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Labor Strikes Target Big Food As Workers Seize On Industry Turmoil

Labor Strikes Target Big Food As Workers Seize On Industry Turmoil

By Chris Casey of Food Dive,

At food plants around the country this year, workers have been making themselves heard about the state of wages, working hours and conditions.

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Labor Strikes Target Big Food As Workers Seize On Industry Turmoil

By Chris Casey of Food Dive,

At food plants around the country this year, workers have been making themselves heard about the state of wages, working hours and conditions.

Just this week, roughly 1,400 Kellogg workers at ready-to-eat cereal plants in four states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and Tennessee — went on strike after their contract expired. In a statement, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) said its goal is to "obtain a fair contract that provides a living wage and good benefits."

Anthony Shelton, BCTGM's president, said Kellogg workers "have been working long, hard hours, day in and day out, to produce Kellogg ready-to-eat cereals for American families" but that the company has responded by cutting benefits and threatening to send jobs to Mexico if employees don't accept the company's proposals.

"Kellogg is making these demands as they rake in record profits, without regard for the well-being of the hardworking men and women who make the products that have created the company’s massive profits," Shelton said in a statement. 

Just a couple weeks earlier, more than a thousand workers returned to their jobs at Mondelēz Nabisco factories in five states after a walkout that lasted nearly six weeks. It also was led by BCTGM. The workers were protesting what they considered unfair changes in overtime rules and shift lengths.

This came a few months after hundreds of Frito-Lay employees in Topeka, Kansas, were on strike in July for 19 days, demanding better hours and higher pay. That same month, dozens of Teamster truck drivers gathered to strike against Coca-Cola in West Virginia, rejecting a contract that would reportedly have made them pay more for health insurance and give them less commission.

Some of these strikes, including those at Mondelēz and Frito-Lay plants, have reached their conclusion after the manufacturers came to terms with workers and their unions. And some, like the strike affecting Kellogg plants, are only ratcheting up. The turmoil reflects a unique set of conditions — a labor shortage, growing demand and supply chain disruptions in the midst of a pandemic — that has given labor unions extra leverage, and food manufacturers a greater incentive to meet their demands. 

CPGs are currently hobbled by a massive labor shortage. There are now 4.9 million more people who are either not working or not looking for work compared to pre-pandemic times, The Washington Post recently reported. At the same time, demand for food has skyrocketed, rising 8.7% in the second quarter of this year alone, as people spend more time at home, the Consumer Brands Association reported. This has left CPG manufacturers scrambling to increase production with fewer workers and a shaky, fragile supply chain — all while dealing with continued uncertainty over the outlook for COVID-19.

The leverage that workers and labor advocates currently enjoy is a recent change in fortunes. The power of unions, specifically in the food manufacturing sector, had deteriorated during the past four decades as companies avoided meeting worker demands by moving many jobs overseas, according to Bryant Simon, labor scholar and history professor at Temple University.

But the COVID crisis, Simon believes, has provided a unique opportunity for American factory workers to reassess their pivotal role in the food industry.

"Workers are like, ‘Look, I’m not going to work on these terms anymore, and you’ve given me a chance to explore some other options,' " Simon said.

Uncertain outcomes

The Mondelēz strike demonstrates how all of these factors can come into play.

The dispute began in May when workers were offered a new contract that would increase hourly shifts from eight hours to 12, without additional overtime pay for the first five days of the week. A Mondelēz spokesperson told CBS News at the time that the changes were intended to “promote the right behaviors” among workers. 

Meanwhile, some Mondelēz employees at its Chicago factory told The New York Times they had worked 16-hour shifts during the pandemic to keep up with the increased demand for the snack giant’s most popular products, such as Oreos.

Workers were also worried that their jobs would be sent to Mexico, similiar to what happened in 2016, when Mondelēz cut nearly 1,000 jobs at plants in Chicago and Philadelphia

Mondelēz International spokesperson Laurie Guzzinati told Food Dive in August that the contract negotiations were “not about'' moving jobs to Mexico and that the company was committed to keeping its U.S workforce. 

Workers in Portland, Ore., launched the first walkout on Aug. 10, with signs reading “No contract, no snacks,” “Weekends are family time” and “Spit out that Oreo” populating the picket line. As the strikes spread to other states — Illinois, Virginia, Colorado and Georgia — they quickly made national headlines. Actor Danny DeVito and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came out in support of the workers. 

The snacks giant told Food Dive that it began negotiating with the union “as soon as the action took place in Portland.” In its last quarterly earnings call on Sept. 9, Mondelēz’s CEO Dirk Van De Put said that after the company requested contract changes to increase capacity at its plants as well as product inventory, it “foresaw that it would not be an easy conversation." He said Mondelēz was making a new offer to the union, which included increased wages, a higher 401(k) match and more flexible hours. The company was not willing to reinstate its pension plan

The new terms sealed the deal. In a statement after its members voted to approve the new four-year contract, BCTGM said that they "made enormous sacrifices" to reach a deal "that preserves our Union’s high standards for wages, hours and benefits for current and future Nabisco workers." BCTGM did not respond to multiple requests for comment by Food Dive.

The Kellogg strikes, meanwhile, may not be coming to a quick, amicable conclusion any time soon.

BCTGM called for a strike a month after Kellogg announced plans to invest $45 million in restructuring its ready-to-eat cereal supply chain, which includes cutting more than 200 jobs at its Battle Creek factory. The company said it is shifting production to more efficient production lines, even as it struggled with shortages of factory line workers and truck drivers at many of its plants.

BCTGM representatives said last week that Kellogg did not provide workers with a “comprehensive offer” during contract negotiations like it had stated.

In a statement to Food Dive, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner said the company is "disappointed by the union’s decision to strike," and that its proposed new contract provides wage and benefits increases "while helping us meet the challenges of the changing cereal business." Bahner said the company hopes to reach an agreement with the union soon. 

Raising the stakes of negotiations even further: Kellogg filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against BCTGM in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska, saying that it "seeks to recover damages for ongoing breaches of a labor agreement." The cereal giant said the union's "improper actions" have the intention of inflicting “significant economic harm” to the company before a contract agreement is able to be met.

What’s next for labor

Despite this test of wills between labor and food manufacturers, the “ultimate leverage” for workers in 2021 is their ability to create negative publicity for their parent company through strikes to make them appear “union-busting” in hopes of spurring a consumer boycott of their products, said Erik Loomis, a labor expert and University of Rhode Island professor.

Loomis said this can bring about more immediate benefits to unions compared to legal frameworks, which are often not on the side of workers and could take months or years to result in better contracts.

The use of social media to spread organization efforts and make the public aware of working conditions makes today’s strikes different to those of the past, according to Simon with Temple University. In the case of Mondelēz, calls for a boycott of Nabisco snacks like Oreos and Wheat Thins gained traction on social media during the strikes, with users uploading photos of shelves stocked with unsold Oreos and Chips Ahoy! cookies at grocery stores.

However, relying on public support to dictate change has its drawbacks. Simon said wage increases for food manufacturing workers is a larger “ideological hurdle” because many consumers ultimately may not be willing to pay more for food products to support higher wages. This is despite the fact that the annual mean salary of a food factory employee is under $33,000, significantly lower than the roughly $56,000 national average for all jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Food prices have also been rising during the pandemic as manufacturers pass along higher costs for ingredients, manufacturing, packaging and transportation. 

Loomis expects strikes to continue due to the supply chain crisis, and as workers see more examples of successful organizing taking place.

Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, the political climate is also friendlier to unions. The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize), which passed Congress in March with five Republicans joining, is supported by The White House. One of its biggest elements — monetary punishments for companies that infringe on workers’ union-based rights — was added as part of the budget reconciliation bill package currently being debated in the Senate.

“You’re going to see more strikes within the legal sense,” Loomis said. “Even outside of that, workers will take matters into their own hands when they feel it is necessary to do so."

Tyler Durden Thu, 10/07/2021 - 18:15

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International

Beloved mall retailer files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, will liquidate

The struggling chain has given up the fight and will close hundreds of stores around the world.

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It has been a brutal period for several popular retailers. The fallout from the covid pandemic and a challenging economic environment have pushed numerous chains into bankruptcy with Tuesday Morning, Christmas Tree Shops, and Bed Bath & Beyond all moving from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.

In all three of those cases, the companies faced clear financial pressures that led to inventory problems and vendors demanding faster, or even upfront payment. That creates a sort of inevitability.

Related: Beloved retailer finds life after bankruptcy, new famous owner

When a retailer faces financial pressure it sets off a cycle where vendors become wary of selling them items. That leads to barren shelves and no ability for the chain to sell its way out of its financial problems. 

Once that happens bankruptcy generally becomes the only option. Sometimes that means a Chapter 11 filing which gives the company a chance to negotiate with its creditors. In some cases, deals can be worked out where vendors extend longer terms or even forgive some debts, and banks offer an extension of loan terms.

In other cases, new funding can be secured which assuages vendor concerns or the company might be taken over by its vendors. Sometimes, as was the case with David's Bridal, a new owner steps in, adds new money, and makes deals with creditors in order to give the company a new lease on life.

It's rare that a retailer moves directly into Chapter 7 bankruptcy and decides to liquidate without trying to find a new source of funding.

Mall traffic has varied depending upon the type of mall.

Image source: Getty Images

The Body Shop has bad news for customers  

The Body Shop has been in a very public fight for survival. Fears began when the company closed half of its locations in the United Kingdom. That was followed by a bankruptcy-style filing in Canada and an abrupt closure of its U.S. stores on March 4.

"The Canadian subsidiary of the global beauty and cosmetics brand announced it has started restructuring proceedings by filing a Notice of Intention (NOI) to Make a Proposal pursuant to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada). In the same release, the company said that, as of March 1, 2024, The Body Shop US Limited has ceased operations," Chain Store Age reported.

A message on the company's U.S. website shared a simple message that does not appear to be the entire story.

"We're currently undergoing planned maintenance, but don't worry we're due to be back online soon."

That same message is still on the company's website, but a new filing makes it clear that the site is not down for maintenance, it's down for good.

The Body Shop files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy

While the future appeared bleak for The Body Shop, fans of the brand held out hope that a savior would step in. That's not going to be the case. 

The Body Shop filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the United States.

"The US arm of the ethical cosmetics group has ceased trading at its 50 outlets. On Saturday (March 9), it filed for Chapter 7 insolvency, under which assets are sold off to clear debts, putting about 400 jobs at risk including those in a distribution center that still holds millions of dollars worth of stock," The Guardian reported.

After its closure in the United States, the survival of the brand remains very much in doubt. About half of the chain's stores in the United Kingdom remain open along with its Australian stores. 

The future of those stores remains very much in doubt and the chain has shared that it needs new funding in order for them to continue operating.

The Body Shop did not respond to a request for comment from TheStreet.   

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Government

Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super…

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Are Voters Recoiling Against Disorder?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The headlines coming out of the Super Tuesday primaries have got it right. Barring cataclysmic changes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president in 2024.

(Left) President Joe Biden delivers remarks on canceling student debt at Culver City Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, Calif., on Feb. 21, 2024. (Right) Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump stands on stage during a campaign event at Big League Dreams Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on Jan. 27, 2024. (Mario Tama/Getty Images; David Becker/Getty Images)

With Nikki Haley’s withdrawal, there will be no more significantly contested primaries or caucuses—the earliest both parties’ races have been over since something like the current primary-dominated system was put in place in 1972.

The primary results have spotlighted some of both nominees’ weaknesses.

Donald Trump lost high-income, high-educated constituencies, including the entire metro area—aka the Swamp. Many but by no means all Haley votes there were cast by Biden Democrats. Mr. Trump can’t afford to lose too many of the others in target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Majorities and large minorities of voters in overwhelmingly Latino counties in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and some in Houston voted against Joe Biden, and even more against Senate nominee Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas).

Returns from Hispanic precincts in New Hampshire and Massachusetts show the same thing. Mr. Biden can’t afford to lose too many Latino votes in target states like Arizona and Georgia.

When Mr. Trump rode down that escalator in 2015, commentators assumed he’d repel Latinos. Instead, Latino voters nationally, and especially the closest eyewitnesses of Biden’s open-border policy, have been trending heavily Republican.

High-income liberal Democrats may sport lawn signs proclaiming, “In this house, we believe ... no human is illegal.” The logical consequence of that belief is an open border. But modest-income folks in border counties know that flows of illegal immigrants result in disorder, disease, and crime.

There is plenty of impatience with increased disorder in election returns below the presidential level. Consider Los Angeles County, America’s largest county, with nearly 10 million people, more people than 40 of the 50 states. It voted 71 percent for Mr. Biden in 2020.

Current returns show county District Attorney George Gascon winning only 21 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan primary. He’ll apparently face Republican Nathan Hochman, a critic of his liberal policies, in November.

Gascon, elected after the May 2020 death of counterfeit-passing suspect George Floyd in Minneapolis, is one of many county prosecutors supported by billionaire George Soros. His policies include not charging juveniles as adults, not seeking higher penalties for gang membership or use of firearms, and bringing fewer misdemeanor cases.

The predictable result has been increased car thefts, burglaries, and personal robberies. Some 120 assistant district attorneys have left the office, and there’s a backlog of 10,000 unprosecuted cases.

More than a dozen other Soros-backed and similarly liberal prosecutors have faced strong opposition or have left office.

St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner resigned last May amid lawsuits seeking her removal, Milwaukee’s John Chisholm retired in January, and Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby was defeated in July 2022 and convicted of perjury in September 2023. Last November, Loudoun County, Virginia, voters (62 percent Biden) ousted liberal Buta Biberaj, who declined to prosecute a transgender student for assault, and in June 2022 voters in San Francisco (85 percent Biden) recalled famed radical Chesa Boudin.

Similarly, this Tuesday, voters in San Francisco passed ballot measures strengthening police powers and requiring treatment of drug-addicted welfare recipients.

In retrospect, it appears the Floyd video, appearing after three months of COVID-19 confinement, sparked a frenzied, even crazed reaction, especially among the highly educated and articulate. One fatal incident was seen as proof that America’s “systemic racism” was worse than ever and that police forces should be defunded and perhaps abolished.

2020 was “the year America went crazy,” I wrote in January 2021, a year in which police funding was actually cut by Democrats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver. A year in which young New York Times (NYT) staffers claimed they were endangered by the publication of Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) opinion article advocating calling in military forces if necessary to stop rioting, as had been done in Detroit in 1967 and Los Angeles in 1992. A craven NYT publisher even fired the editorial page editor for running the article.

Evidence of visible and tangible discontent with increasing violence and its consequences—barren and locked shelves in Manhattan chain drugstores, skyrocketing carjackings in Washington, D.C.—is as unmistakable in polls and election results as it is in daily life in large metropolitan areas. Maybe 2024 will turn out to be the year even liberal America stopped acting crazy.

Chaos and disorder work against incumbents, as they did in 1968 when Democrats saw their party’s popular vote fall from 61 percent to 43 percent.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 23:20

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Government

Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The…

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Veterans Affairs Kept COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate In Place Without Evidence

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reviewed no data when deciding in 2023 to keep its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place.

Doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in Washington in a file image. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said on May 1, 2023, that the end of many other federal mandates “will not impact current policies at the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

He said the mandate was remaining for VA health care personnel “to ensure the safety of veterans and our colleagues.”

Mr. McDonough did not cite any studies or other data. A VA spokesperson declined to provide any data that was reviewed when deciding not to rescind the mandate. The Epoch Times submitted a Freedom of Information Act for “all documents outlining which data was relied upon when establishing the mandate when deciding to keep the mandate in place.”

The agency searched for such data and did not find any.

The VA does not even attempt to justify its policies with science, because it can’t,” Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told The Epoch Times.

“The VA just trusts that the process and cost of challenging its unfounded policies is so onerous, most people are dissuaded from even trying,” she added.

The VA’s mandate remains in place to this day.

The VA’s website claims that vaccines “help protect you from getting severe illness” and “offer good protection against most COVID-19 variants,” pointing in part to observational data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that estimate the vaccines provide poor protection against symptomatic infection and transient shielding against hospitalization.

There have also been increasing concerns among outside scientists about confirmed side effects like heart inflammation—the VA hid a safety signal it detected for the inflammation—and possible side effects such as tinnitus, which shift the benefit-risk calculus.

President Joe Biden imposed a slate of COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2021. The VA was the first federal agency to implement a mandate.

President Biden rescinded the mandates in May 2023, citing a drop in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. His administration maintains the choice to require vaccines was the right one and saved lives.

“Our administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations,” the White House said.

Some experts said requiring vaccination meant many younger people were forced to get a vaccine despite the risks potentially outweighing the benefits, leaving fewer doses for older adults.

By mandating the vaccines to younger people and those with natural immunity from having had COVID, older people in the U.S. and other countries did not have access to them, and many people might have died because of that,” Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine on leave from Harvard Medical School, told The Epoch Times previously.

The VA was one of just a handful of agencies to keep its mandate in place following the removal of many federal mandates.

“At this time, the vaccine requirement will remain in effect for VA health care personnel, including VA psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistants, engineers, housekeepers, and other clinical, administrative, and infrastructure support employees,” Mr. McDonough wrote to VA employees at the time.

This also includes VA volunteers and contractors. Effectively, this means that any Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employee, volunteer, or contractor who works in VHA facilities, visits VHA facilities, or provides direct care to those we serve will still be subject to the vaccine requirement at this time,” he said. “We continue to monitor and discuss this requirement, and we will provide more information about the vaccination requirements for VA health care employees soon. As always, we will process requests for vaccination exceptions in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies.”

The version of the shots cleared in the fall of 2022, and available through the fall of 2023, did not have any clinical trial data supporting them.

A new version was approved in the fall of 2023 because there were indications that the shots not only offered temporary protection but also that the level of protection was lower than what was observed during earlier stages of the pandemic.

Ms. Manookian, whose group has challenged several of the federal mandates, said that the mandate “illustrates the dangers of the administrative state and how these federal agencies have become a law unto themselves.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 22:10

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