As of 12/8/21, Kellogg’s has broken off negotiations with their striking union workers and is electing to permanently replace the strikers. So needless to say, don’t support strike breaking: don’t buy Kellogg’s products. Besides breakfast cereals, Kellogg’s makes Cheez-Its, Pringles, and owns Kashi. I’m sure there’s more that I’m not aware of, so if the hive mind wants to add to the list, please do.
Y’all have GOT to start actually reading what the strikers WANT you to do.
Kellogg’s is so big that “don’t buy their products” is virtually impossible, not to mention not possible for many individuals and families who can’t afford anything else. Not to mention that it is not a strategy the union is asking you to use.
That’s right- the union and the strikers are NOT asking for a boycott.
(If demand for products keeps going at its usual rate, but there is no one creating a supply, that creates building pressure on the Company to actually be forced to listen to the union in order to be able to meet the demand.)
According to the link above, here are the union’s ACTUAL requests:
Sign their petition.
Join a picket line or drop off food/supplies at one.
Send a solidarity letter.
Donate to a Strike Fund.
Help spread the word on social media.
Notice how “don’t buy Kellogg’s products” is NOWHERE on this list.
The link above does include things like a link to the petition, lists of picket lines in need of support, address lists to send support letters, and links to Strike Funds that need help.
The boilerplate “don’t buy their stuff” doesn’t help anyone, and doesn’t help the union or the strikers. In fact, it’s sometimes the opposite- if enough people go around claiming that the strikers want a boycott, the company can use that at the negotiating table to say that the strikers are in “bad faith”, and refuse to talk, or worse, try to use it to fire them.
Whenever there is a strike, find out what that PARTICULAR union wants as help. Now, it might actually be a boycott. But the union & the strikers will tell you that. I know this goes against popular preconceived notions about “what a strike is” and “how a strike works”, but in most cases, it will NOT be a boycott.
And in this case of the Kellogg’s strike, it is definitely not.
Keep buying the products. It’s putting pressure on Kellogg’s that a solution needs to be found.
Donate to Strike Funds, write letters of support, drop off food at picket lines. Make posts on social media about how reprehensible you think it is that the company would rather hire scabs than listen to their employees and treat them with dignity.
The best way to support any strike is to listen to what the strikers want you to do, and then do that.
Obligatory plug for the IWW union, “Industrial Workers of the World”, iww.org
You do not have to be an industrial worker to join it, or even employed at all. If you have a union to join, go for it! Or check out this one too. Unions are a great power- if they weren’t, companies and corporations wouldn’t be fighting against them tooth and nail.
