![]() In January, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers Union Local 300, filed a federal lawsuit and an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against Mondelez to stop the layoffs.Ī spokesman for BCTGM Local 300, the largest of three unions at the Chicago Lawn plant, said Mondelez’s actions target the plant’s large minority and older workforce, which is discriminatory and a violation of its collective bargaining agreements. “ took care of his family, sent his kids to college, bought his home.”Īs uncertainty looms for Banks and other Nabisco workers, the union representing them is fighting back. “I was trying to do the same as my dad would do,” said Banks, whose last day at Nabisco will be March 21. “I can’t see it with just one check coming in,” said Pope, a processor and baker who has worked at the plant for 35 years.īanks’s father came to Chicago from Louisiana in 1967 and landed a blue collar job at a gas company, retiring 30 years later. Living on one income is a scary proposition. She and her husband have a son in high school who wants to become a doctor, and they take care of her elderly mother. Retirement is not an option for Pope, 58, who doesn’t yet qualify for full Social Security retirement benefits. Sabrina Pope, whose family has worked at Nabisco for generations, was one of those waiting last summer to find out if she still had a job. During the Great Migration millions of Blacks fled the rural South seeking better jobs and better pay in the industrialized North. ![]() Last September the Chicago Reporter examined how manufacturing jobs, such as those at Nabisco, allowed many African-Americans to enjoy a middle-class life. The impact of those job losses have hit African-Americans especially hard. In addition, manufacturing jobs have moved from Chicago to the suburbs, making them increasingly inaccessible to people living in the city. Between 20, the number of people employed in Chicago manufacturing jobs shrank by nearly half, state data shows. The company’s move to outsource jobs to low-wage paying countries like Mexico is not uncommon for Chicago’s shrinking manufacturing industry. “I have one daughter in college now and another one aspiring to go to college.” ![]() “It will actually be devastating for me and my family,” said Banks, the father of three. Last month it handed out pink slips to 277 workers. The Deerfield, Ill.-based company, which makes Chips Ahoy cookies, Wheat Thins crackers and Oreo Cookies, plans to slash the factory’s 1,200-employee workforce by half. The jobs are headed to Salinas, Mexico, where the company plans to invest $130 million to upgrade a facility there. Kedzie Avenue, one of the world’s largest industrial bakeries. Parent company Mondelez International announced earlier this summer that it was eliminating 600 jobs from the factory at 7300 S. Employees at the Nabisco plant on Chicago’s Southwest Side face an uncertain future as the company hands out pink slips and starts moving parts of its operations to Mexico.
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