GEO stands in solidarity with the nearly 100,000 workers nationwide who are either on strike or have authorized strikes at Kellogg’s, John Deere, Warrior Met Coal, Kaiser Permanente, and in the entertainment industry. As AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said this week:
Some have called this Striketober. I call it Exhibit A for why we need to rebalance the scales and put workers back in the center of our economy.
The pandemic laid bare the inequities of our system. Working people refuse to return to crappy jobs that put their health at risk. Essential workers are tired of being thanked one moment and treated as expendable the next.
The strikes are a response to continued cuts to workers while companies rake in huge profits. Workers at Kellogg’s face “16-hour forced overtime shifts and 7-day work weeks, sometimes up to 120 days straight,” proposed cuts to lower wages and benefits, and layoffs at its Battle Creek, Michigan headquarters, despite the company making $380 million in 2021 Q1. Similarly, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) members face excessive hours, low wages, limited break time, as giants like Netflix and Amazon attempt to classify their work as “new media” that is subject to weaker protections. Workers at Warrior Met Coal’s mines have been on strike since April 1, 2021, trying to reclaim an estimated $1.1 billion of concessions in pay, benefits, and work safety that they made to save the company in 2016, which attracted a horde of hedge funds that now expect profits. Like many of these companies, Kaiser Permanente is attempting to decrease pay and benefits through a two-tiered system creating a “second-class set of workers.”
Although the conditions of graduate workers are quite different, we recognize that our struggles are connected. Higher education is no stranger to tiered systems of employment creating second- (and third-class) workers. But even faculty here at the “top public university” in the United States are finding that their control over their work and working conditions is tenuous, with UM denying requests for online work accommodations for professors with compromised immune systems, unvaccinated children, long COVID, and other vulnerabilities. These injustices persist even after UM was forced to improve how it treats its workers by LEO’s credible strike threat and our own strike last year. Meanwhile, UM will pay President Schlissel his current salary for two years after he steps down, including a full year of paid leave. The university has not yet posted its 2021 endowment numbers, but endowments around the country are yielding “eye-popping returns” even as schools continue to cut their budgets.
The current model of exploding profits for the few based on the exploitation of the many cannot continue. We are excited to see so many workers using their collective power to oppose the raiding of the working class that has pushed so many to the brink.
How You Can Support
- Sign IATSE’s petition to help them document support for their cause.
- If you are able, contribute to strike funds for
- Boycott Kellogg’s products. (The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ Union [BCTGM] has not officially called for a boycott, but has encouraged one. “No one should buy anything made by Kellogg’s right now,” said Kevin Bradshaw, a case-sealer operator at Kellogg’s Memphis plant.)
- Special K
- Cheez-It
- Pringles
- Austin
- Morning Star Farms
- Carr’s
- Gardenburger
- Frosted Mini-Wheats
- Rice Krispies
- Pop-Tarts
- Eggo
- All-Bran
- Nutri-Grain
- Frosted Flakes
- Crunchy Nut
- Krave
- Coco Pops
- Froot Loops
- Corn Flakes
- Corn Pops
- Fiber Plus
- Town House
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