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.
This job wears you down, it tires you, and makes you mentally exhausted. It plays with your mind. Some of these guys who work 12 hours a day everyday are destroying their marriages. They’re destroying their families. My wife passed away and I don’t have a wife to go home to to say, ‘Hey babe I’m only working eight hours tomorrow,” but a lot of these guys come in with the understanding that they’ll be here for eight hours but then they got to call their wives and kids and say, “Guess what? It’s not eight hours. It’s 12 hours and then I have to go back to work at 3am.”
Frito-Lay has been told they need to fix this but unfortunately, when they bring in new people, they force the same schedule on them and they quit. Frito-Lay has waited so long to replace workers, and now Frito Lay has a horrible reputation in town so a lot of people won’t work here.
I’m a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week
We would rather nobody buy any Frito-Lay products, Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, Funyuns, Cheetos, all those, while we’re on strike. We make all of those in Topeka, Kansas. We also would rather nobody buys PepsiCo products while we’re on the line. PepsiCo is the owner of Frito-Lay.
Just Say No
#BoycottFritoLay