PAGE 2 | August 24, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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Bakers picket Portland home of Nabisco board member
The profitable company is halt-
ing pension contributions while
paying executives so much that
even shareholders are gagging.
By Don McIntosh
A busload of union picketers
turned up outside the Northwest
Portland home of a Mondelēz
board member Christiana Smith
Shi July 21, chanting and carry-
ing “Hands Off Our Pensions”
signs.
Mondelēz, formerly known
as Kraft, is the parent company
of Nabisco, the well-known
maker of Oreos, Chips Ahoy
and Ritz crackers. On May 23,
Mondelēz stopped contributing
to a multi-employer pension
sponsored by the Bakery Con-
fectionery Tobacco and Grain
Millers (BCTGM) union. Those
payments were required under
the union contract covering
about 2,000 employees at
Nabisco bakeries in Portland
and four other U.S. locations,
but the contract expired Feb. 29,
2016 and the two sides haven’t
met to negotiate in more than
two years. Mondelēz is replac-
ing the pension payments with
contributions to a 401(k)-type
retirement savings account.
Last year, Mondelēz paid its
outgoing CEO Irene Rosenfeld
$17.3 million and its incoming
CEO Dirk Van de Put $42.4 mil-
lion — pay packages that were
so sweet that even shareholders
rebelled, rejecting those terms
by a 5-to-4 margin in a non-
binding advisory vote at the
company’s May 16 annual
meeting.
Christiana Smith Shi, a for-
mer Nike executive, has served
on the Mondelēz board since
Jan. 4, 2016, so she shares re-
sponsibility for the decision to
deliver lavish CEO pay while
ending worker pension contri-
butions. But behind six-foot
fences and drawn curtains, there
was no sign whether she was at
home during the union protest.
Shi — who’s also on the board
of UPS and Williams Sonoma
— lives in a $2.6 million house
in the Nob Hill district of North-
west Portland.
Built in 1899, the three-story
5,179 square foot Victorian is
decorated with U.S. flags and
red, white and blue bunting.
That provoked some sharp com-
ments from bakery workers;
since April 2016 their union has
been protesting Mondelēz deci-
sion to lay off hundreds of
Chicago workers and shift some
production to a new plant near
Monterrey, Mexico. Backed by
the national AFL-CIO, BCTGM
is leading a consumer boycott
against all Mexican-made
Nabisco products.