Tentative Agreement Reached with Union
We are pleased to announce that Kellogg Company and the union have reached a recommended tentative agreement for a new five-year labor contract covering 1,400 employees at our U.S. cereal plants in Battle Creek, Mich., Lancaster, Penn., Memphis, Tenn. and Omaha, Neb.
Highlights from the recommended 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.
See a summary of the tentative agreement here.
“We value all of our employees. They have enabled Kellogg to provide food to Americans for more than 115 years,” said Kellogg Company Chairman and CEO Steve Cahillane. “We are hopeful our employees will vote to ratify this contract and return to work.”
See the news release here.