3,000 Hershey employees walk off the job

By George Strawley

Associated Press

HERSHEY, Pa. – Nearly 3,000 Hershey Foods Corp. workers walked off the job Friday, saying they were upset with the company’s contract offer that would increase their health care costs.

The strike affects about one-fifth of the work force at the nation’s largest candymaker, but company officials said it would not interrupt service to its customers. The company has been building inventory and cash reserves in preparation for a walkout, analysts said.

Strikers lined both sides of Chocolate Avenue, where one of two company plants in Hershey is located. They shouted and slowed traffic as truckers honked their horns in a noisy display of solidarity.

“This company’s making money hand over fist and there’s no reason it can’t be shared,” said Frankleen Gibson, who works on company air-conditioning units. “We’re ready and we’re going to stand tough. We’re not going back in a week or two.”

The two plants make a variety of candy, including chocolate bars, Hershey’s Kisses and chocolate eggs.

Negotiations between Hershey and the Chocolate Workers Local 464 broke off Wednesday. No new talks were scheduled.

Even before the walkout began at 9 a.m., workers began gathering outside the factories and union officials distributed signs that read, “Stop the Greed, Share the Wealth.”

“The raises they give won’t cover the increases in the medical benefits,” said Brian Daubert, a production worker at the West Hershey plant.

A deal offered by the company but rejected earlier this month called for worker health insurance payments to increase from 6 percent to 10 percent, then 12 percent over four years.

Workers, who receive an average hourly wage of about $18, would get raises of around 2.6 percent to 2.8 percent each year for four years.

The company offered to enter into binding arbitration Wednesday but the union refused, both sides said.

The labor stoppage is the fifth in the 97-year-old candymaker’s history. The last strike by members of Chocolate Workers Local 464 was a three-week work stoppage in 1980, officials from the union said.

Hershey’s Chocolate World Visitors’ Center, which provides a simulated factory tour ride and souvenir shop for tourists, was not affected by the strike, company spokeswoman Christine Dugan said.

On the Net: http://www.hersheys.com