Committee in Support of the Stella D'Oro Strikers To Demonstrate Saturday
www.stelladorostrike2008.com
What : Community members and workers from the Stella DÂ’Oro factory in the Bronx ---all members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union -- will hold a demonstration at Fairway Foods and ask for removal of Stella D'Oro cookies from Fairway's shelves.
When: Sat. June 27, 2009
12 Noon
Where: In front of Fairway, Broadway at 74th Street in Manhattan
Who: Striking Stella DÂ’Oro workers, clergy, union members and community residents
Bakery workers from the Bronx facility of Stella D’Oro Cookies will demonstrate this next Saturday at Noon at Fairway Foods. Strikers and supporters have been regularly leafleting Fairway shoppers asking them not to buy the cookies now made by non-union replacement workers. The strikers derisively call the replacement workers “scabs†when they cross the picket lines at 237th St and Broadway.
The pickets have been in place in the Bronx every work day for ten months since the 136 members of Bakers Local 50 rejected demands from the new management, Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.
According to one striker, “Brynwood has never even claimed these cuts of 25% were economically necessary. They broke the contract of our Teamster drivers. Then they made impossible demands on us and refused to bargain with our Union. They are only interested in breaking our Union so they can get a better price from some other quick buck outfit. This was a family-run business for decades. The work time of our strikers totals centuries. Brynwood who has been here for a few years is trying to squeeze out as much profit as possible. We will not surrender to this “business model†which threatens us and has already done so much damage to our whole economy. It pains us to boycott a product we have made with pride for so long. But, Brynwood has underestimated us. We will win this strike. And then we will work just as hard to bake our cookies better than ever. We will return quality and justice to the Stella D'Oro recipe
