By Richard Mellor in California
Workers at the Mondelez/ Nabisco bakery in Portland, Oregon, went on strike on August 10th and are now entering their fourth week on the picket lines.
The workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union local 364 (BCTGM), have been joined by workers in other bakeries and distribution centres in Colorado, Illinois, Georgia and Virginia. Mondelez was formerly Kraft Foods and is a major player in the snack food market.
Major issues include the employer’s proposal to introduce 12-hour shifts. Overtime will not be paid on these shifts on weekends if workers do not work their entire Monday to Friday shifts. Changes in overtime could cost the workers as much as $40,000 a year, according to union officials. That in itself is a testament to the failure of the heads of organized labour to combat the bosses’ offensive to the point that workers have to work endless hours of overtime to make ends meet. Not only is this bad for those who work it; it also means taking a job an unemployed worker could fill if we shorten the workweek.
Shifting health care costs onto workers
The AFL-CIO leadership, wedded to the Team Concept, gave up decades ago any thoughts about a shorter workweek with no cut in pay. After all, it would hurt the employers.
Mondelez/Nabisco also wants to shift healthcare costs on to their employees, so there’s nothing new here. What has changed, is that workers in essential industries like food production, who the capitalist media has branded as “heroes”, are not going to return to the status quo so easily.
Over 18 months of propaganda, telling them how important they are, and personal sacrifice they made, will not make it easy to put that genie back in the bottle. Mondelez International made $3.9 billion in profits in 2020. This will not go unnoticed.
There is also nothing new when it comes to the trade union hierarchy’s response to what will be an increasingly aggressive offensive on the part of the US capitalist class. Speaking to strikers early on in the Mondelez/Nabisco strike, we heard the same worn-rhetoric from labour officials, “These guys worked through the pandemic, making all these snack products for this company, working record time, at record hours,” Cameron Taylor, a local 364 Business Agent said, adding that, “This company made record profits, and they come to the table and they want takeaways from us. It’s disgusting.”
It’s been disgusting for a long time and every worker knows that. I heard this speech in 1980.
Fair conditions, pay and benefits
Local 364 vice president Mike Burlingham welcomed support from other workers and pointed out that the local 364 members’ strike can inspire others to “…stand up for themselves in their negotiations with employers for fair working conditions, pay and benefits.”
“This is a fight for the American middle class,” Burlingham continued, reminding us that there is no working class in the U.S. “We’re fighting to maintain what we already have. We’re not coming to the table asking for things, we’re coming to the table saying just leave things alone.”
It’s as if nothing has changed in the thinking of the heads of organized labour in the 40 years since the PATCO strike. Simply standing up for ourselves is honourable but not enough, standing up for others, standing up and fighting together at the same time, with all workers at home and abroad is what will drive back this offensive of big business. And the bosses are never fair. Mondalez is a global employer, ranked No. 117 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations. No one union can stop their offensive.
Promoting the workers material and general welfare
The Purpose of the BCTGM International Union is, according to its constitution, to “promote the material, intellectual and general welfare of all workers in the baking, confectionery, tobacco, grain milling and kindred industries.” Fighting to “maintain what we already have” is a violation of that purpose as what we already have is inadequate.
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union is not affiliated to the AFL-CIO or the Change to Win Coalition that split from the AFL-CIO in 2005 but it supports working in, “…alliance with other labour organizations within the AFL-CIO or CLC in matters of common concern.”
I would ask: Might wages, benefits and working conditions be “matters of common concern”? There are 14 million workers organized in the US and it is this power that can defeat global corporations like Mondelez International. But the present leadership atop organized labour will not mobilize this power, they see themselves as the CEOs of employment agencies. They act merely as labour brokers for the employers. As I have stated many times before, when capitalism goes into crisis, the first response from the labour officialdom is to bail it out.
Snack Shortage Looms With Mondelez Strike a Wall Street Journal headline reads today and explains that grocers are getting a little worried about the effects of the bakers’ strike and that “Third-party manufacturers also are working to keep customers’ orders filled, said Laurie Guzzinati, a Mondelez spokeswoman.”
Bosses are worried about effects on profits
We should take note of this. The bosses are worried about the effects a tiny section of organized working class can have on their profits. I get a little frustrated at times with my brothers and sisters who think it is not necessary to pay attention to these class struggle issues, strikes and labor disputes. We all want a peaceful life comrades, but the bosses’ will not permit it; they will not “leave us alone”. The Journal article is in the business section. What happens on the job is very important for the readers of this publication; the voice of US finance capital and it should be very important to all of us as workers.
The world has changed with the onset of the market induced pandemic. Workers have sacrificed our lives to keep the economy afloat so that we can put food on our tables, visit the hospital, live our everyday lives as best possible. The costs of the pandemic and the stimulus will have to be paid by the US workers and middle class as billionaires enjoy their space rides and salivate at the mouth on the prospects of charging $400,000 a pop for space rides.
On these economic and job-related issues we are in a war on two fronts. One is against big business and the forces of capital and the other an internal struggle against the present leadership of organized labour and their concessionary pro-market policies.
Building fighting opposition caucuses
Organized labour’s rank and file must start in our own locals where we can and also on the job, building fighting opposition caucuses that can reach out to the wider labour movement and our communities with a program and demands that meet the needs of working people and families. It is a mistake to abandon the leadership and direction of organizations that were built by ordinary working people to a clique of pro-market class collaborators.
We cannot avoid either of these battles. Any genuine rank and file movement from below that aims to change the course of our unions will inevitably be drawn in to conflict with the present officialdom. It is a mistake to think otherwise.
The mass media will not devote any serious time to struggles like the baker workers are engaged in. And when they do, they will lie and distort the truth. There are many outlets that will cover these developments though and it’s important we at very minimum keep abreast of them, support them when we can.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
