Nabisco
From Page 1
standards of most production
workers. For example, there’s no
premium, deductible or co-pay
for the health insurance that cov-
ers workers and their families.
BCTGM mixed ballots from
all locations before counting
them, but strike leaders in Port-
land’s Local 364 think the tenta-
tive agreement would have been
rejected if only Portland voted.
Local 364 President Jesus
Martinez says the compromise
on weekend work was what
members objected to most. The
new contract allows Mondelez
to operate up to four production
lines per bakery with crews in
which up to half the workers
have voluntarily agreed to work
fixed weekend schedules of
three 12-hour shifts, either Fri-
day-Saturday-Sunday or Satur-
day-Sunday-Monday, and be
paid 40 hours for 36 hours of
work. That allows the company
to pay close to straight time for
weekend work, but only for
those workers. The rest of the
weekend crews would continue
to be paid at overtime rates of
about $45 and $60 an hour re-
spectively. Weekend work isn’t
UNION DEMOCRACY
Teamster Tully elected as
Second VP at NOLC
Dave Tully, Teamsters Local 223
president and
union rep,
was elected
second vice
president of
Northwest
Oregon La-
bor Council
(NOLC) in a
contested roll
Dave Tully
call vote at
the Sept. 27 delegate meeting,
outpolling American Federation
of Teachers-Oregon president
Jaime Rodriguez. The election
was held to fill the vacancy un-
der NOLC’s rules, no affiliated
international union is allowed to
have more than one top officer
spot, so longtime second vice
president Ed Barnes stepped
down when Scott Zadow was
elected president. The cascade of
vacancies was set in motion
when UFCW Local 555 with-
drew from NOLC in March, and
it continues: Tully’s election cre-
ates a vacancy on the NOLC
Board, and nominations will be
taken at the council’s Oct. 25
delegate meeting.
–DM
very family-friendly, but at least
those who work it have felt well-
compensated under that fiercely
defended union contract clause.
Before the strike, many were
working lots of overtime and
weekends: “12-2” schedules in
which they’d work 12 days in a
row followed by two days off.
Martinez and others say they
doubt existing workers will vol-
unteer for the weekend sched-
ules, meaning the company
would have to staff with new
hires. And those new hires can’t
be forced to stay on the week-
end shifts after one year, the
contract says. Given those limi-
tations, union leaders say the
company may not be able to
make much use of the weekend
schedule compromise.
But even those who voted
against the agreement count the
strike as a success. Nabisco hired
temporary replacements, but
wasn’t able to operate success-
fully. One reason is the know-
how members took with them
when they walked off. Local 364
Vice President Mike Burling-
ham says Mondelez has for
years underinvested in maintain-
ing and upgrading its machines,
and workers have learned all
kinds of tricks and hacks to keep
them operating smoothly.
Though it’s hard for strikers to
know exactly what went on
Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia
PAGE 8 | October 1, 2021 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
FIGHTING FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS Althea McAnulty, Mary
Wilkinson, and Maryann Wingert picket the Nabisco plant in Philadel-
phia in this photo from the last Nabisco strike—September and Octo-
ber 1969. About 8,900 workers at 12 Nabisco plants took part in that
strike, according to accounts in the Labor Press at the time. The 1969
strike was the the third in four years, after 30 years of labor peace. The
paper that published the photo, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, ceased
publication in 1982. The plant in the photo was shut down by Nabisco
in 2016 and is now being redeveloped as a golf entertainment complex.
But the Bakers union, and its national contract, live on.
while they were out, there were
signs it was a fiasco. Product that
fails quality standards is col-
lected and sold as animal feed,
and Portland strikers observed
twice as many truckloads of that
waste leaving the plant in the
first weeks of the scab operation,
even though the plant was oper-
ating a fraction of its normal pro-
duction lines.
Meanwhile, Nabisco as a
brand faced a run of copious bad
publicity: For the company to
ask workers for concessions
amid record profits made it
seem like a corporate villain.
Strikers say solidarity from
non-strikers also played a big
role in the strike’s success. In
Portland, Nabisco maintenance
mechanics and electricians rep-
resented by Machinists Lodge
63 and IBEW Local 48 honored
strike picket lines throughout.
Truck drivers and train opera-
tors refused to make deliveries.
And a determined core of com-
munity supporters used their
bodies and vehicles as block-
ades to slow and frustrate the ar-
rival and departure of replace-
ment workers. Near the end of
the strike, security guards and
scabs were increasingly engag-
ing in shoving matches and
throwing punches at strike sup-
porters, some captured on video.
Before strikers went back in,
company managers held several
days of back-to-work meetings
in part to discourage potential
harassment of the handful of
workers who had crossed the
picket line. But Burlingham
says the managers also did
something seldom seen: They
said they were sorry.
“The strike was completely
necessary, in my eyes,” Burling-
ham said. “It’s what got the
company to the table to negoti-
ate for the first time in its nine
year existence. That was some-
thing that I don't think they
would have done had we not
gone on strike.”