How companies like Kellogg’s are weaponizing the courts to break strikes

1,100 coal miners at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama have been on strike since April 1, and 1,400 Kellogg’s workers at cereal plants in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee have been on strike since Oct. 5. Facing intense financial, physical, and psychological strains from being on strike for so long, violence and hostility from scab workers on the picket line, and threats of being permanently replaced, these workers have held strong. However, they are now facing additional obstacles imposed by business-friendly courts that are stripping their legally protected right to picket. At the Warrior Met picket line in Brookwood, Alabama, as well as the Kellogg’s picket line in Omaha, Nebraska, striking union workers have been slapped with injunctions that restrict who can picket, how close they can stand to company entrances, what they can and can’t do, etc. But the unions aren’t giving up without a fight.

“For too long, the courts have sided with corporations over labor, fundamentally and perniciously reshaping American law, life and liberty,” Sara Nelson, president of the American Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, recently wrote in The New York Times. “Today, they are doing their part to unravel the American dream—and the social contract that has been in place since the 1940s, offering the working class a good life if they spend 40 hours on the job, the means to enjoy it in off hours and a secure retirement.” To discuss where things stand now with each of these important strikes and how companies like Kellogg’s and Warrior Met Coal are trying to use the courts to break them, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Larry Spencer in Alabama and Dan Osborn in Nebraska. Larry Spencer is currently serving as Vice President for District 20 of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents the 1,100 miners who have been on strike at Warrior Met Coal since April. Dan Osborn has worked at the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha, Nebraska, for 18 years and currently serves as president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), Local 50G.

Additional links/info below…

- Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, “Striking Alabama coal miners are prepared for a long fight“: https://therealnews.com/striking-alabama-coal-miners-are-prepared-for-a-long-fight
- Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, “The true price of coal“: https://therealnews.com/the-true-price-of-coal
- Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, “Don’t mess with a coal miner’s wife“: https://therealnews.com/dont-mess-with-a-coal-miners-wife
- Kim Kelly, The Real News Network, “The miners take Manhattan”: https://therealnews.com/the-miners-take-manhattan
- Maximilian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Coal miners in Alabama are striking for their fair share”: https://therealnews.com/coal-miners-in-alabama-are-striking-for-their-fair-share
- Maximilian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Five months into strike, Alabama coal miners aren’t backing down”: https://therealnews.com/five-months-into-strike-alabama-coal-miners-arent-backing-down
- Maximilian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Breakfast of champions: Kellogg’s cereal workers strike for employees who have been left behind”: https://therealnews.com/striking-kelloggs-workers-show-the-country-what-solidarity-looks-like
- Mel Buer, The Real News Network, “Kellogg’s strike: Cereal plant workers fight to raise the floor for all employees as sales soar”: https://therealnews.com/kelloggs-strike-cereal-plant-workers-fight-to-raise-the-floor-for-all-employees-as-sales-soar
- Mel Buer, The Real News Network, “Kellogg’s strikers hold the line and prepare for winter”: https://therealnews.com/kelloggs-strikers-hold-the-line-and-prepare-for-winter

Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Dwayne Gladden

Read the transcript of this interview: https://therealnews.com/how-companies-like-kelloggs-are-weaponizing-the-courts-to-break-strikes

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