Should Not the Radical Left Take into Account the Attitude of Workers Towards Their Own Jobs? Part Fourteen, The Case of Mondelez Workers in Toronto

Introduction

One of the few things that I agree with the academic leftist Jeff Noonan, professor of philosophy at the University of Windsor, Ontario, is that leftists must start where workers are at:

Political engagement begins from trying to understand where people are coming from.

But where people are coming from can be interpreted in at least two ways: objectively–what their real situaiton is, and subjectively, what their attitudes towards their interpreted situations are. In relation to workers, there is their objective situation of being treated as means towards ends defined by employers and thus being oppressed (see The Money Circuit of Capital) and, in the private sector at least, of being exploited by being obliged to produce a surplus of value (see for example The Rate of Exploitation of General Motors Workers).

Subjectively, though, there are undoubtedly a variety of workers’ attitudes and interpretations of their own work and life situations.

Some among the radical left do not even address the issue of what workers think of their own jobs and employers. It is hardly idealist to inquire into such attitudes.

I have started to gather evidence about the attitudes of some workers in unionized (and non-unionized) settings, especially where I have calculated the rate of exploitation of those workers. I will also in the not-too-distant future start a similar inquiry process for unionized public-sector workers with the largest employers in Canada and in various Canadian cities, if possible.

Objective Exploitation and Oppression of Mondelez International Food Workers

Recently, I have been engaged, along with others, in surveying workers in food manufacturing for the capitalist corporation Mondelez International in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, for a few weeks now.

To complement the oral survey of Mondelez , I have once again looked at worker reviews of the capitalist company they work for by way of the website Indeed, which includes reviews by workers of what workers think of their working conditions, pay and employer.  (Some may claim that the Indeed website is biased. It may well be. It is for others to provide evidence of that and to provide alternative statistics that better capture the subjective interpretation of the reality that workers face.)

In the future, I will try to calculate the rate of exploitation of food workers, first at the provincial level of Ontario in 2019 (before Covid) by using Statistics Canada data (there is a time lag of several years before such data is available for later years) and then at the federal level. I chose 2019 since Covid likely changed the rate of exploitation in various industries. Eventually, I will probably try to develop a time series of the rate of exploitation for the food manufacturing industry at both provincial and federal levels. The same applies to the beverage manufacturing industry and then the food and beverage manufacturing industries together. Of course, all of this depends on access to sufficient data and the time required to process the data and present the results.

In relation to Mondelez International, I have not been able to calculate the rate of exploitation because there is insufficient data about the total wages and benefits of workers–an essential condition for calculating the extent to which workers are exploited.

Political Considerations

Despite the lack of data concerning exploitation of Mondelez International workers, there is little doubt that they are exploited–objectively. It is, however, unlikely that most workers are actually conscious of such exploitation (in the sense of producing a surplus of value) since there exist objective processes linked to the exploitation of workers that hide the exploitation from them. Radicals often ignore such objective processes and assume that workers are quite conscious of being exploited. Since I have already addressed this issue in another post (see Limitations of a Radical’s Views on Class Exploitation: The Toronto Radical John Clarke’s Blog, Part Three), I will not pursue this issue further here.

Although Mondelez International workers may not be conscious of their objective exploitation, many undoubtedly are conscious of being oppressed in one form or another since they are used as things (means) for purposes which they as a collectivity do not define.  Management rights clauses (implied or explicit in collective agreements) give management as representative of employers–and as a minority–the power to dictate to workers what to do, when to do it, how to do it and so forth–and is not the imposition of the will of a minority over the majority a dictatorship? (See  Employers as Dictators, Part One). Is that fair? Unionized settings can limit exploitation and oppression–but they do not fundamentally change or challenge the objective situation of workers.

On the basis of more or less consciousness of oppression at the workplace, you would think that many Mondelez International workers would find their work situation mainly negative.  Indeed, there are leftists who have argued that workers explicitly experience alienation from their work. David Graeber (2018), in B ullshit Jobs: A Theory, states (page 19):

The result was to reveal that men are far more likely to feel that their jobs are pointless (42 percent) than women do (32 percent).

Drawing upon data provided from another survey, he states:

… the survey makes abundantly clear that ( 1) more than half of working hours in American offices are spent on bullshit, and (2) the problem is getting worse.

In another survey, we read the following (Peter Fleming (2015), The Mythology of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself, page 3):

A recent survey … reveals that only about 13 per cent of the global workforce considered themselves ‘engaged’ by their jobs. The remaining 87 per cent feel deeply alienated.

Subjective Attitudes of Mondelez International Workers in Toronto Towards Mondelez and Their Working Situation

The data provided below, however, does not substantiate such views.

Toronto Mondelez International Workers’ Attitudes Towards Mondelez and Their Working Conditions

The ratings are from 5 to 1, with 5 being the most positive evaluation and 1 the worst.

Distribution of the Evaluations to the Various Ratings: Quantitative Data

As of the writing of this post, there are 96 reviews on the website Indeed ( https://ca.indeed.com/cmp/Mondel%C4%93z-International-49d8c823/reviews?fcountry=CA&floc=Toronto%2C+ON):

#5 40

#4 32 [72]

#3 13  [85]

#2 6 [91]

#1 5 [96]

Total=96[40+32+13+6+5]

I will consider #5 and #4 ratings to be positive evaluations of their work experiences with Mondelez International. I split the #3 into two since some ratings with a #3 rating are positive evaluations while others are negative. I will consider #2 and #1 ratings to be negative evaluations.

I justify the categorisation of #5 and #4 as positive because, in addition to being quantitatively higher than #3–a nominal middle evaluation–comments made by some workers that correspond to the quantitative evaluation seem to indicate a positive evaluation. Further on, I give a couple of arbitrary examples drawn from each numbered evaluation.

Positive attitude towards working for Mondelez International
40+32+6=78
78/96=0.8125=81%

Negative attitude towards working for Mondelez International
7+6+5=18
18/96=0.1875=19%

To get a flavour for the ratings, I include immediately below a couple of comments from each rating. They are not meant to be representative since I chose them to reflect the above characterizations of the evaluations.

A Few Comments from Each Evaluative Category: Qualitative Data

#5

1. Very productive and great
   Case Packer, January 31, 2025What is the best part of working at the company?
   My best part of working at Mondelez is in almost all the lines and also paying attention to the things that needs to be done when you are attached to work on a specific line

   What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
   Not at all but the most important thing is to know what you are supposed to do and do it at the right time

   What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
   Wonderful and great but more can still be done

   What is a typical day like for you at the company?
   beautiful and awesome and good working environment

2. The best place to work. The work culture is amazing. The management is great and respectful. The union is the backbone of the workers.
   P1A Kitchen Precess operator, January 15, 2025
   What is the best part of working at the company?
   The best place I have ever worked. I made a mistake and resigned and I am crying to go back. Take me back please 🥲🥲

   What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
   Room for growth. The company allows you to grow. It’s a unionized environment. Everyone is treated with respect and dignity

   What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
   Respect and dignity. The best place to work. You are spoken to with the best intentions and behaviour. Love this place.

#4

1. The company tries to make the work simple

   Machine Operator/Labourer, February 6, 2026
   What is the best part of working at the company?
   The people, they made it enjoyable, aside from the pay which is very good and competitive. The work load is not too heavy and the management team are competent and fair..

   What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
   The long shifts, working on the weekends every week.

   What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
   It can be a little hectic at times, but for the most part, it is a fairly easy job.

2. Good
   Quality Specialist, July 13, 2022
   Good place to work. Hired by agency, working on contract position. Sometimes i feel i am not full time as well. But well paid for the work i am doing

#3

1. Challenging and Lots of opportunities
   Leader, March 31, 2024
   Mostly new people in Plant Leadership. Challenging work situations with very scarce support from Management. Undergoing restructuring and transition on management
2. Workplace
   Operator, December 3, 2023
   ……. Nothing is what I can say
   Typical day at work
   Hardest part is everything besides the work. Mentally draining but very good benefits. Bosses are good overall

#2

1. every day is a hassle fighting incommunication and lack of coordination
   Production Supervisor, June 2, 2025
   What is the best part of working at the company?
   salary is good, benefits are dwindling, vacation time is dwindling too.

   What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
   working constantly underfunded with lack of resources, lack of materials, no preventive maintenance, and being held responsible for this lack of planification and misscomunication

   What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
   very bad, besides a good salary, lots of stress for mid management positions, you end up doing jobs you were not trained for, since there are no resources and no training

   What is a typical day like for you at the company?
   fighting fires all day, endless useless meetings, and work starts after everyone is gone untill you have to sleep for the next day

2. Company says one thing and does everything completely different.
   Backup operator, December 6, 2022

   This company has a good talk, but no follow through. Safety is a joke and nothing ever gets fixed. Human resources do not help, they just give you a number to call. Constantly new managers, as the quit. Cannot keep a safety supervisor
   Pros
   None
   Cons
   Management, human resources, and lack of safety

#1

1. Horrible culture
   Machine Operator, June 13, 2020

   I had an awful time here. There is poor worker retention here for a reason. The older union workers get away with yelling at you and you are told not to talk back and treat them like they are your mother. I was bullied here. Staff would speak out loud in the cafe so you could hear. Upon being hired on staff would say in a corner ” there goes the factory”. I get comments on my race like where are you from and where is your accent. A manager tried to get me fired by telling staff I wasa bad worker but I wasn’t as others began to see but it didn’t matter because I had to prove myself over and over again to po people who treated me rude before working with me. You can’t close you eyes in the cafe without people talking bad about you. Toxic work culture. Racism. It felt like going to prison complete with guard check-in. There is also so much waste going on here. It is a disgusting place complete with sewage leaks near chocolate refineries in the basement.
   Pros
   Pay and not demanding
   Cons
   Racism, bullies, unsanitary, large waste of product

2. food packager
   Food Packer, May 26, 2020

   Tasks at this job site is repetitive and fast paced. You are responsible for keeping up with the converyer belt. You must keep at the same pace for at least two hours. Losing pace would result in back log to the entire production line. Help is there when needed, but frustration was always high. Loud environment was the major barrier when communicating with colleagues. We always resorted to reading lips or hand gestures which were not very effective.
   

Political Relevance

Such analysis forms only a preliminary tool for socialists interested in relating to workers working for this particular employer. It is crude quantitatively and should be supplemented by a qualitative analysis of comments–a much more labour-intensive task. Furthermore, some of the reviews were by management–which should be excluded when considering the overall subjective attitude of these workers towards their work and their employer.

Unlike Jane McAlevey’s approach, which focuses on organic leaders–leaders who form a key focus since winning their allegiance leads to other workers (or community members) being convinced to join a union or community campaign (see my review in the Links section)–the issue here is to see which workers are the most disgruntled and the least disgruntled in relation to a particular employer.

It may be thought that the more disgruntled workers would then be the focus of socialists’ efforts. That may well be, but the issue is of course more complicated than that. For example, for socialists the issue is not just being disgruntled against a particular employer but generalizing this to all employers. It would be necessary for socialists to use their judgement in determining how susceptible disgruntled workers are to such generalization. In some cases, less disgruntled workers may well be more susceptible to generalizing than more disgruntled workers. Initially, though, it does give socialists a preliminary method of approaching workers, at least in a general way. Of course, no specific workers can be identified through such an approach. That would be the responsibility of socialists engaging with specific workers or community members.

Ultimately, what socialists need to do is to shift the positive evaluation of such employers to a negative evaluation while simultaneously aiding in generalizing that negative evaluation not just to all employers but to the economic, political and social structures connected to the class power of employers.