As Nabisco Ships 600 Jobs Out of Chicago to Mexico, Maybe It’s Time To Give Up Oreos
BY Marilyn Katz
In These Times
7/31/15
Is giving up Oreos a foolish and futile gesture? Of course, I know that other Chicago-born companies have made similar moves. I, like many Chicagoans felt a loss when Frango Mints were no longer hand made on the top floor of Marshall Field’s—and felt worse when Marshall Field’s ceased to exist at all. I was saddened when Klaus Suchard chose to take Brach candy production from Chicago, and in so doing ended Chicago’s title as candy capital of the world. I even regretted the loss of the city’s steel mills and stockyards, despite the cleaner air that their exodus brought.
But this seems different. Perhaps it was reading the May stories of Rosenfeld’s report to shareholders in which she touted the upward trajectory of the company’s profits through cutting back on procurement and customer service and her plans to make it even more profitable by a restructuring that would realize a gain of $1.5 billion for stockholders.
It might have been reading the very next day that Rosenfeld was now being feted as the first woman to join the “20 Club,” those Illinois CEOS who are paid more than $20 million a year. Rosenfeld was paid $21 million in 2014 alone.
Or perhaps, in a city beset by financial woes, it was contemplating the impact of 600 more unemployed people, who had, only weeks ago, represented a well-paid diverse workforce of Latinos, African Americans and whites whose skills and union had earned them a sustainable salary of as much as $26 an hour.
Or perhaps, after another weekend of shootings and deaths, it was thinking about the young people who we tell that in staying in school, staying out of trouble and following the rules there is a clear path to opportunity in our city—at the moment that 600 such opportunities in the city evaporated....
...There’s nothing new or even unusual about Irene Rosenfeld and the story of Nabisco and its Oreo cookies. But perhaps its very pervasiveness in our lives is just the thing to wake up the nation to the downward spiral we find ourselves in—a veritable race to the bottom, with a thin layer of the very rich, a hollowing out of the middle, and a growing underclass—relegated to selling merchandize produced for pennies on the dollar in other countries.
A friend to whom I spoke about Mondelez counseled that to mention Rosenfeld’s salary is a distraction. But it seems somehow wrong that we praise and reward a CEO for eliminating American jobs or for being paid an amount in one year that would take any worker in her plant 500 years to earn.
Come to think of it, if Rosenfeld could learn to live on $2 million a year, that $19 million could be used to save 600 jobs, and the company’s bottom line would still be the same....
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18259/oreos-union-busting
= new reply since forum marked as read
This reminds me of when I had trouble with ATT Uverse & had to call them, in the phillipines. The poor girl was probably new, but I had trouble understanding her & vice versa, and she couldn't get her computer to go where it needed to go. I said during one of the many pauses, "I hope this call is being recorded because AT&T, AMERICAN Telephone & Telegraph, you need to change your name, or HIRE AMERICANS."
I switched internet to a small regional company after that. They only operate in 3 states...
As the guy was installing it, I learned from him that the customer service for my new wonderful "local" company is located
...in the Phillipines.
Thanks Neoliberals & your new world order....
isn't reason enough. Partial list~
100 Calorie Packs
Arrowroot
Bacon Dippers
Belvita (Defunct In Indonesia)
Better Cheddars
Cameo
Captain Table
Cheese Nips
Chips Ahoy!
Chocolate Wafers
Club Social
Dad's Cookie (c.1929 Canada)
Doo Dads
Fig Newtons
Frollini de Oro Saiwa
Fudgee-O Cookies
HeyDay Cookie Bars
Honey Maid
In A Biskit
Kool Stuf
Kraker Bran
Lorna Doone
Mallomars
Nabisco Classics
Nutter Butter
Nilla
Orchard Crisps
Oreo
Oreo Cakesters
Oro Saiwa
Pecanz
Premium Plus
Premium Saltines
Rice Thins
Ritz Crackers
Sportz
Team Flakes
Teddy Grahams
Thinsations (Canada)
Toasted Chips
Toastettes
Trakinas (Defunct In Indonesia)
Triscuit
Urra Saiwa
Wheat Squares
Wheat Thins
Zu Zu Ginger Snaps
There was, I imagine (I had left by then), a mass citywide panic when they disappeared. 
I USED TO like to dunk Oreos in coffee... But I can skip that little pleasure.
I think it's time for a post-capitalist reality, one in which the capitalists are not so unfettered. Now, I'm off to check out the website "Welcome to Potterville" 
it's now made with chemicals and HFCS. It taste nothing like the Oreos from days of old.
Find a better sandwich cookie, like Trader Joe's JoJos and give up the Oreos, which will probably just get worse made in Mexico.
One more thing; Thank you NAFTA, can't wait for the Chinese made Oreos after the TPTP is passed.
Looked at the product lists some of you posted. I do not eat any of those things. But someone else is!
