WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 36G Business Representative Tom Bingler, Vice President Robert Darby, President Scott Baer and Trustee Chairman Roger Sessamen (pictured above from left to right/Photo Courtesy of BCTGM Local 36G) stand outside Buffalo’s Seabar Restaurant on Wednesday (February 1st) prior to a meeting with owner Mike Andrezjewski, who is representing the Buffalo Bills and the City of Buffalo Saturday at the National Football League’s Taste of the NFL event in Houston, the night before the Super Bowl on Sunday.  BCTGM Representatives met with Andrezjewski to make him aware and ask him for his help in a current Labor Dispute involving Minneapolis’s Franklin Street Bakery and its owner, Wayne Kostroski, a key player in the NFL’s Taste Event.  

(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 22 has been involved in an “extremely difficult campaign” with the Franklin Street Bakery and its owner Wayne Kostroski - who the Union charges has taken a “vicious” Anti-Union approach to his Workers’ efforts to organize.

According to Local 22, Kostroski is “typical” of the hypocrisy of many employers who attempt to stop their Employees from Unionizing, but involve themselves in high-profile and charitable organizations - which attempts to mask the way the Union says he and his company are “severely mistreating” its Workers by “denying them their basic right to Unionize.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in Houston, the National Football League is celebrating the Super Bowl with a number of high-profile and charitable events this weekend - including its Taste of the NFL, where a selected restaurant from each of the NFL’s member 32 cities will offer one of its most delicious offerings.  The event features some of our country's top chefs and the NFL's greatest players joining together to raise money to support food banks across the U.S. 

According to the event’s web site (www.tasteofthenfl.com), the Taste of the NFL - which is held on the eve of the Super Bowl in the host city - is described as a “unique way to experience exceptional cuisine, meet NFL players and coaches and support our fight against hunger.” 

Through the efforts of hundreds of volunteers who help make the Taste of the NFL - Party With A Purpose the single most successful charitable event at the Super Bowl, the Taste of the NFL organization helps feed 37 million Americans who’ve turned to their local food banks for assistance, the web site states.

And wouldn’t you know it - Kostroski happens to be the founder and executive director of the Taste of the NFL, which has been around since 1992 and is a registered 501c3 organization.  In fact, according to the Taste of the NFL’s web site, Kostroski has led this charge for more than 23 years.  And - according to the BCTGM, Kostroski and the co-owner of Franklin Street Bakery receive $500,000 in compensation for running the Taste of the NFL event.

Representing the Buffalo Bills and the City of Buffalo at the Taste of the NFL event will be the Seabar (www.seabarsushi.com) - a sushi bar/multiple cuisine restaurant owned and operated by long-time restauranteur Mike Andrezjewski, who had some Union visitors knocking on the door of his Ellicott Street restaurant on Wednesday (February 1st).

BCTGM Local 36G President Scott Baer, Vice President Robert Darby, Secretary-Treasurer Joe Nosbisch, Trustee Chairman Roger Sessamen and Representative Tom Bingler all spoke with the Seabar owner to personally make him aware of what Kostroski was doing to his Workers in Minneapolis, before asking for his help.

“We met with Mike’s wife first and then had ‘a great conversation’ with him.  Mike was ‘very receptive to our concerns,’” Bingler (pictured below with Andrezjewski, third from the left, and the BCTGM Local 36G Representatives, including Secretary Treasurer Joe Nosbisch at the end at the right) told WNYLaborToday.com. 

“He told us he would call (BCTGM Local 22 President Bruce Peglow in Minneapolis).  He said he would ‘hold his opinion’ until he did, ‘but promised to check into it.’  He and his wife ‘were very nice to us,’” Bingler also told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.

According to a letter sent by BCTGM International President David Durkee to BCTGM Locals in all NFL Cities, the Union is “attempting to have a letter delivered to the management of each of the ‘Taste of the NFL’ participating restaurants around the country, informing them of Kostroski's Anti-Union, Anti-Worker actions.”

In a letter from BCTGM Local 22 President Bruce Peglow to BCTGM Local 36G, he wrote: “(Kostroski) Bakery Employees report ‘poverty’ wages, ‘unaffordable’ health insurance, ‘lack of time off’ to care for family members, ‘little opportunity’ for advancement and raises, ‘favoritism’ and ‘unfairly applied’ policies.  While his Employees have ‘continued their legal right to explore whether to form a Union to improve their conditions,’ Kostroski and his management team have ‘continued to violate those rights.’  Recently, the National Labor Relations Board found Franklin Street Bakery management ‘broke the law’ at least fifty times, including: Interrogating Employees about their Union Activities; Creating the ‘impression of surveillance’ of Employees' Union Activities; ‘Threatening’ Employees with plant closure ‘because of’ their Union Activities; Implementing activities which ‘prohibit’ Employees from ‘talking at work;’ and sending Employees home ‘early for conducting Union Activity.’”

“Mr. Kostroski's ‘continued behavior’ toward his Employees, ‘many of whom must resort to using a food pantry just a few blocks away from the bakery, severely detracts from the great work the ‘Taste of the NFL’ does in fighting hunger in cities across the country,’” Peglow also wrote.

In the end, isn’t it ironic that Kostroski and his Franklin Street Bakery is involved in such a worthwhile event as the Taste of the NFL that helps to alleviate the problems of hunger by providing needed funds to assist food banks across the country, while at the same time his own Employees are allegedly resorting to food pantries just a few blocks away from his Minneapolis bakery to make ends meet?

The BCTGM hopes that point isn’t lost on those restaurants and chefs from across the country who are participating in this weekend’s Taste of the NFL, as well as the National Football League and the Unionized players it also represents.