Toss your cookies!

[dcsmart]

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By Micah Landau

It is Christmas time, but there is little holiday cheer at the Stella D’Oro cookie factory in the Bronx. The 136 workers at the famous Italian biscuit company, members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) International Union Local 50, have now been on strike for more than four months and it may be several more before they head back to work. The workers’ contract extension expired at the end of July and Local 50 called the strike when the owners walked out of negotiations on August 13...

"...But negotiations between the company and the union remain at a standstill. The company’s owners, Connecticut-based private equity firm Brynwood Partners, are demanding concessions which they cannot accept, workers said.

Among its demands, says shop steward Michael Filippou, Brynwood is insisting on a 25 percent reduction in wages; elimination of Saturday overtime; and a new 20 percent employee contribution to healthcare. The company’s proposed contract also eliminates four holidays, one week of vacation, and all 12 paid sick days workers currently receive.

“They want to take $1 out of our wages every year for the next five years,” Filippou said on the picket line. “Right now, our average is about $18 an hour. In 2012, we will only make $13 an hour. That’s why we’re out here..."

SEE FULL ARTICLE:
http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2008/12/27/difficult-...


EDITOR
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRACY
http://timetofight.tumblr.com /

[patrice]

1. The thing that is doing this is the very same thing that took us to War and

killed several hundred thousand Iraqis that didn't need killing, the very same thing that will fight Single Payer Health Care reform, do it's best to isolate and alienate the Gay Community from the rest of us, prevent development of alternative technologies, and oppress independent grassroots entrepreneurship.

What we must do is: each issue group has to stay alive and active and open to all of the others, until the People can see the whole picture.