At the Frito-Lay production plant in Topeka, Kansas, workers are subjected to something called “suicides,” shifts in which they come in for eight hours, are forced to work four more hours, and then are called in four hours early, leaving them only eight hours off between shifts. This is how the company forces overtime to the point that many of those workers say they work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with some not having had a day off in five months, weekends included.

“The company recently sent us a letter saying those shifts are called ‘squeeze shifts,’ but none of us has heard that term before,” says Samuel Huntsman, who has worked at the plant for three years. “I think they’re just trying to make it sound better.”

What prompted the letter was workers’ willingness to speak out about the anxiety that pervades their shop, one of the reasons that they are now on a strike that is entering its third week. The plant employs some 850 people, and workers have spoken of the deleterious effects of such inhumane working conditions.