Perfect!
In Mott’s Strike, More Than Pay at Stake
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/business/18motts.html?src=mvJames Rajotte for The New York Times
Outside the Mott’s apple juice plant in Williamson, N.Y., Mike LeBerth, president of the union local, is picketing against demands for wage and benefit givebacks.
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: August 17, 2010
WILLIAMSON, N.Y. — After nearly 90 days of picketing in the broiling sun outside the sprawling Mott’s apple juice plant here in upstate New York, Michelle Muoio recognizes that the lengthy strike is about far more than whether the 305 hourly workers at the plant get a fatter or slimmer paycheck.
The union movement and many outsiders view the strike as a high-stakes confrontation between a company that wants to cut its labor costs, even as it is earning record profits, and workers who are determined to resist demands for wage and benefit givebacks.
“It’s disgusting, honestly, that they want to take things away from the people who made them profitable,” said Ms. Muoio (pronounced MOY-oh), a $19-an-hour machine operator who has worked at the plant 15 years.
James Rajotte for The New York Times
The stakes are high for unions. If Mott’s workers lose, it could lead other profitable companies to push for big labor concessions.
The company that owns Mott’s, the beverage conglomerate Dr Pepper Snapple Group, counters that the Mott’s workers are overpaid compared with other production workers in the Rochester area, where blue-collar unemployment is high after years of layoffs at employers like Xerox and Kodak.
Chris Barnes, a company spokesman, said Dr Pepper Snapple was seeking a $1.50-an-hour wage cut, a pension freeze and other concessions to bring the plant’s costs in line with “local and industry standards.”
The company, which has 50 brands including 7Up and Hawaiian Punch, reported net income of $555 million in 2009, compared with a loss of $312 million the previous year. Its 2009 sales were $5.5 billion, down 3 percent.
With each passing week, the two sides have dug in deeper, doing their utmost to outmaneuver and undercut each other. Rain or shine, dozens of workers picket outside the plant each day, standing alongside a 15-foot-tall inflatable rat and a mock coffin emblazoned with “R.I.P. Corporate Greed.”
FULL story at link.