General Mills Workers Strike Comes To An End

By J. Ballardie

After 21 days on unpaid strike, workers at the Rooty Hill General Mills (GM) factory rejoice after winning a wage increase of ‘almost’ 9% over 3 years and a bonus of $1500 (United Workers Union 2021). While this is a huge win for the workers at GM, let us not forget the ongoing class struggle and concessions made by the UWU on the workers behalf.

Throughout the pandemic spanning the last 18 months, GM has been reporting record profits. This was a feature of the fiscal reports for GM throughout 2020, continuing throughout 2021, in which net sales increased by 9 percent to $4.4 billion USD in the first quarter (General Mills 2021). Meanwhile at the Rooty Hill GM factory, workers were producing products for the company round-the-clock 7 days a week, and as profits soared, wages continued to stagnate. That is for the workers of course - the CEO of GM, Jeff Harmening, reported a base salary of approximately $1.2 million USD and $10.3 million USD in other compensation (Salary.com 2020). Meanwhile, the base salary for skill level 1A workers at the Rooty Hill factory as per the 2018 agreement was approximately $50,000 AUD per year (Fair Work Commision 2018). This wage was set to increase between 2-2.5% per year for the three years following 2017, but this increase was only marginally greater than the rate of inflation, which was reported to be 1.91% in Australia when comparing 2017 to 2018 (O'Neil 2021). In 2021, GM offered a wage increase of a mere 1.25-2% per year, this was a deliberate attack on workers. Inflation between 2021 and 2020 is estimated to be 1.73%, meaning that in real terms not only were workers’ wages stagnating, they were decreasing. According to current models, inflation is set to increase up to 2.24% by 2024. While the likes of Jeff Harmening and other capitalists enjoy their huge profits throughout the pandemic, workers have been getting shafted by unbalanced workplace agreements and unfair conditions.

Due to this scandalous proposed enterprise agreement and pushes by GM for workers to work weekends with no overtime rates, on June 4th, 90 United Workers Union (UWU) GM factory workers at Rooty Hill went on strike. Their demands were simple - a 3% per annum wage increase for the next 3 years, back paid to the date of the agreement, Feb 11th, with no changes to current rostering, which would leave award rates on weekends non-existent (UWU 2021). This strike ran 24 hours a day and was completely unpaid from the 4th of June until the 25th, where the UWU struck a deal with GM. This deal guarantees ‘almost’ 9% wage increase over 3 years and a $1500 bonus, but no mention of back pay or guarantees to workplace rostering (United Workers Union 2021). While this is a huge win for the workers at Rooty Hill and all people of the working class, this unfortunately is a continuation of the usual trend for trade union strategy in Australia: making concessions with the employers that dilute the more radical demands of workers in order to appease both the bourgeoisie and keep the working class somewhat content.

This moderated, blinkered vision is the result of conditions catalysed by the Prices and Incomes Accord brought in by the Labor government under Hawke in 1983, which essentially outlawed strikes and restrained wage growth in return for improvements in the ‘social wage’, improvements which we have either never seen, or were simply repealed. These accords were essentially used as a vehicle for the introduction of neoliberalism in Australia. This saw a rapid decline in union membership, and in return the influence of the trade unions has never recovered (Crawford 2020). The direct consequences of this unfortunate concessionary influence could be easily seen during the General Mills strike itself, where the UWU discouraged workers from blockading the factory, or even speaking with labour hire entering the site.

“While this is a huge win for the workers at GM, let us not forget the ongoing class struggle and concessions made by the UWU on the workers behalf.”

From the events of this workers strike, a few things have stood clear. We have seen the bargaining power of the working class. Within 3 weeks, the loss of 90 full time employees forced GM to crumble to the demands of the workers for the most part. Despite this, the loss of militancy amongst Australian trade unions has had a direct impact on the outcomes for workers, and we cannot hold faith in our unions alone to voice the demands of the working class. In order for our demands, as the working class to be met, the workers’ movement must become a force to be reckoned with. Militancy must be restored, not only within the bodies of the trade unions, but within the working class itself. We must not concede to the bourgeois, accepting the bare minimum to survive; rather, we should be fighting for a society built on foundations other than capitalist exploitation and subjugation. We must not rely on the trade unions and parliamentary bodies for this change because as we have seen, even the most progressive cogs in the capitalist machine are cogs nonetheless.

References:

Crawford, Jack. 2020. "Review: Resistance To The Accord". Marxist Left Review. https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/review-resistance-to-the-accord/.

Fair Work Commision. 2018. "GENERAL MILLS MANUFACTURING AUSTRALIA PTY. LTD. ENTERPRISE AGREEMENT (ROOTY HILL) 2018". https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/documents/agreements/fwa/ae500755.pdf.

General Mills. 2021. "General Mills Quarterly Results."

O'Neil, Aaron. 2021. "Australia: Inflation Rate From 1986 To 2026". Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/271845/inflation-rate-in-australia/.

Salary.com. 2020. "Jeffrey L. Harmening Executive Compensation". https://www1.salary.com/Jeffrey-L-Harmening-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Options-for-GENERAL-MILLS-INC.html.

United Workers Union. 2021. "GENERAL MILLS MEMBERS WIN!". https://twitter.com/UnitedWorkersOz/status/1408280065981382660?s=20.

UWU. 2021. "NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN ESSENTIAL FOOD WORKERS AND OLD EL PASO HEAT UP - United Workers Union". United Workers Union. https://www.unitedworkers.org.au/old-el-paso-strike/.