Vol. 73/No. 6      February 16, 2009

Some 220 people marched down Broadway in the Riverdale section of the Bronx supporting the strike by the 136 bakery workers January 31.

Scab workers have been hired through various job fairs, and many were lined up before the strike began last August. According to strike captain Mike Filippou, Brynwood Partners, a holding company that bought Stella D’oro from Kraft Foods in 2006, recently tried to hire the temporary workers on a permanent basis. He said that the National Labor Relations Board ruled against this effort.

Brynwood Partners’ only amendment of their original contract proposal is to put workers’ retirement funds into a 401(k) plan, rather than the current pension plan. Their contract offer included slashing wages up to 25 percent, cutting sick days and vacation days, and increasing employees’ contribution to their health insurance plan. According to Joyce Alston, president of BCTGM Local 50, not one of the workers accepted this, and they unanimously voted to strike.

“They don’t want to give us anything. They want to take away vacation pay and everything. This is unacceptable,” said Michele Agnello, a striker who worked as a packer in the plant.

Among those participating in the rally, which took place on the picket line at the plant, were many of the strikers and officials from several other unions. The demonstrators marched to a popular shopping area where they distributed flyers appealing for support to the strike. Two of the workers who were part of the successful sit-in at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago addressed the rally. Edward Ott, of the New York City Central Labor Council, came to support the strike as well. Dan Fein, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of New York City, spoke at the gathering at the end of the march. The action was organized by the Committee in Support of the Stella D’oro Workers.

“You can’t live in New York with the salary and benefit cuts the company is proposing,” said Jorge Flores, one of the strikers at the rally who worked in sanitation for Stella D’oro. “This rally is important because we need to get more people involved. Nationwide people need to know about this.”

Robert Roman, a butcher and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 342 shop steward at the Garden Manor Farms meatpacking plant in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx, attended the rally. “It’s important to be here because I went through the same thing trying to get a union in where I work,” he said. “The bosses didn’t want to give anything. We were just getting crumbs.”

The union has issued a call for a boycott of Stella D’oro products, and has been getting boycott leaflets out to local grocery stores. “Boycott Stella!” “No Contract, No Cookies!” and “We are Stella!” were among the chants of the strikers during the march.  
 
 
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