(Picture credit Matt Johnson)
OMAHA — The Kellogg’s plant in Omaha, which had been in operation since 1942, finally closed its doors on Tuesday, the culmination of a two-year anticipated shutdown.
The plant had seen a walkout in 2021 when Dan Osborn, then president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 50G, led a strike with the plant’s roughly 500 employees. Osborn later ran for U.S. Senate against Deb Fischer in 2024 and recounted the strike at a town hall event at the Rusty Nail in Omaha.
“We were on strike for 77 days, and I remember walking back in the plant after we settled on a contract just before Christmas,” Osborn said. “Just feeling a huge sense of pride in what we were able to accomplish for working people. 500 jobs here in Omaha.”
At the time, Kellogg’s had announced that the plant would close in 2026. Osborn did not believe it.
“We could talk about that plant closure. I think it’s complete BS. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Osborn said.
Then on Tuesday, it happened.
Osborn, Ricketts react to plant closure
Osborn held a town hall in Blair, Neb., Tuesday evening, after the Kellogg plant had finished its last day of operation. His mood was somber.
“I worked there for a very, very long time. So this is a tough day for me and for a lot of my friends who are no longer with a job,” Osborn said. “It’s not just the 500 production employees who lost their jobs today. It’s a couple hundred management employees and everybody affected. You think about the size and the scale of Kellogg’s, running about two million pounds of cereal out of that plant a day.”
Incumbent U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, who is running against Osborn, also reacted to news of the plant’s closure last week at a press conference.
“I’m sorry for everybody who’s losing their job at Kellogg’s. It’s always a challenge when you lose your job and have to go look for a new one. It puts a lot of families under stress,” Ricketts said.
Ricketts also cited the plant closure as a contrast between himself and Osborn, connecting it to the 2021 strike.
“I’ve been around Nebraska being part of private sector companies that have helped create jobs. As governor and senator, I’ve delivered for Nebraskans for a dozen years, putting more money back in their pockets through tax cuts, keeping people safe,” Ricketts said. “The only thing Dan Osborn’s ever done is cost 500 people their jobs by leading an unsuccessful strike.”
Osborn was well aware that others were blaming the plant closure on the 2021 strike and was quick to respond.
“If you live your life in the comment sections on social media—which I try not to because it’s not reality—you will hear a lot of people blaming the workers for going on strike in 2021,” Osborn said. “People that make enough money to afford their rent and groceries are not the reason why factories shut down. It’s greedy CEOs, at the end of the day. Or maybe it’s people aren’t eating enough cereals, and so that’s the marketer’s fault I suppose. But it’s certainly not the people who show up, clock in and do what they’re told every day.”
Negative Ads, Personal History
The U.S. Senate race in Nebraska has dominated the airwaves with negative ads in recent weeks. Osborn responded to some of these, describing Ricketts as a political kingpin in Nebraska.
“This person [Ricketts] that I’ve learned has hurt a lot of people in politics with negative ads and attacking families, attacking people personally to get ahead in life,” Osborn said. “And spending over $22 million of his family’s money in Nebraska politics, not just his own race, but other races as well. Especially when he was governor, he wanted complete control. He wanted 100% people obeying everything that he wanted to get done. And if you didn’t, he would spend money against you.”
Two years ago, however, Osborn was running against Deb Fischer, and he described a different experience encountering Pete Ricketts during the strike in 2021.
“I did see Pete Ricketts at an event I was at with my wife. I cornered him. I told him who I was and what was going on in his state,” Osborn recalled at his 2024 town hall. “He agreed to meet me at the Capitol. So I drove out to Lincoln a few days later and met with him and his team. Kind of the same thing there. He drafted a letter and sent it to the CEO, Steve Cahillane, imploring him to get our people back to work.”
For the 2026 cycle, however, Osborn has drawn clear battle lines between the “working class” and “the billionaires,” and this was a recurring theme at his Blair town hall.
“This is how we clean up corruption in politics,” Osborn said. “Easier said than done. But if Nebraska elects me, the whole country is going to say, ‘Holy crap. Did you see what Nebraska did? An independent shop floor mechanic beat the son of a billionaire.’”
Polls suggest a tight U.S. Senate race in Nebraska, with some giving Osborn a slight lead over Ricketts. Nate Silver’s forecast, however, rates the race as Likely Republican, and betting markets lean heavily toward Ricketts over Osborn. Election Day is Nov. 3.
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.