A Walmart distribution center is slated to open in September. The Frito-Lay facility, which has been around for 50 years, now competes for workers with a Mars chocolate facility, a Bimbo bread bakery, and Home Depot and Target distribution centers, as well as a Goodyear tire plant that opened in 1945 (workers there are members of the Steelworkers). Meanwhile, the Topeka area has attracted several new manufacturing facilities and large warehouses over the past 20 years, taking advantage of its location smack in the center of the country, with access to a number of highway arteries. Drapeaux-Stewart said he’s only gotten a 77-cent increase over the last 12 years. The last several contracts have featured lump sum bonuses most years, leaving wage rates stagnant for most classifications.
We want to work the time that we agreed to work-and hopefully not much more than that.” ‘BOTTOM OF THE LADDER’ “We want to go home and see our families. “Nobody I know loves Frito-Lay enough that they want to live there,” said Monk Drapeaux-Stewart, a box drop technician, responsible for keeping the plant’s machines supplied with cardboard. Some workers have been forced to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for weeks on end due to short staffing.
This article first appeared in Labor Notes.įrito-Lay workers in Topeka, Kansas, have been on strike since Monday over low pay and forced overtime.