Posted on 05/31/2007 9:40:33 AM PDT by BurbankKarl
On a warm May weekend in this Central Valley town, the irony was as thick as melting fudge.
As usual, the annual Chocolate Festival was drawing hordes of fun-seekers. However, they were streaming in by the thousands just two weeks after Hershey Co. — Oakdale's biggest employer and the nation's biggest candy company — announced its plan to close its sprawling plant, eliminate all 575 jobs and open a new factory in Monterrey, Mexico.
On one side of busy Yosemite Avenue, the festival drew children to games where they slathered their heads in syrup as their parents patiently stood in line to buy bookend-size chunks of toffee.
Across the street, to frequent, approving honks from motorists, protesters waved signs denouncing the company whose philanthropic, long-dead founder is still reverently referred to by some local employees as Mr. Hershey. One man wore a T-shirt that said on the front: "Where did 'the great American candy bar' go?" Asked for the answer, he whirled around to display the back: "Mexico!"
For Hershey workers in Oakdale, globalization is no longer just an abstraction. Like legions of other Americans, they suddenly face questions as immediate as how to make a living and as far-reaching as whether their 20th century manufacturing skills will count for much anywhere else. Production at the plant is to be phased out by the end of the year.
The 113-year-old company has described the plant shutdown as part of a "global supply-chain transformation." Some 3,000 of Hershey's 13,000 workers will lose their jobs, including as many as 900 in the company's hometown of Hershey, Pa., where the streetlights are shaped like Kisses. By 2010, Hershey says, the moves will save shareholders as much as $190 million annually.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Who is their American competitor?
Score another win for the US sugar lobby. US confectioners are fleeing to Canada and Mexico in droves because the cost of sugar in the USA is absurd.
For 40 years, voting for democrats is what got us here. Recently however, its been the republicans support in destroying American business by forcing them out of the country by regulation, tax burden and social burdens.
well no more hershey choclate for me then. I really don’t like choclate blended with salmonela and ecoli.
Makes sense, that is where the Spanish found the coastal inhabitants of Yucatan drinking a liquid call “chakolada”.
Cool. If they want to use slave labor, I won’t buy any of their products.
This plant had a nasty industrial accident last year, there was a thread about it. Further down the article they state they are leaving because sugar prices are double in the US than what they are in Mexico (due to subsidies), labor is 10% of what they pay in CA...and you know their workmens compensation bills skyrocketed.
Of course, even with all those costs savings, and trucks from Mexico delivering to most of Southern Californa, do you really expect the price of one of those skinnier Hershey bars to drop? No Way!
-now I have to give up chocolate? sad day
ping
Mars among others. But I think they're shipping a lot of production overseas. The protective tariff on suger imports is responsible for a lot of it, along with cheaper wages overseas.
Yeh, till Mexico nationilizes their plant and kicks them out.
It's gonna take a heck of a lot more then that......then.
Thanks. I appreciate the quick answer to my query.
“Some 3,000 of Hershey’s 13,000 workers will lose their jobs,... By 2010, Hershey says, the moves will save shareholders as much as $190 million annually.”
$60,000 per employee?
Do Mexicans work for free?
So they are changing the name of the candy to Hershey’s Besos?
New World Order at your service. NWO= greed
I only use Hershey chocolate chips for pancakes, coookies, etc. milk chocolate so kick a$$ over semi-sweet (/rant)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.