Catherwood LibraryILR School

Workers at a Frito-Lay plant in Topeka, Kansas are striking because of working conditions. Due to worker shortages, many of the 850 workers at the plant work 84-hour weeks with no days off. In the latest contract offer, the company said they would raise wages by 4% over 2 years and cap hours worked to 60 a week. Workers say this offer is not enough and they are wanting the forced overtime to end. A worker, Mark McCarter, says that the plant doesn’t have air conditioning, he hasn’t gotten a raise in a decade, and claims that workers have died from the heat, heart attack and taken their own lives because of the job. He says that workers would rather no one buy Frito-Lay or PepsiCo products while they’re on strike.