Black Workers Hold Halloween Street Action against Ferrara Candy Company Demanding Good Jobs and Equality!
Letters to Editors
Ferrara Candy Company is a well-known candy maker. They make such historic brands as Red-Hot’s, Boston Baked Beans, and Lemon Heads. Ferrara is also a leading marketer in the African-American community, especially during the Halloween season. Yet, until recently, Ferrara in Forest Park refused to hire blacks. Now it treats many as second-class workers. Ferrara also locks up hundreds of jobs in temp agencies that pay poverty wages , continually delay checks, and refuse weekly schedules. This despite the fact that African-Americans buy Ferrara Candy at stores all over the Westside.
On Tuesday October 28th scores of angry black workers and their community allies descended on Ferrara Candy Company to hold a Halloween Street Action to demand jobs and the dismantling of the pervasive segregationist-sweatshop employment model of discriminating in hiring against blacks and other U.S. born workers-while preying on Mexican immigrant workers to do degraded jobs in abusive working conditions.
“We are building an alliance of workers whose immediate task would be to fight systemic discrimination that exists both in hiring and on the job . We need to challenge the system that has given rise to the epidemic of joblessness in our community, but the jobs we want must pay living wages! said, Theresa Welch, of the South Austin Coalition.
This alliance will also struggle to end wage theft and unsafe working conditions for west side workers, and would cooperate with groups focused on economic development.
For more information, contact: Elce Redmond, 312-213-3989, elce@sbcglobaI.net
