Over the factory entrance near the Brooklyn Navy Yard is a brand name known all across America.
Cumberland Packing Corp. employees and union representatives protest the company's decision to end its manufacturing operation in Brooklyn.
The words “Sweet’N Low” are emblazoned on a musical scale, marking the spot where businessman Benjamin Eisenstadt manufactured the first artificial sweetener back in the 1940s.
Since then, the Cumberland Packing Corp. — founded by Eisenstadt — has been churning out millions of packets. More recently, it has branched out to natural brands like Sugar in the Raw and Stevia in the Raw.
But the sweet years have suddenly turned bitter for Cumberland’s workers.
Two weeks ago, company CEO Steven Eisenstadt, Benjamin’s grandson, convened a meeting of his 320 unionized employees and made the surprise announcement that he plans to shut down manufacturing in Brooklyn by the end of the year and to shift that work elsewhere — reportedly to an unnamed contractor in Minnesota.
“They admitted to us they’re still making money,” said Mark Carotenuto, president of Local 2013 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. “They just want to make more. This is all pure greed.”
Sweetener has been manufactured in the city since the 1940s.
Maria Mijangos, a packer at the factory for 26 years, was stunned.
“None of us were prepared for this,” Mijangos told the Daily News. “My husband has been at the plant for 24 years. We have three daughters to support. How are we supposed to survive?”
“I’ve got a rent of $1,200 a month and a teenage son, and I’m not sure what to do,” said Delbert Ranger, a machine operator at the plant for the past six years.
The workers are mostly immigrants and their average pay at Cumberland is about $13 an hour, a low amount cushioned only by a decent benefits package.
“Cumberland wants to help every employee who wants a new job find one, and they want to give retraining and job search services to anyone who is interested in them,” said Stu Loeser, the company’s spokesman.
The Eisenstadt family should at least be credited for staying in Brooklyn so long after other manufacturers fled the city, noted Loeser, and the firm will still keep a certain number of office jobs in Brooklyn after production is shifted.