Mine Workers President Vows Support for Bakery Workers' Struggle with Nabisco
[Triangle, VA] United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil E. Roberts said today that the union fully supports the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) in its boycott of Mexican-made Nabisco products. Nabisco recently announced that it is moving more than 600 American jobs in Chicago to a production facility in Mexico.
"The UMWA has always been about taking aggressive action in fighting against employers that inflict pain and suffering on workers and their families," Roberts said. "The BCTGM's boycott of Mexican-made Nabisco products is such an approach and one that the UMWA and its membership are proud to support.
"I am fed up with companies that think it is fine to send American jobs to Mexico, and this is an especially awful example," Roberts said. "Nabisco/Mondelez isn't losing money producing Oreos and other bakery products in the United States. It's just not making enough money, apparently.
"When do workers say, 'enough is enough?' As far as I'm concerned, that time is now. American workers must take a stand."
The UMWA invited the BCTGM and several members recently laid off from Nabisco's Chicago bakery to its rally in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania on April 1, 2016. Hundreds of jobs are scheduled to be lost at the Chicago bakery and transferred to Nabisco's production facility in Mexico. According to BCTGM officials, products that will no longer be produced in Chicago will be made in Mexico and then shipped back to the same communities where job losses are scheduled to occur.
The BCTGM, which represents nearly 4,000 workers at Mondel?z International, the maker of Nabisco snack products, is encouraging American consumers to "Check the Label" and reject Nabisco products made in Mexico. Instead, the union encourages Americans to support American jobs and buy Nabisco products made in the United States.
In recent years, Mondelez has closed numerous U.S. production facilities, costing hundreds of American workers their jobs while at the same time expanding production at its facilities in Monterrey and Salinas, Mexico. American workers have been the backbone of the company's financial success for decades, producing iconic baked goods like Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Ritz and Premium crackers. Their reward is now the displacement of their jobs across the border. Mondelez wants Americans to continue to purchase its Nabisco products, but it isn't interested in Americans making the products.
"Loyalty is a two-way street for American workers," Roberts said. "We intend to stand on the same principles that the UMWA has practiced since its inception in 1890, which is 'a wrong to one is a wrong to all.' It doesn't matter if it's coal miners or bakery workers, autoworkers or steelworkers. Their fight is our fight, it's as simple as that."