primitives mourn the demise of unionized bakery

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6731841

Oh my.

Libertas1776  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 10:24 PM
Original message
 
Landmark Unionized Bakery Closing Imminent in the Bronx (Stella D'oro) 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/nyregion/07about.html

The Stella D'oro Bakery, which started out as a family owned business in the 1930s, grew to become a landmark product with a loyal Italian and Jewish following. In 2006, Kraft, which had bought the company in 1992, sold Stella D'oro to Brynwood Partners, a private investing firm, who are now shutting the Bronx factory and selling the business to a Company whose production is in a non union shop in Ohio. Why? Because the Union wouldn't except a hefty pay cut and other frivolous demands.

said a spokesperson for Brynwood:

“The union’s strategy was to give no ground on wages and benefits, even if that meant the company would be forced to sell the business and shut its doors in the Bronx,”

The Union countered, arguing that:

Brynwood had no intention of operating the bakery, said Louie Nikolaidis, the lawyer for Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International: “They told us at the beginning of the negotiations: ‘We are not an operating company. We are a finance company. We hold companies for three to five years and then we sell them.’ ”

This past summer, the Union went on strike and a judge with the National Labor Relations Board found for the union, and ordered the reinstatement of the employees last June. But no matter to Brynwood, since, like I said they are shutting the factory.

And here is the kicker:

“They’re going to pay $15 million to $20 million in shutdown costs,” Mr. Filippou(Union mechanic at Stella D'oro for over 14 years) said. “They wouldn’t talk to any of the private equity firms that tried to make a deal. To me, that’s just spite.”

Read the whole deal here...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/nyregion/07about.html

Once again, the unionized working men and women of America get the all too familiar screw job by some greedy capitalist gangsters looking to make a quick buck.

Sounds like the primitives standing outside welfare offices, looking to get some quick bucks for themselves.

imdjh  (1000+ posts)      Thu Oct-08-09 10:46 PM
Response to Original message

1. Isn't the commonality in all these stories and other issues that these businesses ....

.... ceased to answer to an owner, a person whose family and history is invested in the company?

"Grow or die." was the mantra. Well they grow and die anyway. Somebody like Kraft comes along, buys a family business (sold voluntarily) and keeps or phases out the brand name giving the illusion of continuity.

I'll bet that there is crap in Stella D'oro cookies that wasn't even invented (chemicals) when that company was peaking as a proprietorship.

And in the process, everything is turning to crap. Look at pizza. It's all crap- all the chain delivery pizza that is. Some really good (and bad) local businessmen are hanging on , but they'll eventually be displaced by chains selling five dollar pizzas to undiscerning potheads and other indiscriminate pigouters.

And don't get me started on the convenience crowd. My definition of the convenience drive person is one with poor time management skills often combined with chronic laziness.

dmr  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 10:52 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. Private investing firms have ruined too many businesses through the years.

I sometimes wonder if there will be anything left in this country.

Probably not, if Bo's allowed to have his way.

The cross-eyed Iowa primitive from Denver, who's a hefty guy and four-eyed, and ostensibly an ex-con:

Hawkeye-X  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 11:01 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. They should sell the company back to the employees so they can be union-owned, union-supported.

My wife loves Stella D'Oro cookies - she grew up with it.

Libertas1776  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
4. Yeah, they did have some good cookies but once they're made in Ohio by a non union shop, I ain't going near them.

Raineyb  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 11:19 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. Had a feeling this was coming.

They had locked out the union and a court order forced them to take the union back. I remember people talking about the jobs available and I told them at the time there was no way in hell I was crossing a picket line.

If I remember correctly the offer management made was basically a big fat pay cut. Not that they were negotiating in good faith mind you. I won't eat their stuff ever again.

Libertas1776  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-08-09 11:38 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
6. They also demanded that the packaging remove the made by union seal for some weird ass, spiteful reason, most likely just a finalizing way to further denigrate the Union.

You know, that's a funny thing.

Out here in Nebraska, Republican party literature always has the union label.

Democrat party literature doesn't, because the Democrats patronize print sweatshops.

One wonders what's up with that.

The salacious primitive, who's one of franksolich's favorite primitives:

Selatius (1000+ posts)      Thu Oct-08-09 11:58 PM
Response to Original message
 
7. Here is one thing all of you need to understand.

Anytime you see a big name company get sold to these so-called "private equity firms," then you can bet the best days of that company are now behind it. Many of these firms practice the equivalent of house flipping, except with entire companies.

OneBlueSky  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-09-09 11:51 AM
Response to Reply #7
 
9. and there ought to be a law against this kind of predatory capitalism . . .

that this country can allow financial firms to take over good businesses only to extract every dollar they can from them before putting them out of business is a moral and ethical crime -- and it should be a legal crime, too . . . Stello D'Oro, Simmons Mattresses, and no doubt hundreds of other good small businesses providing good jobs, destroyed just so some Wall Street hotshots can make more money . . . and they don't even think there's anything wrong with what they're doing . . .

this is the kind of thing that strong corporate regulation should prohibit . . . but as long as the corporations are writing their own laws and regulations, it won't happen any time soon . . . not until some powerful and influential leaders (if there are any left) decide to stand up and demand that control of corporations be returned to the people . . .

How about control of the government being returned to the people, too?

[DumbAss Tanker]

OneBlueSky  (1000+ posts)      Fri Oct-09-09 11:51 AM
Response to Reply #7
 
9. and there ought to be a law against this kind of predatory capitalism . . .

I believe the phrase you are grasping at there sounds something like 'The workers' and peasants' collective should own the means of production.'

[GOBUCKS]

I believe the phrase you are grasping at there sounds something like 'The workers' and peasants' collective should own the means of production.'

And peddle two-dollar doughnuts.

[jukin]

Let me get this straight. The union said that it would cut off it's own nose despite it's face?

This is like when my employees do not show up to get a machine out the back door (& the final payment) but always show up for their paycheck.  After several warning and explanation as to how the cash flow affect them, they wonder why I have to let them go.

[Karin]

jukin, I'm a little bit of a softy, but I would have no regrets and no guilt canning people like that. 

[thundley4]

jukin, I'm a little bit of a softy, but I would have no regrets and no guilt canning people like that. 

Why would you want to put them in jars and preserve them? 

[Chris_]

Why would you want to put them in jars and preserve them? 

Makes body disposal a little easier.

[Randy]

Why would you want to put them in jars and preserve them? 

Because they're not worth much else?

[NHSparky]

Since I left the Navy, in my current job, and in positions at my  previous company, I have been a union member.  The one where I work isn't as thuggish as the Teamsters or IBEW, and try to work with management as much as possible.  That being said, union members should always, ALWAYS, remember one simple rule--at the end of the day, the company will do whatever the hell it wants.  That piece of wisdom was imparted upon me by a manager at SCE who used to be "in the tools", and a union steward at that.

[BlueStateSaint]

Since I left the Navy, in my current job, and in positions at my  previous company, I have been a union member.  The one where I work isn't as thuggish as the Teamsters or IBEW, and try to work with management as much as possible.  That being said, union members should always, ALWAYS, remember one simple rule--at the end of the day, the company will do whatever the hell it wants.  That piece of wisdom was imparted upon me by a manager at SCE who used to be "in the tools", and a union steward at that.

I, too, have been (and am) a union member.  Working for NYS pretty much ensures that.  While the unions have done some good things in the past, all they are doing now is driving businesses--and the tax base--out of NYS.

[thundley4]

Since I left the Navy, in my current job, and in positions at my  previous company, I have been a union member.  The one where I work isn't as thuggish as the Teamsters or IBEW, and try to work with management as much as possible.  That being said, union members should always, ALWAYS, remember one simple rule--at the end of the day, the company will do whatever the hell it wants.  That piece of wisdom was imparted upon me by a manager at SCE who used to be "in the tools", and a union steward at that.

I belong to the IBEW. That being said, I've went to just one general meeting at the hall, and that was when I was sworn in 20+ years ago. Almost no one from our shop goes to meetings, not even the steward. We never see anyone from the hall except around contract time.