After that, transitional workers will graduate to legacy status each year at 3% of the plant's head count. Kellogg's said the newly ratified deal improves wages and benefits for all workers - both transitional and legacy employees - and also speeds up the pathway for transitional workers to earn legacy status and its higher pay and benefits.Īccording to a summary of the agreement posted by the company, all transitional employees with four years or more of service will immediately graduate to legacy status. Under that system, newer employees called 'transitionals' receive lower pay and less generous benefits than the longer-serving 'legacy' employees. New agreement brings wage increases, addresses two-tiered systemĪ major sticking point in negotiations to date had been the company's two-tiered labor system, in use since 2015. 'As we saw firsthand in the earliest days of the strike, the energy and solidarity that radiated from the picket line captured the attention of community leaders, elected officials, and countless union members who stopped by to show their support for these workers,' Dycus said in the statement. 'With a new year on the horizon, we are more energized than ever before and are prepared to carry the fight for Tennessee’s working families into 2022.'

Tennessee AFL-CIO President Billy Dycus issued a statement calling the strike 'a true inspiration to workers everywhere' and praised the local union in Memphis as 'a shining example of worker power to Tennessee’s labor movement.' Strikes have been rare in recent years, especially in the South, and the Kellogg's strike was one of the most significant labor disputes in Tennessee in recent decades. The strikes had played out simultaneously in Memphis and at cereal plants in three other cities: Battle Creek, Michigan, Omaha, Nebraska, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The plant in Memphis produces popular cereal brands including Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes and Rice Krispies.

Kellogg strike