I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week [View all]

[demmiblue]

Hundreds of Frito-Lay workers are on day nine of a strike at a production plant in Topeka, Kansas that makes Fritos, Tostitos, Doritos, Cheetos, and Funyuns.

In recent days, the appalling working conditions at Frito-Lay have gone viral on Twitter—fueling a national conversation about the leverage low-wage workers have at this particular moment to demand more from large corporations after years of stagnant wages, few opportunities, and a deadly pandemic.

Many of the 850 workers at the facility say they work 84 hours a week with no days off. Workers are nominally supposed to work eight-hour shifts, but because of shortages, workers are often forced to add on an extra four hours before or after their shifts. Workers call these extended shifts "suicides," because they say the schedule kills you over time. Some workers haven't had a single day off in five months, including Saturdays and Sundays.

The grassy lawn outside the factory has transformed into a picket line, drawing crowds of hundreds of workers and union members from around Kansas. The struggle at Frito-Lay is a reminder that the eight hour workday–"eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will"—that workers won in bloody labor battles of the late 19th century can no longer be taken for granted.

In its latest contract offer, Frito-Lay has said it would raise wages by four percent over the next two years and put a cap at 60 hours a week. Frito-Lay workers who are unionized with Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 218 say that's not enough, and are demanding an end to forced overtime.

Motherboard spoke to Mark McCarter, a 59-year-old palletizer and union steward at Frito-Lay, who has worked at the Topeka facility for 37 years, about his job and why he's striking. - Lauren Kaori Gurley

I've worked at the Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas since I was 19, straight out of high school. I'm a palletizer. I run huge robots that are probably 15 or 20 feet tall and they transport product that comes from the production floor that's already been packaged—Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, all the Cheetos.

After 37 years, I still get forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Seven years ago, my wife passed away and I spent a lot of time in grief counseling, and I told the company, I don't want to work 12 hours a day seven days a week. I ended up getting FMLA [Family Medical Leave Act unpaid leave], but they're still having me do it sometimes. You come in at 7 a.m. and not only do you work eight hours, but when you get off at 3 p.m., they suicide (force you to work a double shift) you and have you come back at 3am. There's 850 employees and it's true for half or three quarters of them.

This job wears you down, it tires you, and makes you mentally exhausted. It plays with your mind. Some of these guys who work 12 hours a day everyday are destroying their marriages. They're destroying their families. My wife passed away and I don't have a wife to go home to to say, 'Hey babe I'm only working eight hours tomorrow," but a lot of these guys come in with the understanding that they'll be here for eight hours but then they got to call their wives and kids and say, "Guess what? It's not eight hours. It's 12 hours and then I have to go back to work at 3am."

Frito-Lay has been told they need to fix this but unfortunately, when they bring in new people, they force the same schedule on them and they quit. Frito-Lay has waited so long to replace workers, and now Frito Lay has a horrible reputation in town so a lot of people won't work here.

...

This used to be a bomb place to work. We had picnics together. We'd go to Worlds of Fun [an amusement park] together. We had community, lunch served, Christmas ham, Thanksgiving turkey. We'd do all that. These days we do absolutely nothing for employees. We work them; we send them home. It's demoralizing and it's truly nuts how a Fortune 500 company can get away with this kind of foolishness.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbmwy/im-a-frito-lay-factory-worker-i-work-12-hour-days-7-days-a-week