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age 4
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BY E M IL Y GREEN
S E N IO R S T A F F R E P O R T E R
amar Kennedy has worked at the
Northeast Portland bakery that makes
Oreo cookies and other Nabisco-brand
snack products for more than 25 years.
The bakery, located on Northeast Columbia
Boulevard just northeast of the Kenton
neighborhood, employs 210 people full time,
according to the bakers’ union that represents
workers there.
During the first two decades he worked
there, producing America’s top-selling cookies
was a job Kennedy enjoyed. Morale was high,
working conditions at the bakery were good,
and fair wages with plenty of overtime allowed
workers to support their families.
But in recent years, workers say, the
environment at the bakery has been engulfed
in fear - punctuated by top-down intimidation
under the ever-looming threat that the plant
may close so production can be moved to
Mexico.
Adding to the uncertainty, their union’s
contract with the company has not been
renewed since it expired in March 2016.
“The feeling there is horrible,” said
Cameron Taylor, a representative of the
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and
Grain Millers union (BCTGM) Local 364. “The
people are going to work every day, but it’s not
what it was. The company’s attitude has caused
the morale to be as bad as I’ve ever seen it.
The people there used to care about their job
and care about working for that company. They
don’t care anymore.”
During a news conference and roundtable
discussion at St. Charles Borromeo Church in
September, Kennedy and other bakery
employees discussed how their working
environment began to deteriorate in 2012,
when the Kraft-owned bakery, along with all its
Nabisco products, became part of newly
created Mondelez International Inc., a spinoff
of Kraft’s global snack food operations.
Members of a labor rights group called
Interfaith Worker Justice were also at the table
for the discussion. Portland was one stop on
their cross-country tour of cities where
Mondelez workers are struggling with the
company’s strategy of moving the majority of
its big-brand production to Mexico.
Mondelez-Nabisco production facilities
remain open in five U.S. states, employing
roughly 2,000 full-time workers, according to a
spokesperson for the BCTGM International,
Nate Zeff.
L
Interfaith Worker Justice and bakers’ union
representatives also attempted to visit one of
Mondelez’s facilities in Mexico, but they were
barred from entry. Workers arrived on buses
that unloaded beyond the fences surrounding
the factory, so the representatives were unable
to speak with them about conditions inside.
“We want to support workers on both sides
of the border,” said Laura Barrett, executive
director at Interfaith Worker Justice.
A contract between Mexican workers and
Mondelez shows that workers are paid the U.S.
equivalent of $7.80 to $10.41 per day.
“We have had several sources tell us that
12-hour days are common in Mondelez’s
Salinas Victoria plant,” Zeff said.
The minimum wage in Mexico, as of
December when it saw an increase, is 88.36
pesos, or $4.71 U.S., per day.
Interfaith Worker Justice’s investigation into
Mondelez-Nabisco bakeries culminated in a
report released Dec. 12.
According to “Breaking Faith: Outsourcing
and Damage Done to Our Communities,”
Mondelez’s actions illustrate the systemic
erosion of American manufacturing in exchange
for cheap labor in countries with fewer
regulations and worker protections.
The report’s authors argue that by moving
production overseas and across borders,
Mondelez is betraying the communities that
helped its brands become popular and
profitable, such as Oreo, which was born in
New York in 1912. They say that Mondelez was
making “good profits” under its U.S.
production when it announced plans to lay off
hundreds of American workers.
While Mondelez workers in Mexico make
less than $1 per hour, its executives are raking
in millions.
The report found that “in the last nine years,
Mondelez-Nabisco former CEO (now board
chair) Irene Rosenfeld was paid more than
$185 million. Upon exiting the company, she
will take with her nearly $35 million in
personal pension, a $50 million severance and
more than $70 million in additional stock
options. And as recently reported in the news,
the incoming CEO, Dirk Van de Put, stands to
make $55 million in his first year.”
Meanwhile, lower-level workers in the U.S.
are uncertain about the future of their hard-
earned pensions.
“Four months ago, I would have been eligible
to retire,” Kennedy said in September. “But
now, with what’s going on, I don’t know what’s
going to happen with our pension. But week to
week, we keep paying into it.”
Mondelez Global spokesperson Laurie
Guzzinati said the company has no plans to
Street Roots • Jan. 12-18 2018
close its Portland bakery. She said that the
company has continued to negotiate its union
contracts across the U.S. and that its U.S.
facilities are, and continue to be, an important
part of its North American manufacturing
network.
Between 2012 and 2017, Guzzinati said,
Mondelez has invested more than $500 million
in the United States, including investments in
“state of the art, modern manufacturing.”
Nabisco began production in Mexico in 2003
but ramped up its foreign investment and
opened a new facility there in 2014. According
to the report, the company has spent $500
million on new
facilities in Mexico.
Soon after
Mondelez’s second
bakery near
Monterrey, Mexico,
opened, the
company closed a
plant in
Philadelphia. Then,
in January 2016,
Mondelez
announced that 600
workers would be
laid off from the
Mondelez International consists of snack
Nabisco bakery in
brands, including Nabisco, spun off from
Chicago.
Kraft Foods in 2012. The company has
The following
moved much of its manufacturing to Mexico
month, Brian
but still operates plants in five states,
Gladden, executive
including one in Portland. The package
vice president and
above was purchased in Portland, but made
chief financial
in Mexico.
officer at Mondelez, ______________________
announced that by
2018, 70 percent of
the production of the company’s leading brands
would be produced in new facilities being built
in countries such as Mexico, India and the
Czech Republic, according to a report at World-
Grain.com.
In response to the company’s outsourcing
strategy, the BCTGM union has waged a
campaign against buying Mondelez snack
products made in Mexico. The campaign is
aimed at educating consumers and encouraging
them to check the label on Nabisco products
and buy the snacks only if they were made in
the U.S.
It’s their hope that consumers will read the
labels on Oreos, Newtons, Chips Ahoy!, Ritz
Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Wheat Thins,
Animal Crackers and other Nabisco products to
ensure they were made in the U.S.
Some products show “Made in Mexico” on
See BAKERY, page 5