Posted on 04/24/2007 8:21:11 AM PDT by Wolfie
Hershey to Close Reading, Pa., Plant
The Hershey Co., the nation's leading candy maker, said Monday that it will shut down a plant in Reading as part of a wider move to cut labor and materials costs.
The closing, which will affect about 260 unionized employees, is the company's second plant-closing announcement in a little over two months.
"Our network operates at less than half of capacity (over seven days) and we must make significant changes to remain competitive," Hershey (nyse: HSY - news - people ) spokesman Kirk Saville said.
Saville said the company would work out severance agreements with the workers and close the plant in 2008. Hershey is looking to shift more manufacturing to India, China, Mexico and contractors in the United States, and has already announced it will cut up to 900 of the 3,000 workers from three plants in its hometown.
Hershey originally purchased the Reading plant from the Dietrich Corp. in 1987 and brought aboard the Luden's cough drop brand and the Fifth Avenue chocolate bar.
The plant also makes York Peppermint Patties, Reese's crispy crunch bars and Jolly Ranchers. The plant is about 40 miles east of the company headquarters in the town named for the chocolate magnate, Milton S. Hershey.
The plant in Pittsburgh where they were made closed about 10 years ago. Some other company bought the brand, but it's been a while since I have seen them too. I don't know if, or how widely they are marketed now.
I do know that with the high US sugar tariffs, it's tough for domestic candy makers to compete on the world market.
IOW, these (unionized) workers cost the company more in pay then they turn out in work.
They'll still make it here, but in a right-work-state, I'll bet. PA did it to themselves. I'm not gonna blame Hershey for not being able to make it in PA. Same thing's happening to NYS. Same reasons, too.
Backstory....Rosie O’Donnell gives up chocolate as part of a new diet./sarc
Goodbye America.
” I suspect that he wouldn’t mind making the rest of us pay two to three times the world price for sugar”
We already are ... which is another reason confectioners are closing down or moving jobs overseas. But agriwelfare and subsidies roll on.
What happens is Rosie gets the “Hershey squirts”? Will one square of toilet paper be enough? Probably will take a whole roll - maybe two.
And they will be “soft yellow” too!
(_?_) Nobody in the U.S. works for $2.50 to $12.50 a week as the producers in China pay. No matter what the union workers were being paid, Hershey would be outsourcing.
It’s part of the ongoing raping of the American middle class by business, the Republican and Democrat parties. Those three are selling out this nation for the money. It’s “W”ism working at its full potential.
“W”= Jimmy Carter light but he’s getting close to the real thing.
Baloney. The unions have a strangle hold on big business and local governments. The unions are bleeding both dry. They are killing the Pittsburgh Port Authority. Bus drivers make 91,000 a year,don’t pay for medical,and have a huge retirement package. Unions are bloated and corrupt.
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
If politicians buy access, subsidize it.
If jobs are lost, complain.
I don't think so. They're doing what they think is best for the company, you can't blame them for that. Their responsibility is to make a profit for the shareholders, not to make sure everyone has a job in candyland.
I used to be an AFL-CIO member and my level 2 pay rate topped out at about $12.50. There was only one union rate about a dollar higher than mine with only 3 or 4 people earning that.
It wasn’t the unions that killed that shop, it was simple greed. Collins and Aikman bought the company and immediately started closing the other shops. Ours was the headquarters and was still fairly profitable.
When they finally did close the doors they didn’t do it immediately they started cutting hours back to part time and hiring illegals through a temp service at $6 an hour. When they had driven all the full time employees away they sold the contracts back to GM and Chrysler, sold the equipment and dumped the empty building.
Incidentally, Collins and Aikman is the company David Stockman was involved with before being indicted for defrauding investors.
Great news for India, China and Mexico!!
Just what PA needs, another plant closed. /sarcasm
Exactly. Very hard to compete with a worker with equal skills that make the exact same amount PER WEEK; and is extremely happy to get it!
Me too. I buy a `six-pack’ or two of Hershey bars every week or so.
But if I’m going to buy foreign, I’ll buy Toblerone.
(Hershey’s curdles their milk anyway, if you wondered why the sour taste.)
“Y’all hear that suck’n sound now? Well, do ya? “
I thought I heard a suck’n sound during the Clinton Administration.
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