Frito-Lay workers
On the Clock is Motherboard's reporting on the organized labor movement, gig work, automation, and the future of work.
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I've worked at the Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas since I was 19, straight out of high school. I'm a palletizer. I run huge robots that are probably 15 or 20 feet tall and they transport product that comes from the production floor that's already been packaged—Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, all the Cheetos. After 37 years, I still get forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Seven years ago, my wife passed away and I spent a lot of time in grief counseling, and I told the company, I don't want to work 12 hours a day seven days a week. I ended up getting FMLA [Family Medical Leave Act unpaid leave], but they're still having me do it sometimes. You come in at 7 a.m. and not only do you work eight hours, but when you get off at 3 p.m., they suicide (force you to work a double shift) you and have you come back at 3am. There's 850 employees and it's true for half or three quarters of them.
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This is not a good job. At 7am, our warehouse is 100 degrees. We don't have air conditioning. We have cooks in the kitchen on the fryers that are 130 or 140 degrees making chips and sweating like pigs. Meanwhile, the managers have A/C. I make $20.50 [an hour] after 37 years here. Most people make between $16.50 and $20 an hour. I haven't gotten a raise in a decade. Three years ago, I got a $600 bonus that was taxed, and three years before that I got another $600 bonus. That was my only "raise" for the past 10 years. This is from a Fortune 500 company that is making billions. I can tell you that many people have had heart attacks in the heat at Frito-Lay since I've been here. One guy died a few years ago and the company had people pick him up, move him over to the side, and put another person in his spot without shutting the business down for two seconds. It seems like I go to one funeral a year for someone who's had a heart attack at work or someone who went home to their barn and shot themselves in the head or hung themselves.“I think people are pushed to the edge. COVID created some of this. During COVID, managers got to work from home. People see that and realize they have other options.”
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