HERSHEY — Members of Chocolate Workers Local 464 voted overwhelmingly Saturday to approve a new contract with Hershey Foods Corp., ending the longest strike in the company's history.
The April 26 walkout of 2,700 workers largely idled two chocolate plants that make up nearly a quarter of the largest U.S. candymaker's production.
Yesterday, the union's hot line had a message saying members had voted to approve the new contract 1,848 to 226.
Company spokesman John Long said workers would begin to return to their jobs at the start of the week.
It was not immediately clear what was in the contract. The major sticking point during the dispute had been the amount of money employees would contribute to their health care premiums. The company had wanted workers to pay more of the health care expenses in order to contain costs.
Thursday's tentative agreement came just after the company brought in a busload of strikebreakers to run one of the plants. They continued working at the downtown plant through Friday, Long said.
During the strike, members of the union affiliated with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union had derided chief executive and board chairman Richard H. Lenny as an outsider in a community that had previously seen Hershey as a benevolent employer. Workers portrayed him as the chief symbol of a profitable company that rewards executives with huge bonuses and scrimps on worker benefits.
The company's cost-cutting has included $310 million to close three manufacturing facilities and eliminate 600 jobs, among other things, while it sells some of its peripheral brands like Luden's cough drops.
