Union Challenges Stella D’oro Announced Shutdown

by Mike Hall, Jul 16, 2009

Workers at the Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. in the Bronx, N.Y., charge that the cookie maker’s decision to shutter the plant this fall is a direct retaliation against the workers striking the company in 2008.

Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) filed charges this week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to block the shutdown and also demanded the company reopen negotiations.

On June 30, an NLRB administrative law judge ruled that Stella D’oro, which now is owned by the private equity firm Brynwood Partners, refused to bargain with the union, improperly declared an impasse in negotiations and illegally refused the workers’ offer May 6 to return to work. The law judge ordered the company to reinstate the 136 workers with back pay and interest.

The company reinstated the workers July 6, the same day it announced it would close the Bronx bakery in October and move production elsewhere.

According to the NLRB charges filed by the union, the closure is “retaliation for the protected concerted activity of Local 50 and the bargaining unit,” specifically the union’s successful pursuit of an unfair labor practice charge, “engaging in an unfair labor practice strike and prevailing.”

The BCTGM, which has represented employees at the facility for more than 40 years, also is asking the NLRB regional director to seek an emergency injunction from a federal court to prevent Brynwood Partners from closing the plant. The union says the closure is an attempt preempt the law judge’s ruling and avoid further bargaining with Local 50.

Says Local 50 President Joyce Alston:

We cannot allow the private equity predators at Brynwood Partners to ignore the law. The company cannot simply ignore the decision of a federal administrative law judge, and it cannot punish the workers at Stella D’oro for exercising their rights under the law by filing unfair labor practice charges, winning their case and conducting a 10-month unfair labor practice strike in defense of the law.

If the rule of law is to mean anything, the National Labor Relations Board should get an injunction to stop this shutdown and enforce the judge’s ruling and the national labor law.

In addition, in a July 13 letter to the company, the union demanded that the company bargain over both the renewal of the expired collective agreement and the company’s decision to close the plant and relocate production. According to a statement from Local 50, the union asked  “to be given the information the federal judge had previously ordered the company to provide.”

Further, since the company indicated that it was relocating production because of allegedly high labor costs, the union is entitled to and demanded information regarding identity of the facility to which production is being transferred and the projected costs of production and distribution of Stella D’oro products from that facility.

The letter warns that failure to do so will result in further NLRB charges.

Seeking an injunction to block a plant closure and demanding bargaining over the closure are, say union observers, unusually aggressive moves, but show the union’s determination to ensure that the NLRB fully and fairly enforces the law and the local’s resolve to get Stella D’oro back to the table.

At the same time, says Alston:

We stand ready, willing and able to reopen negotiations with the company. If they would provide us with the information we have been seeking since last August, and provide us with the information we are entitled to regarding labor costs at the facility they are planning to shift production to, we can pursue an accommodation that will keep Stella D’oro in New York and restore the company’s fortunes.

If Brynwood isn’t interested in complying with the law and making Stella D’oro successful in the Bronx, then they should sell it to owners who will.

In a column on Huffington Post, Art Levine reports another example of Brynwood Partners’ arrogance, in addition to thumbing its nose at the workers and the NLRB. According to Levine, when Brynwood Partners bought the plant from Kraft Foods in January 2006, not only did it received tax abatements to keep the Bronx plant open, but

Brynwood Partners has received well over $175,000 in taxpayers subsidies to keep its factory operating in the Bronx, but it’s shutting it down anyway.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (1)