A bakery worker at a Snyder’s-Lance (a subsidiary of the Campbell Soup Company) manufacturing plant in Charlotte, North Carolina spoke this week with a representative of the New Labor Press (NLP) about conditions inside the facility. The worker revealed the shockingly unsafe working conditions which have resulted in injuries including broken bones, severed fingers, and even a death in 2020.

Snyder’s-Lance has mastered the art of playing lip service to injuries and safety, holding mandatory meetings among employees, and offering up empty talk about safety. In stark contrast to their posturing about safety, it’s believed that over the past year, injuries at the Charlotte Snyder’s-Lance manufacturing plant have been well above industry norms.

Workers receive little training in regard to safety and on top of this are often forced by the company to work in unsafe manners. To lower its labor costs, the company purposely operates with a skeleton crew, leaving areas understaffed and forcing those who are working to perform tasks and operate equipment they are not properly trained for. Due to the fact that Snyder’s-Lance values profits over its employees’ safety, the company has chosen not to invest in up-to-date machinery. Many of the machines workers at the plant use are barely working and lack modern safety measures. Recently, an employee’s hand was severely cut after reaching into a machine to clear a jam. Even repeated fires are not enough for the company to think of updating; the same kettles and centrifuges will reportedly catch fire over and over yet not be replaced. When fires do happen, the company doesn’t stop production and workers are mandated to keep working despite the fact the causes of the fires such as broken equipment or clogged drains have not been fixed.

Slips are a common injury, floors across the plant are often slick with oil, and when they get wet, they can become hazards. Certain members of management have reportedly expressed the need for floors to be replaced, yet no facility-wide adjustments have been made.

When the company does use the maintenance budget, it is not to upgrade outdated machinery and correct unsafe working conditions. Much of the maintenance budget recently was spent on new offices for management. Meanwhile, employees toil in non-climate-controlled buildings in the sweltering summer heat, leading to dehydration and heat strokes.

Despite the aforementioned mandatory meetings on safety, where management claims to listen to employees’ concerns, the worker informed the New Labor Press that their input is not listened to. “We’re the ones operating the machines on the floor and we’re not involved in the solutions,” said the worker. Snyder’s-Lance also purposely creates policies to try to shift responsibility for injuries away from themselves and onto their own workers.

The Snyder’s-Lance manufacturing plant in Charlotte employs over 1,500 workers and is responsible for 52% of the total volume of Snyder’s-Lance chips and 85% of sandwich crackers in the region. A work stoppage at the plant would be able to nearly shut down regional production for a multi-billion dollar company. The worker told the New Labor Press that if employees at the plant were to construct an organization that represented their interests, they would hold immense power over the company and be able to demand improved working conditions. The NLP strongly encourages all Snyder’s-Lance employees to take up the trade union struggle to compel Snyder’s-Lance to improve working conditions. The best way to begin is through starting a shop paper for analyzing the particular conditions at the Snyder’s-Lance plant in greater detail, identifying common demands for uniting the Snyder’s-Lance workers, and establishing a firm scientific basis for developing a shop committee capable of carrying out the trade union struggle.