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Public
Employee Press The World of
Work By GREGORY N. HEIRES
Union-busting
at Stella DOro
Grassroots support for striking
workers at the Stella DOro cookie factory in the Bronx is growing.
DC
37 activists including retirees and members of locals 371 and 375
joined more than 350 unionists who braved the cold Jan. 31 to march with the strikers
from the factory at 237 St. and Broadway in Kingsbridge to the shopping center
at 225th St. and the Major Deegan Expressway.
Members of the DC 37 Retirees
Association collected nearly $500 at their monthly meeting to help out the 135
workers at the Italian biscuit factory.
The workers went on strike in August
after the owner, the private equity company Brynwood Partners, made its last,
best offer, which demanded a $1 an hour pay cut in each year of a five-year
contract and would have banned carrying over sick leave from year to year and
canceled a guaranteed pension plan in favor of 401(k) retirement savings accounts.
Resisting
a nationwide attack on workers This is a strike which, although
a small one, reflects the kind of demands that companies are making on union workers
and imposing on nonunion workers throughout the country, said Neal Frumkin,
co-chair of the DC 37 Retirees Hispanic and Solidarity Committee, which donated
$100 to the strikers. Whats different here is that the workers haverefused
to accept it.
Outside the plant, the Stella DOro strikers are
picketing 16 hours a day, six days a week. Inside, scabs are doing their work.
Local
50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International
Union, which represents the workers, has called for a boycott of the products,
including Swiss Fudge, Lady Stella and Anginetti cookies. | |