The move puts 220 employees out of work. Some of those workers are calling for a boycott of Jay's products.
Most of those 220 employees made less than $12 an hour. But they say their jobs are desperately needed. And they want Chicagoans to express their disgust at the Jay's deal by not buying the brand in their hometown.
"This has been a Chicago brand since 1921, and for them to take it away from Chicago, and leave 420 people out of work, I think there should be no more chips ate in Chicago, period," said Nikeeta Walls, Jay's employee.
With only more day at their jobs, and nothing to lose, about a dozen soon-to-be-laid-off Jay's employees held a small, snowy protest outside the plant, 800 E. 99th Street. The workers -- 90 percent of whom are immigrants from Mexico -- are outraged that Snyder's, which bought bankrupt Jay's for $24.5 million, had offered a severance package that included only one week's pay and will not compensate them for accrued vacation time.
"I worked too many years and what I got? Nothing. That's not right. I think that's not right," said Aracely Martinez, 26 years at Jay's.
"We've been looking at each other for years, you know, loyalty to this company. And they had none to us. They showed us nothing. They gave you a letter and said adios," said Walls.
Before the sale was settled Tuesday in bankruptcy court, it was agreed that Pennsylvania-based Snyder's would not be required to honor the existing union contracts in Chicago. Effective Friday, Snyder's will produce all Jay's branded products in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
About 420 warehouse and distribution workers will remain at their jobs for the time being until Snyder's revamps its routes and the rates it pays drivers to deliver Jay's snack foods to Chicago-area stores.
Two priests who joined the workers outside the plant blasted Snyder's, as well as Jay's, for closing their deal so close to the holidays.
"It doesn't matter when it happens, In the middle of the summer or Christmas Day, a tragedy that things like this happen to honest working, good honest people," said Rev. Tom Moran, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Jay's, with a total 640 workers, had been the largest employer in the South Side's 8th Ward. The concern now is what to do with the soon-to-be abandoned plant that sits just off the Dan Ryan Expressway.
