"Bronx Bakery Buy-Out Crumbles," The Indypendent, 11/20/09
The Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. in the Bronx closed Oct. 8, putting 136 unionized employees out of work. After a strike that lasted nearly a year and an extensive legal battle, the factory has been sold and much of the plant’s equipment has been dismantled and shipped to a non-union shop in Ohio.
At an Oct. 29 rally and press conference outside the factory gates, the workers revealed that CITGO, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company, had expressed interest in buying the abandoned factory but had been rebuffed by Brynwood Partners, a Connecticut-based private equity firm that sold Stella D’oro to snack food giant Lance, Inc. Brynwood completed the sale after its demands for draconian cuts in wages and benefits provoked a bitter 11-month strike by members of Bakery Workers Local 50. Read more.
