2,800 Hershey workers strike for affordable health care
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Manufacturing News, Source : TheManufacturer.com
Published : 29 May 2002 8:51
The town of Hershey, Pennsylvania was unusually quiet this Memorial Day weekend, where 2,800 workers have been on strike since April 26.
The workers, who normally staff shifts seven days a week, are protesting a sudden increase in health care costs.
On May 16, twenty days after the strike began, Hershey Foods officials and their federal mediator, Dan LeClair, met with union negotiators from the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union to reach an agreement on the dispute. Company negotiators offered new proposals to reduce medical cost increases for employees, such as adding new medical plan options and modifying the cost-sharing proposal to a low-cost plan. But union leaders refused to accept the terms.
“We are very disappointed that the union leaders once again would not consider the options and ideas we brought to the table,” said Ray Brace, Hershey Foods vice president, operations in a statement after the meeting. “Ultimately, there will be a limit to how long we will wait for them to begin bargaining in good faith. We have a business to run and over 11,000 other employees who continue to work hard at their jobs. Their needs and the company’s future cannot be held hostage by an intransigent union leadership.”
Morale has been down at the Hershey plants since October 2001, when three plants and a distribution center were closed and 830 workers lost their jobs as a result of a restructuring plan.
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