Kellogg's files a lawsuit against workers striking at its Omaha cereal plant, reports say

• Kellogg's filed a lawsuit against the union leading a strike against the company, per Bloomberg and AP.
• Kellogg's suit says strikers intimidated staff and blocked access to its cereal plant, per reports.

The Kellogg Company has filed a lawsuit against the local union leading a strike at the firm's Omaha cereals facility, Bloomberg and AP reported.

Since early October, around 1,400 workers at four Kellogg's cereal plants across the US have been on strike over what they say is an unfair pay and benefits system. One worker previously described the strike to Insider as an "emotional cocktail."

In a lawsuit filed Thursday against the Omaha chapter of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union, the company alleges that striking union members have intimidated non-union staff at its cereal plant in Omaha, Nebraska, and blocked vehicles from coming into and out of the facility, AP and Bloomberg reported.

Kellogg "is suffering and will continue to suffer irreparable damages," Bloomberg reported the lawsuit as saying. Bloomberg cited a section of the lawsuit that said the company was arguing for "an immediate order of this court prohibiting the conduct described above."

The company also says in the lawsuit that striking workers have threatened other employees' and their families' lives, followed them to where they live, and used racial slurs, as per Bloomberg.

"We sought a temporary restraining order to help ensure the safety of all individuals in the vicinity of the plant, including the picketers themselves," Kellogg's spokesperson, Kris Bahner, told Insider in a statement on Friday.

"As Kellogg continues to conduct business at the plant, we are concerned about dangerous and unlawful behavior, such as blocking plant access, threatening violence against individuals entering the plant and damaging property, to name a few," Bahner added.

The BCTGM union didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The union didn't respond to Bloomberg's request for comment. The BCTGM union president declined to comment on the lawsuit in response to an AP request Thursday.

After two days of negotiations at the start of November failed to produce an agreement, Ken Hurley, Kellogg's head of labor relations said in a video that "we have made every attempt to build a bridge toward a new agreement, but those efforts are met with rejections and more unrealistic demands."

The strike at Kellogg's started in October, a period that has become known as "Striketober", after thousands of workers across different industries in the US demanded changes to their working conditions.

Among those industrial disputes, over 10,000 John Deere workers at 14 different locations went on strike in mid-October after contract negotiations with the company failed. And more than 1,000 coal miners in Alabama have been on strike since April, Mic's Kim Kelly reported.