Hershey union members vote for the future promise of local chocolate, jobs

The Hershey Co.’s unionized production workers opted for a leaner work force in a modernized and expanded plant, rather than clinging to a century-old factory and watching a $200 million company investment go to another state.

In voting 1,317 to 95 for a seven-year contract on Friday, members of Chocolate Workers Local 464 all but ensured that at least 450 of their own won’t have jobs by 2012. That’s when the transition from the plant at 19 E. Chocolate Ave. to the expanded West Hershey facility is expected to be complete.

Actually, the company had said the $200 million in plant improvements would have gone to "alternative locations" in the United States had the Hershey union turned them down. The company has plants in Virginia, Illinois and Tennessee, as well as Pennsylvania.

Under such scenarios, management holds a lot of the cards, said Richard B. Hankins, the head of employment and labor law practice in the Atlanta office of McKenna Long & Aldridge and the author of the law firm’s Labor Relations Today blog.

“It looks like the company is saying, ‘We’ve got to respond to market forces,’" Hankins said of Hershey. "This is the kind of thing that happens in all industries. There comes a point in the life cycle that significant changes need to be made. The union has been given an opportunity to preserve the future of the work force there in Hershey."

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