President Biden criticized Kellogg’s plan to replace striking workers

Last week, President Biden denounced the Kellogg Company’s plans to replace 1,400 striking union workers with permanent employees, calling the move “an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods.” The high-profile statement comes after months of picketing and on the heels of unionized Kellogg’s workers voting down a contentious new five-year contract. From manufacturing to hospitality, workers across the food industry have been emboldened by the tight labor market to agitate for better benefits and protest dangerous working conditions. Unionized workers at Nabisco and Frito-Lay notched contract wins about scheduling, following strikes of their own. I wrote recently about how the notoriously anti-union food service industry, vexed by understaffing and poor pay and benefits, was also experiencing a surge of successful organizing efforts at coffee shops. —Matthew Sedacca