NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
October 6, 2017 | PAGE 5
Faith group investigates conditions among Nabisco workers in Mexico
By Don McIntosh
In late September, Houston ac-
tivist Martha Ojeda of the group
Interfaith Worker Justice trav-
eled to Mexico to see the mas-
sive new Nabisco bakery. Par-
ent company Mondelēz calls it
the world’s largest cookie man-
ufacturing plant. It’s in an in-
dustrial park outside of Monter-
rey, near the town of Salinas
Victoria, about three hours
south of Laredo, Texas. She
never got past the gate.
In 2016, Mondelēz got rid of
half the Nabisco production
lines at its flagship Chicago
plant and laid off about 450
workers — and shifted produc-
tion to its new “Salinas” bakery.
That led to an ongoing nation-
wide union boycott of Mexican-
made Nabisco products by the
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco
and Grain Millers (BCTGM)
union. The boycott has the sup-
port of the AFL-CIO.
Now Interfaith Worker Jus-
tice — a network of groups that
bring together labor and reli-
gious leaders — is gathering in-
formation on the decision to
shift production to Mexico. It
will publish a report, possibly in
December. Representatives of
the group have interviewed
Lamar Kennedy, center, is a minister at the Church of God in Christ — and a union worker at the Nabisco’s North-
east Portland bakery. On Sept. 27 he took part in a press event at St. Charles church to announce that a national
network of faith-labor groups is investigating Nabisco’s labor practices.
Nabisco employees in Chicago,
Illinois; Fairfield, New Jersey;
and Portland, Oregon. Next up
are Richmond, Virginia and At-
lanta, Georgia.
Ojeda’s trip to Monterrey
was part of that effort. As she
waited at the plant gate, a guard
connected her by phone to a
Mondelēz manager. He told her
that the company doesn’t em-
ploy any production workers:
They’re all provided by a
staffing agency called Human
Quality. Workers are brought to
the fenced-in industrial park on
buses. BCTGM believes they
work 12-hour shifts — for less
than $2 an hour.
The products they make —
Oreos, Chips Ahoy and other
Nabisco snacks — can now be
found everywhere in the United
States, often on the same shelf
as Nabisco products made by
American union members who
are paid $26 an hour. BCTGM
Local 364 member Lamar
Kennedy, a 25-year employee
of the Portland Nabisco bakery,
says Mexican-made Nabisco
products were even brought to
his workplace for an employee
product sale that takes place
several times a year.
“I want everybody to check
the label and make sure they’re
buying American-made prod-
ucts,” Kennedy says, “not be-
cause we don’t want Mexican
workers to survive, but because
they’re being exploited.”
Nabisco’s Salinas workers
supposedly work under a union
contract too. But the Interna-
tional Trade Union Confedera-
tion (ITUC) — a federation of
340 labor organizations in 163
countries— has been highly
critical of how most Mexican
unions operate. Most labor
agreements in Mexico would be
more accurately described as
“employer protection con-
tracts.” Unions sign the con-
tracts with employers without
the participation or knowledge
of workers. Workers don’t vote
on the contracts, or their union
leadership. Often they may not
even know there is a union.
The laid off Chicago workers
are not the only ones harmed by
Nabisco’s shift to Mexican pro-
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