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The New York Times reports that the company that owns Stella D'Oro cookies has been ordered to reinstate the 134 Bronx-based workers who have been on strike since their contract expired last summer, and to pay the workers back wages plus interest. As I wrote in a post on The Jew and the Carrot, Brynwood Partners bought Stella D'Oro in 2006 and, when the workers' contracts ran out last summer, demanded that workers accept pay cuts of up to 26% and begin contributing to their health insurance costs. As far as I can tell, Jews are just about the only consumers of Stella D'Oro cookies, whose major advantage is that they're parve (dairy free) and therefore can be eaten after a meat meal. A few years ago, the company decided to begin using dairy chocolate in some of its cookies; the ensuing outrage from the kosher-keeping community forced a return to (more expensive) parve chocolate. As I suggested in my earlier post, the Jewish community can use this economic power not only to hold onto parve chocolatey goodness, but to make sure that the workers who help satisfy our sweet tooths are paid decent wages. While this victory is a huge step forward for the workers, the fight might not be over yet. The company still can appeal the decision to the National Labor Relations Board, which is notoriously slow in hearing cases. In the meantime, it's still worth it to shoot a note to Henrik Hartong, Jr., the senior partner of Brynwood at huppsy@brynwoodpartners.com to let him know how glad you are that the workers will be getting their jobs and their wages back. Can't hurt to tell him that you're now more likely to buy his cookies.
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