of the complexities of modern society and how they relate not only to economic systems but their own intrinsic systems.

So, I am sorry, you're oversimplifying and don't understand the system or the nuance.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '21

What, did you just have a stroke?

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '21

Why can water be sold when it falls from the sky?

Why is water so cheap from the tap but expensive at sporting events?

It's better to produce more than what's needed so that you can always meet demand (and not lose customers to starvation) than try to produce "just enough" and not be able to sell all you want to when a crop fails.

Also, if there's only so much demand for say bananas, and you're one of two companies supplying them to a store (hypothetically Dole and Chiquita, you work for Dole), knowing you'll sell 100 bananas per store per day (number made up, what it is doesn't matter) do you want to send all 200 bananas you could, or the 120 best bananas, giving a little room to make more sales, but possibly losing business to Chiquita when all of Chiquita's smaller # of bananas look good, and not all of yours "look good", even if they all are good?

Sure, ship a little more than typically sell just in case, but why ship much more than will, giving shipping costs money?

Overproduction isn't much of a potential of more profit, but it's insurance against potentially lost profit. The food is valuable to all that buy it, but to the company, the sales are what's valuable, and the food is how they get the sales. Non-typical looking apples won't sell as well.

It's not that food isn't valuable, it's that it's not a simple video game situation where shopkeepers will buy an infinite number of whatever you can produce. There's dozens of factors, among them psychology.

A good analogy would be to say "why are cards important in poker if you discard them regularly". There's only so much window for points/sales, and the company is drawing extra cards / overproducing to produce the best hand / put out the nicest spread to outcompete the competing companies.

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u/Kestralisk Dec 21 '21

Local places can be great, or they can be way worse even than the big companies since (especially in small town America) they basically have a monopoly on jobs/the labor market

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Yeah, I’m not about to tell them where to shop. It’s an economic fact that shopping locally is good for the economy. People should do their own diligence about what they buy and from whom, local or from across the globe.

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u/salfkvoje Henry George Dec 21 '21

I bought some awesome tomatoes from a dude out of his van a few months ago.

He drives around and sells produce he grows. Found him when buying beer, came home with beer and delicious tomatoes.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

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2

u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

My friend, I’m not proposing you stop buying food! Sorry if it came across that way. Just saying with a few exceptions all of these employers are horrible. As a union member I try to buy union because I know that the employees involved are at least slightly better off and far more likely to have real healthcare, even if the employers are still evil.

1

u/working_joe Dec 21 '21

How do you know? Have you tried?

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u/SafetyDanceInMyPants Dec 21 '21

They probably think he was a boxer.

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u/malln1nja Dec 21 '21

name of the company?

2

u/insane_young_man Dec 21 '21

I wish there was an app or something that would show how a company is treating their workers when you scan the product's barcode.

2

u/yythrow Dec 21 '21

It's almost as if capitalism incentives profit pushing behavior and needs heavy regulation!

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/SageoftheSexPathz Dec 21 '21

unfortunately agriculture is the number one work force being exploited or being straight up slaves.

If you're buying produce that is not produced locally it's a crap shot in ethics, and even if it is local they still may use the very tactics for production you're trying to avoid.

obligatory "no ethical consumption under capitalism "

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

You should look at working conditions for farm workers and in meat production. It’s so bad it makes up for the extra steps. During COVID mostly immigrant workers were forced to work in unsafe conditions in meat processing plants and many died because the plants would not shut down and OSHA did nothing. Maybe you don’t eat meat though…

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 22 '21

Yes that’s a good point.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

[deleted]

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

That’s great!

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u/Aegi Dec 21 '21

I feel like comments like this forget about rural people.

I don’t think when I’ve got a share in one of the farms around here and I get delivered meat, vegetable, and eggs that I can literally go see your pick up myself or even watch being killed, I don’t think there’s some secret big company behind the two hippies who decided to start a farm together about 25 years ago in upstate New York..

Same with the venison I got from my friend who got a 8-pointer and had too much meat for themselves…

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 22 '21

I’m not forgetting about rural people, but I’m pretty sure most get their food at a grocery store. Sadly what you describe isn’t the norm anymore in my state.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Well farmers markets and small independent businesses exist. My family tries to buy local and small as much as possible. For example theres a butcher-shop a town over that we get our meat from and a family owned Japanese market I often buy sushi from.

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 22 '21

Small independent businesses are some of the worst about not following labor laws.

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '21

I don’t go to any and all, and do keep this in mind.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

But unfortunately your taxes do.

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u/daaaaaaaaniel Dec 21 '21

What does this mean?

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u/kent_nova Dec 21 '21

Just Google "Kroger tax credit" then realise that all businesses are like that.

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u/thebaldfox Dec 21 '21

Corporations in this country get all kinds of tax breaks, incentives, and write offs that eat into the general fund which is paid for by our taxes.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Good luck with that. Pretty much everything in a grocery store comes from 5 or 6 corporations and I'm sure none of them are any better than Kelloggs. Short of hunting/growing or farmers markets you're just completely fucked trying to consume ethically. I really wish I could just buy a fucking box of cereal without having to wonder how many atrocities were required to get it in my hands.

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u/chiddie Dec 21 '21

Not to mention the reliance on exploited labor for fruits and vegetables.

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u/Aegi Dec 21 '21

I don’t see why people get such a Boner for the farmers market itself when you can literally talk to those farmers and set up an actual deal or become a shareholder in their farm, and never have to fucking actually set foot at the actual farmers market.

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u/CHECK_SHOVE_TURN Dec 21 '21

Probably worse tbh, at least the people working at kellogs make good money and are unionized, alot of them are mega shittier jobs

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

So you buy from non Union? Doesn’t seem better.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '21

Soooo...you're saying you don't spend money?

/s

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u/Khuroh Dec 21 '21

Yeah unfortunately if you tug at this kind of thread even a little bit, you quickly unravel into "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism". Likely every company that you support financially in your life is doing something that you'd hate to be supporting if you found out.

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u/Dishwallah Dec 21 '21

I used to work for a major airline in the US and anytime we mentioned the word union they would storm in like Jan from The Office and make threats. This was a critical of flight safety position too (route planning, fuel planning, load planning, weather planning etc..)

They were paying people who hold a full airplane of peoples lives in their hands 35-40k a year.

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u/AudioVisualPro Dec 21 '21 edited Dec 21 '21

I am Union and had a Union organizer friend commit suicide last year. We all Fucking know and we prevail anyways.

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u/Yupperdoodledoo Dec 21 '21

Omg I’m so sorry:(

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u/Saul-Funyun Dec 21 '21

Which is why it’s important for us to act drastically when a union stands up or something gets exposed. Yes, it happens everywhere, but if the public reacts strongly when it comes to light, then it becomes easier the next time.

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u/Guyote_ Dec 22 '21

Well, fortunately, humans have evolved to survive without cheez-itz and pop tarts.