Frito Lay’s closure wipes out 134 jobs of Bakers Union

Frito-Lay called its workers together at 4 a.m. on Sept. 30 to tell them that it will be shutting down its “Grandma’s Cookies” plant and warehouse in Beaverton within 60 days.

The closure will wipe out 134 family-wage jobs that paid on average $15.50 an hour, in addition to health and pension benefits. Among the casualties are 93 employees who are represented by Bakers Local 114.

“It was a total shock,” said Local 114 Business Manager Laurel Koch. “They told supervisors at 3 a.m. that morning and the rest of us were notified an hour later.”

Koch said three other plants — one of them a union shop in Allen Park, Mich., with 300 members — and two non-union plants received 60-day notices of closure on the same day as the Beaverton workers.

The announcement coincided with the release of a quarterly report by Frito-Lay’s parent company, Pepsico, which reported earnings of $1.36 billion — an increase of 35 percent from a year before.

A company spokesperson said the closure was due to “an ongoing productivity drive.”

The Beaverton plant produced Grandma’s Cookies, pretzels, energy bars and “Rich & Chewy” candy. Koch said cookie production will be relocated to Tennessee and that pretzel production will be curtailed because of low sales.

The union embarked on “affects bargaining” Oct. 11-12 in hopes of securing a severance package for the union workforce — one-third of which has been with the company for 20 years or more.

In its heydey in the late 1970s, the plant once located in Northeast Portland employed more than 500 members of Local 114, plus Teamsters and Operating Engineers.

“This is the worst time of year for this to happen,” Koch said. “Winter is a slow time for most of our union shops.”

� Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.