NO JUSTICE, NO

Workers who make Easter treat hunt for fair deal

FOR PEEPS sake.

The candy company behind the iconic marshmallow Easter treats is embroiled in a bitter labor battle that could have lasting repercussions for workers across the country.

A pension fight and residual ill-feelings over a labor strike have led to mounting troubles for Bethlehem, Pa.-based Just Born Quality Confections, famous for their sticky-sweet chick and bunny-shaped goodies.

In January, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the company against its workers for going on strike.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl ruled the confectioner failed to prove the 400 union employees violated a no-strike clause. The company is appealing the decision.

The workers, members of the Bakery Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union, walked off the job in 2016, upset that Just Born was attempting to block new employees from its pension plan.

The strike lasted several weeks and candy sales were disrupted, but the company would not budge on its pension stance.

Workers protested outside the Bethlehem facility, some chanting “No Justice! No Peeps!” according to Hank McKay, president of the union’s Local 6 chapter, which covers roughly 400 employees at plant.

Only 100 took part in the protest, which petered out as the company began hiring new workers and union employees went back to work out of fear that they would be replaced.

“If they break the union, do these people realize they could lose everything?” Gordon Grow, a mechanic who spent 41 years at Just Born told The Washington Post, which detailed the still-brewing battle this week.

Grow retired after the strike because he refused to go back to work with those who crossed the picket line.

Union officials called off the strike, but animosity crept into the candy plant, according to workers.

A list of workers who crossed the picket line was posted under the label “scab” was quickly ripped down.

McKay called the suit against the union and the appeal “frivolous.”

“It’s kind of sad because we have workers who have been there for decades,” he told the Daily News. “The original owners and the workers have built the company to what it is. They’ve (the owners) forgotten how they got where they are.”

The third-generation family-owned company, founded in 1923, is the ninth-largest candy company in the U.S., according to its website. Candy Industry magazine projected Just Born’s net sales would climb to $231 million in 2016, up from $222 million in 2014, The Washington Post pointed out. Just Born Vice President Matt Pye told The News that the company is not trying to “avoid the obligation we have to the fund for existing employees” and that they have new hires’ best interest at heart. The candy manufacturer argues that allowing new workers to enroll in the massive multi-employer retirement plan it funds along with roughly 200 other