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When the RyKrisp production plant in southeast Minneapolis closes Monday, workers there will lose what they say has been not only a good union job but also a very close-knit workplace.
The 15 workers employed at the plant are members of Local 22 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union. Their union’s efforts to improve wages and working conditions goes back to the 1930s.
The plant has operated at 824 6th Ave. SE since 1926, producing nationally-distributed rye crackers.
Aivars Feders, unit leader, said he had worked at RyKrisp “just shy of 39 years.”
Feders, who lives in North Branch, said “everybody got along, good rapport with everybody.”
“I was planning five more years and then I could retire,” said Feders, 57. “I guess I’ll be doing it earlier.”
Feders said he went to work at RyKrisp “right out of high school — didn’t even go to graduation.” People told him then, “you’ve got it set.” RyKrisp was known as “a good place to work and you’d be able to retire.”
“It feels good to know people all over the United States eat our products,” Feders said.
‘Like a family’
Kelly Frischmon, Blaine, has worked at the RyKrisp plant for 26 years, currently in shipping and receiving. Age 18 when she started, she followed her father, Ray Beaulieu to the job. He worked there 36 years — also in shipping and receiving.
Frischmon, 46, also said, “I thought I’d retire here.”
“A lot of family members have worked here over the years,” Frischmon said.
The workforce itself was like a family, she said. “You can’t find this anywhere else; people looked out for each other.”
Dion Gayden, Brooklyn Park, has worked at RyKrisp 5-1/2 years, starting as a temp and then coming on as a permanent employee. He recently became a sanitation operator at the plant. He said he likes his co-workers. “They’re more than my co-workers; they’re like family. I spend more time with them than my own family.”
“It is a family,” said Larry Moreland, Blaine, maintenance mechanic. “I care about the people here. That’s why I’m a shop steward here.” Moreland has worked 38 years at RyKrisp and just turned 62. “I probably would have stayed until 65, until I could qualify for Medicare,” he said.
Larry Moreland’s son, John Moreland, has worked at the plant for seven years. When John Moreland turned 18, his dad Larry already had worked at RyKrisp for 20 years.
“I thought if he made it that long, it must be a good place to work,” the younger Moreland said.
The Local 22 contract provided a job with “good pay, good hours,” said John Moreland, Fridley, now 25.
“Good people and being good at your job makes it hardly like going to work,” John Moreland said.
Good jobs born in struggle
The RyKrisp brand started in 1899 in St. Paul. In 1926, Ralston Purina had purchased RyKrisp and moved production to the current Minneapolis facility.
Ten years later, in the height of the Great Depression, RyKrisp workers waged a six-week strike in 1936.
The workers organized with Food and Candy Workers’ Federal Union No. 2120.
“Although this is the first strike experience these workers have had they are striking with an effectiveness that is dismaying to the employer,” the Labor Review reported September 4, 1936.
The strike involved 70 men and 35 women, the Labor Review reported. “Wages for the women ranged from 21-1/2 cents to 40 cents and hour and for the men from 35 cents to 50 cents an hour.”
The following month, the Labor Review reported victory for the workers that included “a wage increase from 15 to 21 per cent, seniority rights and recognition of the union.”
The Labor Review reported: “Eighty seven Strikers were out for six weeks, displaying a solidarity that has not been excelled in Minneapolis. Offers of the firm that did not measure up to the demands of the strikers were turned down and the Strikers continued to keep the plant tied up.”
The 1936 settlement established a 40-hour work week, time and one-half for overtime and double time for Sundays and holidays, the newspaper said.
The successor union to the local that won the 1936 strike and represents RyKrisp workers today is Local 22 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union.
Struggles like the 1936 strike paved the way for contracts that provided living wage jobs at RyKrisp and other local bakery production plants for decades.
“You can make a living as a baker. You can own a home, send your kids to college. It’s a good trade,” said Matt Ryder, Local 22 representative.
Workers will have options
ConAgra foods, which purchased the RyKrisp brand in 2013, has said it will give RyKrisp employees priority in hiring at other local ConAgra facilities.
“I will try to stay in the union,” John Moreland said. “I don’t want to get out of the business. I’d prefer to say in Local 22.”
But a new workplace won’t be the same. “Every one of these people knows husbands, wives, kids, grandkids,” said Bob Stewart, plant manager. “You don’t find that in too many places anymore.”