Kellogg's sues its striking workers
OMAHA, Neb. — The Kellogg Co. has filed a lawsuit against its local union in Omaha complaining that striking workers are blocking entrances to its cereal plant and intimidating replacement workers as they enter the plant.
The company based in Battle Creek, Mich., asked a judge to order the Omaha chapter of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union to stop interfering with its business while workers picket outside the plant. The workers in Omaha and at Kellogg’s three other U.S. cereal plants have been on strike since Oct. 5.
“We respect the right of employees to lawfully communicate their position in this matter. We sought a temporary restraining order to help ensure the safety of all individuals in the vicinity of the plant, including the picketers themselves,” company spokeswoman Kris Bahner said Thursday.
The president of the Omaha union declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday.
Kellogg’s lawsuit comes after a vehicle struck and killed a United Auto Workers member as he was walking to a picket line to join striking workers outside a John Deere distribution plant in northwest Illinois. An Iowa judge issued a temporary restraining order against Deere workers in Davenport limiting their demonstrations to four picketers at a time.
Kellogg’s said in its lawsuit that union members have been physically blocking the entrance to the plant as semitrucks and buses try to enter and leave.
The company also said in the lawsuit that people picketing outside the plant have threatened the lives of people working at the plant, including “threatening that an individual’s wife and young children will be assaulted (including sexually) while he is away from home working with Kellogg.”
Two days of contract talks earlier this month failed to produce an agreement. Earlier this week, Kellogg’s launched a PR campaign trying to sell workers on its latest offer because the union declined to put the deal up to a vote.
Ken Hurley, the head of labor relations at Kellogg’s, said in a video the company posted on its website that Kellogg’s has tried to address the union’s main concerns about its two-tiered pay system, wages and benefits in its offer.
“We have made every attempt to build a bridge toward a new agreement, but those efforts are met with rejections and more unrealistic demands,” Hurley said in the video. “We urge the union to reconsider its approach and agree to engage in real bargaining for a contract to get our employees back to work and back to their lives.”
Union officials told workers after those contract talks that they couldn’t recommend Kellogg’s offer because it was full of concessions. No additional talks have been scheduled at this point.
The Kellogg’s strike includes roughly 1,400 workers four plants in Battle Creek; Omaha; Lancaster, Pa.; and Memphis, Tenn., that make all of Kellogg’s brands of cereal.
