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Butternut Bread plant requests pay cut from employees

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The Butternut Bread plant in Boonville is going bankrupt and is asking 80 employees to take an 8 percent pay cut along with reductions in company-paid pensions.

Frank Hurt, President of The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), says employees have an obvious decision to make, and they will not choose the pay cut.

“This is the deepest cut I think I’ve ever known of a company ask of its employees; by far the deepest," Hurt says. "It’s almost like they wanted our people to reject it because it was so bad so they could go ahead and sell it off.”

Hurt says this is the third pay cut these employees have had to take. Hurt says he tried to work with the Butternut Bread plant earlier this year, but management failed to come up with a proposal outlining exactly what they needed.

He says the Boonville plant stopped paying pensions about 15 months ago which saved the plant nearly $100 million. Hurt says if that kind of savings can’t save the plant, neither can a pay cut.