About 100 Weld County workers found themselves abruptly out of a job Thursday after the farmer-owned bakery in Firestone ceased operations.
Gerards Bakery gathered workers for an 8 a.m. meeting to tell them the company was out of business and they would no longer have a job.
They also were told that the paychecks due them today would not come, said Marta Moreno, executive director of El Comite, a human-rights advocacy group based in Longmont.
Moreno came to the scene to help translate and mediate after angry workers refused to leave, which they eventually did peacefully.
Rather than close the plant after the last pay period, Gerards worked them another two weeks and then failed to pay them, Moreno said.
“They have families, rents to pay, bills to pay, kids to feed,” Moreno said. “This is very low and disrespectful.”
“Because of the situation, we can’t comment,” said Gary Knight, president and chief executive of the Mountain View Harvest Cooperative, which owns Gerards.
The cooperative in 1997 purchased Gerard’s French Bakery, a baker of artisan breads that started in 1972.
The bakery added a plant in Livermore, Calif., and then in Mount Airy, N.C., and counted as its customers grocery chains and restaurants such as Quiznos, IHOP and Red Robin. Those plants are closing as well.
About 369 farmers are part of Mountain View, which purchased Gerards as a way to use its members’ wheat, which until recently was plagued by low prices.
In the past two years, wheat prices have skyrocketed, driving up more than threefold the flour prices the bakery paid.
Customers of the bakery, under their own pressures as consumers cut back on spending, couldn’t absorb the price hikes and the farmer-owners were unwilling to provide flour at below-market prices.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
How to get help
Advocacy group El Comite, which is offering assistance or employment to former Gerards Bakery workers, can be reached at 303-651-6125.
