Public Employee Press

The World of Work
By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Union-busting at Stella D’Oro

Grassroots support for striking workers at the Stella D’Oro 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. “What’s different here is that the workers haverefused to accept it.”

Outside the plant, the Stella D’Oro 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.