Q. I am an employee with questions about returning to work during the strike. Who can I speak to?
A. See our Frequently Asked Questions — Working During the Strike. If you have additional questions, please contact your plant’s HR manager.
Q. The Master Contract includes a two-tier structure where employees are hired as “Transitional” employees, and graduate to the top tier, or “Legacy.” What is included in the Tentative Agreement about the two-tiered structure?
A. The tentative agreement includes an accelerated, defined path for moving Transitional employees to Legacy wages and benefits.
Q. What are the terms of the Tentative Agreement?
Highlights from the agreement include:
- Increasing Leading Pay: Employees at our U.S. cereal plants are currently among the highest paid in our industry. The average 2020 earnings for the majority of hourly employees was $120,000, nearly $36-per-hour straight time for our most senior “legacy” employees. The agreement includes increased pay for all of our people, including across the board wage increases and COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustment) starting Year 1 of the agreement.
- Path to Legacy: Transitional employees have an accelerated, defined path to legacy wages and benefits as compared to the current contract.
- Improving No Cost Healthcare: Most of our U.S. cereal plant employees pay nothing for their healthcare (no premiums, co-pays, or out of pocket costs for prescriptions.) The balance of our workforce enjoy the same health insurance as our salaried employees, but at a much lower cost to them. The agreement further expands already very attractive healthcare benefits, across the board.
- Attractive Retirement Benefits: The majority of our U.S. cereal plant employees have pension benefits – a rarity these days – while others are provided 401(k) plans. The agreement increases those pension benefits.
- No Takeaways: The agreement does not take away anything from our employees. In other words, we are not requesting any concessions from the union.
Q. What are the healthcare provisions in the Tentative Agreement?
A. Employees would keep their current healthcare plan. There is a new vision offering for all, and a dental benefit for those who don’t currently have it.
Q. What are the pension provisions in the Tentative Agreement?
A. The Tentative Agreement includes multiplier increases totaling $9 over the course of the contract for Legacy employees.
Q. What wage and COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) provisions are in the Tentative Agreement?
A. The agreement includes increased pay for all of our people, including across the board wage increases and COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustment) starting Year 1 of the agreement.
Q. What FMLA provisions are in the Tentative Agreement?
A. The provisions include using one week of vacation concurrently with intermittent FMLA leave. This would help reduce last-minute absenteeism which results in overtime for other employees. These are challenges to work-life balance for our employees and to keeping our production running efficiently.
Q: RTEC workers claim they average $120k a year in 2020 because they worked 12-hour days, 7-days a week. Is that true?
A. Most employees working under this Master Contract enjoy a CPG industry-leading level of pay and benefits; the average 2020 earnings for the majority of hourly RTEC employees was $120,000.
The average straight time wage for Legacy employees is $35.26 ($40/hour with premium pay, including shift differentials, holidays, weekends and overtime).
In 2020, Kellogg’s RTEC employees worked an average of 52 – 56 hours/week. To date in 2021, nearly 90 percent of overtime is voluntary, that is to say, worked by employees who have volunteered for extra hours.
Despite the relatively low percentage of involuntary overtime, it is a problem we are eager to solve. It does not help employees’ work-life balance, and it makes it difficult to recruit and retain people.
The union made a proposal about overtime, but they withdrew it.
We proposed having a conversation about scheduling, led by a third-party expert, as a first step to solving scheduling and overtime challenges. The Union was not interested in our proposal.
Q: Is the 2020 wage number inflated because of the pandemic-related overtime?
A. No. Based on 2019 data the average Legacy employee earnings were just slightly above $118,000.
Q. Is the company proposing alternative work schedules, or continuous crewing?
A. Forced overtime is a problem we are eager to solve. It does not help employees’ work-life balance, and it makes it difficult to recruit and retain people.
We proposed having a conversation about scheduling, led by a third-party expert, as a first step to solving scheduling and overtime challenges. The Union was not interested in our proposal.
Q. Is Kellogg proposing cutting wages and benefits to U.S. RTEC employees?
A. We are not proposing cutting wages or benefits. Kellogg provides compensation and benefits for our U.S. RTEC employees that are among the industry’s best. Our offer includes increases to pay and benefits for our employees, while helping us meet the challenges of the changing cereal business.
For reference, the average 2020 earnings for all RTEC employees was $120,000. Our proposals demonstrate our continued investments in our employees and help ensure the sustainability of our business and our plants going forward.