Security Guards Hired by Nabisco's Parent Company Become Increasingly Aggressive Towards Strikers

As the month-old bakers’ strike at the Portland Nabisco factory continues to escalate, so do the techniques used by company security guards hired through an out-of-state strike staffing company called Huffmaster.

During the early days of the strike, which first began on Aug. 10 when 200 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 364 walked out of their bakery jobs, the contracted security guards would mostly huddle in small groups on the company’s grounds or meander around the plant property, staying far away from strikers along Northeast Columbia Boulevard.

But the security guards have come increasingly more involved with the protesters—both by using intimidation techniques and getting increasingly physical with union members, as well as with outside protesters.

The standoff between the baker’s union and Mondelez International, the plant’s owner, escalated 10 days ago when the company sent a cease-and-desist letter to local union leadership on Sept. 2, threatening legal action. The union’s attorney disagreed. Mondelez’s attorneys also called the union’s business agent Cameron Taylor to signal they would be seeking a temporary restraining order against the union. (Four days later, Mondelez told the union’s attorney, Margaret Olney, it would not be pursuing the order—for now.)

Read more: https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2021/09/12/security-guards-hired-by-nabiscos-parent-company-become-increasingly-aggressive-towards-strikers/
(Williamette Week)