Union Challenges Stella D’oro Announced Shutdown
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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.
Private Equity Firms, Our New Corporate Masters?
Workers returned Tuesday to the job at Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. in the Bronx after a judge ordered the company reinstate the 136 employees who had remained strong throughout a brutal 11-month strike. But before they could even walk through the doors, they were greeted with the anti-union response by the company’s private equity firm owners, the 21st century’s mutation of the robber barons: Brynwood Partners announced it would shut down operations in October. (”Private equity firms” is the euphemism those leveraged buyout corporations adopted after leveraged buyout got a bad name in the 1980s.)
Established more than 75 years ago, Stella D’oro is a nationally known maker of specialty baked goods and until recently was a family-owned business. But a series of corporate buyouts ultimately resulted in Brynwood’s 2006 purchase of the company. And a private equity firm’s only reason for existing is to make money-lots of it. Even robber barons ultimately had to ensure they had enough workers on the job because those companies made money by making things. Not so for today’s private equity firms. Closing shop and making off with the profits is what they do.
Stella D’oro Pulls a Wal-Mart, Shuts Down When Labor Board Rules for Workers
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UPDATE: BCTGM Local 50 says it will fight Stella D’oro’s decision to close the plant and soon file retaliation charges against the company with the NLRB. We will keep you updated.
Just days after a federal administrative law judge (ALJ) found Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. guilty of several labor law violations and ordered the company to reinstate more than 130 workers who have been on strike since August, the cookie maker announced it was closing its Bronx, N.Y., plant.
Last year, members of Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) refused management demands for wage cuts by as much as $5 hour and slashes in health and pension benefits by the private equity firm that took over the company in 2006.
On June 30, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ALJ Steven Davis ruled Stella D’oro—now owned by Brynwood Partners—refused to bargain with the union, improperly declared an impasse in negotiations and illegally refused the workers’ May 6 offer to return to work. Davis ordered the company to reinstate the workers with back pay and interest.
