The Harrisburg Patriot News called the meeting "a solidarity session." Todd Zollick, a worker leaving the meeting early for picket duty, said, "It’s solidarity across the board....The people will last as long as it takes."

The 2,700 members of Chocolate Workers Local 464, affiliated with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, have been on strike since April 26. The strikers stopped production at two of Hershey’s plants--the Old West Chocolate Avenue plant and the East Chocolate Avenue plant, both in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

The central issue in the strike is the Hershey Food Company’s proposal to drastically increase the workers’ health-care co-pay. The minimum change is a 100 percent increase, but for many workers with families it will be a 212 percent hike, going from $87 to $236 a month. Ruth Ellen Kissenger, a union steward on the "Kisses" line, said, "What really hurts is that we all have to pay $36 a month for a prescription card, whether we use it or not."

Support for the strikers is nearly continuous from the drivers of cars and trucks going by the picket line. Messages of solidarity from other unions and workers around the country are posted on the walls of the union hall as well.

Donna Hopple, branch president of Local 464, thought that one reason so many workers showed up at the union meeting was outrage at a four-page letter the company sent to all the strikers, signed by Vice President Ray Brace. Hershey then spent thousands of dollars reproducing it in full-page ads in local papers.

One line in particular riled a lot of workers. It read, "Other Hershey workers had all accepted the increase." But the workers at Hershey’s Reese’s plant in town and at a number of other plants around the country are not members of the union and had no say in the increase; it was imposed on them. An increasing number of workers at the Reese’s plant have stopped by the Local 464 union hall.

"The Reese’s workers have shown us a lot more support through money donations and food drives," said striker Miles Fogelman. "If we win, it will be a lot easier to organize them into our union."

After five weeks on strike, the mood of the strikers remains confident. As strikers check in for picket duty at the union hall they all receive a copy of the daily Strike Hotline ‘02. The Day 37 edition referred to a column from the previous day’s Lebanon Daily News, the local paper for roughly half the strikers.

In the column, Dave Smith, the newspaper’s publisher, said that the leaders of Chocolate Workers Local 464 "are taking the strike to absurd lengths.... The leaders...continue to incite their members to remain on strike despite" a contract wage offer that will "ensure those members will remain the highest-paid corps of unskilled and semiskilled workers in the region, possibly in the state."

Several pickets said they thought the publisher’s column was so anti-worker and antiunion they were planning to cancel their subscriptions.

The antiunion tone of Vice President Brace’s letter to the strikers has helped change many workers’ attitude toward Hershey Foods. One example was given by Judy Seaman, who has been employed at the company for 17 years. Seaman said that while working on the chip line she had been asked by the bosses to be on the special "chip line team." The team’s purpose, she said, was to increase production. "We did raise production, and this," she said, pointing to the picket line, "is what we get for it. The first thing I’m going to do when we get back is quit the team."

John Staggs is a meat packer in Philadelphia, and a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.  
 
 
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