Kellogg's Memphis Plant "Lock-out"

THE PROLES HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

Who makes $28.00/hr in a cereal plant? The management? That's an insane amount of money to make to stand on an assembly line or be responsible for dumping ingredients into a vat.

I need to look into this more...

QueenofSpades
reply to post by buster2010

 

However, one could beg the question: Whose in more demand? An educated CEO with the know-how to run a company, or a person that has low education, low skills, and turns on the machines that do the work?

That is not a derrogatory remark to the workers, just stating the reality of the skillset needed to perform their job.

edit on 2112014 by QueenofSpades because: (no reason given)

From what I've seen, the higher up in management you go, the less "work" you actually do. I've noticed the higher ups in any organization basically stand on the backs of middle and lower management and reap the rewards. They take the advice of their underlings, make "yes" or "no" decisions and that's about it. If the people at the very top didn't have the lower and middle management to keep the ship sailing, the entire house of cards would fall apart.

I'm sure they have a contract with Kelloggs and the union. When that contract is up for re-newal is when they can negotiate.

6 an hour is a lot to give up. One of unions,sheet metal local 80 out of Detroit gave up 5 bucks an hour for 5 years.

At the negotiating table each side will spell out their terms and the membership will vote.

Enjoy your weekends? Thank a union worker

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Agreed.

Yes, they make that kind of salary. It's absolutely outrageous.

Here's what one of the workers had to say when asked why he wouldn't agree to the $6.00 cut in pay:

Among the workers, an oft-heard refrain is that they do not want to do anything that will undermine living standards for their children’s generation.

from the New York Times

Again, the workers are trying to make the case about what they consider to be "livable" wages.

reply to post by tinner07


Ahhh...but the problem is that they should have never been offered that kind of salary for that kind of work in the first place.

These are entry level positions that require no education and no skills. Memphis is a blue-collar city, where Fed Ex, Nike, and Kellogg are the top companies. Its a city that is caters to the factory workers. These companies pay their entry level very high wages for low skillset jobs.

Meanwhile, workers such as educators and emergency officials are paid much lower wages.

Kellogg is simply trying to fix what was wrong in the beginning.

I think the union folks tend to forget without us consumers they have no job. So go ahead keep being greedy and demand all you want in an economy that cannot support it, see how far it gets you. Sure the union workers also contribute to the products they make but in the end it's the non union worker that makes or breaks the sale of the product at what they are willing to pay. Unions have their good points and bad, these days though the bad outweighs the good most of the time. I myself have been on both sides of the situation but in the end for me it's how far I can stretch a dollar when I am robbing peter then robbing paul....

QueenofSpades
reply to post by buster2010

 

However, one could beg the question: Whose in more demand? An educated CEO with the know-how to run a company, or a person that has low education, low skills, and turns on the machines that do the work?

That is not a derrogatory remark to the workers, just stating the reality of the skillset needed to perform their job.

edit on 2112014 by QueenofSpades because: (no reason given)

Try to explain how a CEO deserves a 90% increase in pay when the stocks are dropping? Looks like that CEO lacks the know how to run the company seeing how It went downhill. So why shouldn't pay cuts start at the top.

reply to post by buster2010


You know, I've held leadership and management roles and I would never make anyone below me do anything I wasn't willing to do myself. I don't care if I'm in a shirt and tie -- I'd roll up my sleeves and dive into the dirt with my guys if they needed a hand. It helps grow and develop something...what is the word? Hold on...oh, right respect.

This is sorely lacking among the leadership of today's companies. The CEO may be worth 100 workers, but if he looses those 100 workers he won't be a CEO anymore. You can't chip away at your foundation while simultaneously adding more weight to the top of a house.

reply to post by buster2010


I am as middle class as it comes, and live in a right to work state. /your argument.

But i do agree....CEO's shouldn't be bonused on negative performance. And it should be locked as a percentage of their annual salary, not profit.

MystikMushroom
Who makes $28.00/hr in a cereal plant? The management? That's an insane amount of money to make to stand on an assembly line or be responsible for dumping ingredients into a vat.

I need to look into this more...

The only people making that kind of money are the operation managers and this isn't a job you just walk into you have to work your way up to it. People that want to cry about unions don't want to accept something called facts. Only unions are bad. Most of their employees make at or below what is called the average wage for Americans.


Kelloggs salaries.

reply to post by buster2010


Unions always have a set pay scale. You get raises over time based on your seniority. If they say they have a large number of workers making that much, then they likely have a lot of workers who have been working there for a long time.

The rates you show are base pay for new hires.

And this explains perfectly well why no one can afford to buy cereal anymore.

Workers aren't "owed" jobs. Kellogg is not under a social obligation to pay workers what workers think they ought to make, including so-called "living wages." Kellogg is in competition with other companies to make their products cheap enough so that other people (themselves workers) will be willing to buy them. This includes companies in countries which do not have a workforce which feels entitled to $100K per year wages plus all he benefits they can imagine, plus cradle to grave job security. When a company becomes "out of whack" with what the rest of the world considers reasonable, and demand for their products diminishes as a result, the company itself faces liquidation because they are simply not competitive.

Kellogg has one choice here: Reduce costs to remain competitive, or shut down. Reducing wages is one way to do that, especially given that their workers make FAR above the average wage. But the fact is, Kellogg can EASILY find workers willing to do the exact same job for far less because, quite frankly, the jobs paying $100K per year are not difficult and do not take skilled labor. In other words, the jobs are over-paid to begin with. This is their current approach, but it is a temporary one at best.

The REAL solution for Kellogg is to hire robots. Robots can be taught to do the job in a couple of days and cost a little more than $20,000 annually to run. They do not require vacations, demand sick leave, need benefits, or have children Kellogg is expected to support with medical benefits. They can work 24 x 7 with no complaints. and they are competitive with overseas companies who still employee human workers.

Manufacturing will return to the United States. It's already doing that, but the trick is that we won't be needing as many humans involved in the process. So the fact that baby Boomers are dying off leaving fewer workers to replace them is a very good thing. Perhaps the next step is some serious family planning.

How many of you people that claim they "just stand there" have ever been in a cereal plant while in production?

Oh yeah and "just pouring in ingredients" Pretty important part of making your kids breakfast cereal.

My thing is they have negotiated wages for years. Kelloggs has agreed and wages have increased over the years.

Of course the union isnt going to agree with a 6 dollar an hour paycut right away. Kelloggs probably wants a 4 an hour cut and the union will give up 2.

And even if they are just standing there, you think you would just stand there for 25 or 30 years for 6 bucks an hour. Im sure it sounds good now but eventually you would much rather be getting paid more.

And who decides they shouldnt get 28 an hour? how much should they get? as long as its less than you?

It seems to be a global thing with Lots of plant closings around the globe, but yet they are expanding in Thailand.
Our local plant is closing at the end of the year, 640 good jobs gone.
Kellogg's have been operating this particular plant for 90 years.

Link
www.thestar.com...

These things are never good news but when they come in clusters like this .......bad news for everyone.

Regards, Iwinder

reply to post by QueenofSpades


Ya know what at some point workers are going to have to say stop......Stop paying me less......Stop shipping my job to other countries that are slave labor.......Stop telling me to work faster for less pay......STOP.




This is it folks if you do not agree with the what I just said you will one day when your job pay is being cut or your job moved to slave labor. And if you make under 14 dollars an hour you are going to be screwed in the next 2 years because of inflation.



The workers hold more power then they know you just have to say.........STOP. But they have brainwashed so many serfs into the lie that it is needed for the greater good. At some point people are going to figure out they can not afford housing and food if this keeps up much longer.

reply to post by QueenofSpades


It is only subjective to those not starving,

To those struggling to feed their own it's not.

reply to post by tinner07


I don't see anyone claiming they "just stand there," but I do see plenty of people claiming that they are low-skilled labor. By that we mean that they do jobs you could teach most people fresh off the street in less than a day. When your labor pool is that incredibly large, it's not worth paying anyone $28/hour to do it. It just isn't.

There are quite a few of us here I imagine who either do jobs that take much more skill and education or know people who have jobs like that who make less than $28/hour. Why should someone with a much easier, less skilled job be making so much more, not counting the costs of any benefits?

benrl
reply to post by QueenofSpades

 

It is only subjective to those not starving,

To those struggling to feed their own it's not.

Oh, but it is subjective.

Who decided that $10/hour is the new minimum. Why $10 an hour? If $10 is good, why not $15? Wouldn't that be even better? Heck, why not go for $20 or even $25? What makes it the minimum the minimum?

It's simply subjective.

benrl
Perhaps if we agreed on reasonable living wages and what that entailed, even as little as keep minimum wage inline with inflation, workers wouldn't feel the need to fight for every change on the fear the corporation will rape them.

cut the pay of the CEO and all white collar guys to 28/hr before anyone else is cut.

Trickle down the pay/compensation.