A weeks-long strike at three Mondelēz facilities in the U.S. was settled when workers overwhelmingly voted to accept a new contract.
The strike, at facilities in Oregon, Illinois, Virginia, Colorado and Georgia, began Aug. 10. It came about over working conditions, pay and health plans.
The new four-year contract, which is retroactive to March 1, features a $5,000 ratification bonus, an increased company match to retirement funds, and raises each year. It also keeps new hires on the same company health plan, instead of giving them one that would cost them more out of pocket, as the company had proposed.
It was unclear from initial reports what was being done about a major point of contention: Mondelēz’s wish to restructure how overtime pay is calculated. Under the previous contract, overtime kicked in for every hour worked after eight in a 24-hour period; Mondelēz wanted to alter this so that overtime wouldn’t be paid until the total in a week exceeded 40 hours.
The Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Va., site of one of the factories being struck, quoted a local official of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union as saying that that proposal was “rejected.” However, other accounts only referred vaguely to settlements of the issue.
