Stella D’oro workers win NLRB victory

Editor’s note: As we go to press, Brynwood Partners, private owners of Stella D'oro cookies, reported plans to shut down the company within 90 days.  The Stella D'oro Support Committe responded: "Unite to stop this predatory attempt to destroy our communities. The ‘Battle of the Bronx’ continues. Keep Stella D'oro in the Bronx!" WW will be covering more on this development in future issues. 

After an 11-month strike, the workers of Stella D’oro Biscuit Company won a major victory on June 30 when a federal judge ordered the company to reinstate them with the same pay and benefits they had before the strike.

WW photo: G. Dunkel

Judge Steven Davis, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board, ruled that the company’s owners were guilty of engaging in unfair labor practices for refusing to provide the union representing the Stella D’oro workers with a copy of their 2007 audited financial report and for failing to bargain in good faith.

The 136 bakery workers belong to Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union.

Brynwood Partners, a private equity firm, acquired Stella D’oro from Kraft Foods in 2006. Brynwood had demanded draconian cuts in wages and benefits during contract negotiations with the union last year, including imposition of a three-tier wage and benefit structure under which tier-3 employees would not receive any benefits.

Stella D’oro workers went on strike on Aug. 13, when Brynwood walked out of contract negotiations. The company’s negotiators were also demanding that longtime employees accept reduced vacations and the elimination of sick days, holidays and severance pay in addition to cuts in health benefits. The drastic wage cuts would have affected mostly women workers, especially Latinas. The company went ahead and illegally implemented those terms after “permanently replacing” the strikers.

“The choice laid out was whether the employees wanted ‘jobs at lower pay or no jobs at all,’” stated Judge Davis. (www.nlrb.gov) He said that when the company claimed that it was unable to pay to continue operations without concessions from the workers, it was obligated to provide the union with the financial information it requested.

On May 1, the workers offered to return to work under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement that had expired on June 29, 2008. In his decision, Judge Davis ordered Stella D’oro to pay workers back pay with interest since May 6, the date of receipt of the union’s unconditional offer to return to work, which the company then refused to accept.

“This decision vindicates the struggles and sacrifices of our members at Stella D’oro,” said Joyce Alston, president of BCTGM Local 50. “The private equity predators at Brynwood Partners thought they could refuse to bargain with us, deny us information, break the law, tear up our contract, force a strike and break the union. But our members’ solidarity has held with the help of the community and our many supporters around the country and world.” (www.bctgm.org)

The struggle is not over yet, however. The company may appeal the decision to the full NLRB and to the federal courts. Stella D’oro workers are holding a rally at the plant gates at 237th Street and Broadway in the Bronx on July 10 from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. They will demand that the company immediately comply with this order and restore their jobs.