On Thursday, July 9, U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, called for a boycott of Oreo cookies and other Nabisco/Mondelez products as a result of the parent company’s recent closing of its 60-year-old bakery in Northeast Philadelphia, a result of which about 350 employees were laid off.
Standing next to a poster board depicting an Oreo cookie with a red circle and line through it, along with the words, “Say no to Oreo,” Boyle conveyed the belief expressed by many displaced workers that Mondelez plans to relocate the jobs to a new bakery near Monterrey, Mexico, which the company says will become the world’s largest facility of its kind when complete. Mondelez has said it is consolidating the work formerly performed in Philadelphia with its existing operations in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and Richmond, Virginia.
“Now, keep in mind this is a company, Mondelez, that is in no way in financial disarray,” Boyle said.
The company generated more than $34 billion in revenue in 2014.
“This plant that was closed is profitable, but not profitable enough,” Boyle added. “But there is good news! I do congratulate their CEO, Ms. Irene Rosenfeld, who got a fifty percent pay increase in the last few months at the same very time over three-hundred workers from my district were getting laid off.”
For the full video of Boyle’s speech, visit www.c-span.org and search videos for “Say no to Oreo.” ••
