Union Threatens Boycott of Food Products to Keep Jobs at South Side Plant
A bakery union is threatening to boycott Nabisco products in an effort to keep jobs from leaving a plant on the South Side of Chicago.
Mondelez International Inc., based in Deerfield, Ill, plans to cut 600 jobs at the plant next year, said Ronald Baker, international strategic campaign coordinator for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. Nabisco is a part of Mondelez.
The plant, which has mostly minority workers, has been for decades at 7300 S. Kedzie Ave.
“This is very important,” Baker said. “For every job that goes, another three other jobs are affected.”
Baker said he believes Mondelez is attempting to save money by bringing the jobs to a new plant in Mexico.
Earlier this year, he said Mondelez wanted workers at plant to take pay cuts in a plan of adding $130 million in upgrades at the facility.
Workers average about $24 an hour at the plant. The proposed cuts would cut their pay to less than $10 an hour, Mondelez said.
Baker estimates that workers at the Mexican plant would be paid about $2 an hour.
Laurie Guzzinati, a spokeswoman for Mondelez, acknowledged that jobs were being transferred to a plant in Salinas, Mexico.
The company is investing $130 million for four manufacturing lines at the Mexican production center.
But Guzzinati said workers at the Mexican center would be paid more than $2 hourly. Guzzinati, however, was unable to say exactly how much the workers there would be paid.
Guzzinati said Mondelez was currently still talking to the unions at the South Side plant in Chicago.
“It will continue to remain open and [be] an important part in our network,” Guzzinati said.
The South Side plant has 1,200 workers and managers working in the 1.8 million square-foot facility, one of the largest bakeries in the world.
The plant produces a variety of products, including Oreos and Ritz Crackers.
About 35 percent of the plant’s workers are black, while another 35 percent are Hispanic, Baker said.
“We are going to fight for these jobs,” Baker said. “We plan to win. We are going to concentrate on jobs rather than conceding them.”
Mondelez International, Inc. is a $35 billion multi-national confectionery food and beverage company, employing about 107,000 people worldwide.
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