The following article was written by Chicago Tribune reporter Greg Trotter and published online January 14.
The old Nabisco bakery on Chicago’s Southwest Side, with mass layoffs looming, the bakers’ union is cranking up the heat on its employer as the two sides approach contract negotiations.
Mondelez International announced in July that it would lay off half of the 1,200 employees at its Chicago plant, where Oreo cookies and other processed snacks have been made for years. But the plant’s largest union — the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers — continues to fight the loss in an increasingly public campaign.
“We’ll talk about severance if and when we have to, but we’re fighting for these jobs. We’re not acquiescing,” said Ron Baker, a spokesman for the bakers’ union, which represents 455 of the 600 workers to be laid off.
The job cuts, a result of Mondelez moving some operations to Mexico, will happen mid-year, said Mondelez spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati. She said the company has negotiated the shutdown procedure with the plant’s two smaller unions — International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the International Union of Operating Engineers.
But the bakers’ union has no intention of accepting the layoffs, particularly as it approaches negotiations for a new labor contract, Baker said. The current labor contract, which covers 2,500 employees in eight locations, expires Feb. 29.
The union has launched a website, fightforamericanjobs.org, and an ad on union radio stations opposing the cuts, while continuing to lobby politicians for support.
The union’s strategy isn’t just theater, said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and employment relations at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
If enough pressure is applied, Mondelez could be more willing to compromise on severance and perhaps even the total number of jobs cut, he said. “This is a way to prepare the terrain so it’s a bit more favorable to the union,” Bruno said.
Mondelez projects it will save about $46 million per year by installing four production lines at the plant in Salinas, Mexico, rather than making the same investment at the Chicago plant at 7300 S. Kedzie Ave., Guzzinati said.
The Chicago plant will continue to produce BelVita, Mini Chips Ahoy and Cheese Nips, among other products, on seven production lines that will be upgraded. Nine other lines will be shut. The making of Oreos, Ritz and Graham crackers will move to the new lines in Mexico.
Guzzinati said that while some of the products, like Oreo cookies, will no longer be made in Chicago, they will continue to be produced at Mondelez plants in Fair Lawn, N.J., and Portland.