Workers aren’t just demanding better wages - they also want an end to forced overtime that leaves only an eight-hour break between shifts, according to the union.įor its part, the company has claimed that workers are exaggerating conditions inside the plant that employs roughly 850 people, not all of whom are on strike. One worker, Cherie Renfro, alleged in a letter to the Topeka Capital-Journal that when a colleague died, the company “had us move the body and put in another co-worker to keep the line going.” In an interview with Vice, another worker said he consistently works 12 hours a day, seven days a week. In recent days, the strike has gained national attention with shocking allegations by workers. “And they don’t care.”ĭesch is now one of hundreds of workers on strike from their jobs at the Topeka factory, which manufactures Cheetos, Lay’s potato chips, and Doritos, among other brand-name snacks.
We’re turning equipment on and cleaning it,” she said. “There’s a lot of situations like that where it’s dangerous. To Desch, the incident illustrates years-old problems with working for Frito-Lay. No one could explain to her why she hadn’t been informed. “This could have been a hospital trip,” she said. A furious Desch said she went up the supervisory chain, demanding to know why no one had told her about the missing piece of pipe.
One night on the third shift at the Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas, Pleasant Desch walked in and noticed that part of the piping system that carries boiling acid was missing after contractors had come in to perform work. Photo: James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images
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