HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
COURTESY OF JARED MILLER
BREAD LINE
husband, who’s had two heart attacks, go without it. Her paycheck
brings in just enough to cover the
mortgage payment and utilities,
but the money is so tight that they
often have to forgo her husband’s
costly heart medications, she said.
“We are skilled bakers, and they
advertise us as artisan bakers,”
said VonEitzen. “I’ve been in the
restaurant industry most of my
life. ... This is less money than I
worked for 10 or 20 years ago.”
Most fast-food jobs don’t entail
a formal training program like the
bakers’ do. Landing a job in the
kitchen is seen as a considerable
upgrade from manning a register,
with an attendant raise of a couple bucks an hour, not to mention
a more marketable skill set when a
worker wants to leave. Jared Miller, a fellow baker of VonEitzen’s
in Michigan, says he waited a year
working out front at his Panera
cafe before he had a shot at being
trained as a baker in the back. He
jumped at the opportunity.
Given their designation as
craftsmen, a number of Panera
Bread bakers in Michigan decided a year and a half ago that
they wanted to join a union to
improve working conditions and
earn something a little closer to a
middle-class living. (The bakers
do not work for Panera but for a
Panera franchisee.)
Their effort to become the first
unionized group of Panera workers in the country has led to a
prolonged and ugly legal battle
with their employer, Paul Saber, a
major Panera franchisee and former McDonald’s executive. Saber
seems determined not to recognize the bakers as a union, carrying out what appears to be an
aggressive anti-union campaign,
judging from complaints with the
federal labor board.
The percentage of U.S. work-
Jared Miller,
25, worked
as a Panera
baker to
pay his way
through
school.