Unionized Kellogg’s workers in four states have approved a new five-year contract, ending one of the longest-running strikes of 2021.

Employees in four states voted to accept the tentative agreement reached last week, according to company and union representatives. The five-year contract includes across-the-board wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments, as well as expanded health care and retirement benefits. It also provides a pathway for newer employees to reach the company’s coveted “legacy” wage and benefit status, partially addressing a concerns that many workers had about a two-tiered workforce.

Anthony Shelton, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, lauded the strikers who “courageously stood their ground and sacrificed so much in order to achieve a fair contract.” He emphasized that the deal “does not include any concessions.”

Kellogg’s chief executive, Steve Cahillane, was pleased that the offer – one of at least seven the company cobbled together over the course of negotiations – will bring employees back to work. “We look forward to [employees’] return and continuing to produce our beloved cereal brands for our customers and consumers,” he said in a statement.

Over the course of the nearly three-month strike, there had been multiple entreaties from policymakers to return to the bargaining table, as well as criticism from President Biden and other prominent lawmakers after Kellogg’s said it would find permanent replacements for the 1,400 cereal factory workers in Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Tennessee who went on strike Oct. 5.

Biden had been “deeply troubled” by the prospect, according to a Dec. 10 White House statement. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also denounced the idea in an interview last week with The Washington Post.

“During the early parts of the pandemic these people were considered to be heroes and heroines, which in fact they are. But now, according to Kellogg’s, they are simply disposable workers,” said Sanders, who joined picketers in Battle Creek, Mich., on Friday. “To just replace them is extraordinarily ugly.”

A Kellogg’s spokesperson declined to comment on those statements, referring a reporter to updates on the company’s website.

But in a statement last week, Kellogg’s emphasized that it sought no concessions from workers in either of the tentative contracts put to a vote. It also noted that most of its U.S. cereal plant workers pay nothing for their health care, and that its most senior employees make nearly $36 per hour.

“We value all of our employees. They have enabled Kellogg to provide food to Americans for more than 115 years,” Cahillane said in a statement. “We are hopeful our employees will vote to ratify this contract and return to work.”

The company has seen strong demand for its signature breakfast offerings, including Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes, during the pandemic. Sales grew 5.6 percent, to $3.6 billion, in the most recent quarter compared with the same period last year, while profits shot up 9.1 percent.

The Kellogg’s walkout was among the longest in a wave of strikes targeting dozens of companies this year. The increased activism, experts say, reflects the added leverage workers wield in a tight U.S. labor market, as well as a heightened sense of their contributions to the company’s bottom line. They also come at a unique economic moment in which healthy corporate profits, supply chain bottlenecks and a shortage of blue-collar workers has strengthened the hand of organized labor.

The union behind the Kellogg’s drive has been a force in several large strikes, including a 19-day walkout at a Kansas Frito-Lay plant that ended in a contract guaranteeing one day off per week, as well as wage increases. It also was involved in a weeks-long walkout at Nabisco that concluded in late September.

For union members at Kellogg’s, the first tentative agreement arrived earlier this month and included a 3 percent raise and a limited pathway for new workers to reach the coveted “legacy” wage status. But they shot it down overwhelmingly.

“It appears the union created unrealistic expectations for our employees,” Kellogg’s said in a Dec. 7 statement.

The company then said it had no choice but to bring in new hires to cover for those on strike, adding that posting for permanent workers would help them find qualified people. “We have an obligation to our customers and consumers to continue to provide the cereals that they know and love,” the company wrote. It is unclear whether the company ever hired any replacement workers, though. Its cereal plants since the start of the strike have been staffed by some salaried employees and temporary workers.

Days later, the White House put out a statement criticizing the company for bringing “threats and intimidation” against its unionized workers.

“Permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods,” Biden wrote.

Trevor Bidelman, president of the union’s Battle Creek chapter, said workers had worried they might permanently lose their jobs. But support from high-profile politicians solidified members in their decision to push for a new contract.

In Michigan, where Kellogg’s is headquartered, the state’s attorney general and a handful of Democratic state lawmakers have walked the picket line in support of workers.

U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who visited a picket line in Lancaster, Pa., in late October, expressed support for workers and urged them to resolve their differences with the company. Nebraska Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts wrote a letter to Cahillane, calling on the company to recognize the contributions its workers have made during the pandemic.

“Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, they showed up day after day to do their jobs so that across the country there was food on the shelves,” the letter said, according to the Associated Press. “These workers helped Kellogg’s increase sales and revenue (and grow net income by over 30%) from 2019 to 2020 – a time when many businesses endured losses due to the financial headwinds of the pandemic.”

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