Nabisco Workers Are on Strike in Three States
A month after Frito-Lay workers walked off the job, workers who make Nabisco products like Oreos and Triscuits are on strike in Colorado, Oregon, and Virginia. They say management is trying to make already bone-grinding schedules even more intolerable.

Nabisco workers on strike in Richmond, Virginia. (Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 358)
When workers at a Frito-Lay production plant in Topeka, Kansas, went on strike last month, they threw into relief the fact that the increased pandemic-era snacking that has boosted profits for PepsiCo, Frito-Lay’s parent company, has come courtesy of working conditions so bad as to lead to suicides and divorces. Now, workers are on strike at another snack-food company, one responsible for Oreos, Triscuits, Planters nuts, and Ritz crackers — Nabisco.
Workers at a Nabisco bakery in Portland, Oregon, went on strike on August 10. They have been working twelve-to-sixteen-hour shifts, with some working seven days a week. The workers say the company is pushing for an alternative workweek, a concession that would take away overtime pay for Saturdays and Sundays, with time paid at regular rates until a worker hits forty hours, regardless of the shift’s length or the day of the week. One worker told the Huffington Post that the changes could amount to a loss of $10,000 a year for some workers. Nabisco is also pushing for a two-tier health care plan, which would slot newer workers into a higher-cost deal while also serving to divide workers within the union.
While Nabisco, which is owned by parent company Mondelēz International (the company was spun off from snack giant Kraft Foods in 2012), saw profits nearly double in the latest quarter of 2021, its workers have seen none of that money, all while working through the pandemic. As the Northwest Labor Press noted, Nabisco CEO Dirk Van de Put received $18 million in compensation in 2020, 561 times that of the company’s median worker.