5/6/2023 0 Comments Chicle isoul![]() ''When my son got out of high school, I told him, 'You're not going to hang around - you're going to work at Chiclets,' '' Mrs. Many husbands and wives, parents and children work at American Chicle. The family atmosphere is not entirely by chance. She said: ''I've enjoyed every minute of it. Kear has been a feeder-catcherpacker, boxing the packages of gum as they hurtle off the assembly line. ''It's just like home.'' For 16 years Mrs. ''It's a beautiful place to work for,'' said Rose Kear. ''You can't do anything about it, I guess,'' said Stella Cisek, 60, a machine operator who has worked at American Chicle for 14 years. But the work force has had a low turnover -the average tenure is 17 years - and high loyalty. Rumors of a shutdown had been circulating in recent years as the company reduced production and let the payroll shrink from 1,000 workers in 1976 to its present level of 455. ![]() The announcement was not entirely unexpected at the 60-year-old factory, a five-story building covered with peeling cream-colored paint and tile fragments. ![]() ''Fundamental changes in the competitive nature of the marketplace have made this move necessary,'' the company said. Last week, however, the Queens landmark was doomed to oblivion when the Warner-Lambert Company, which acquired American Chicle in 1962, announced that it would shut down the factory in Long Island City by the end of this year. Scott Fitzgerald's ''The Great Gatsby,'' the Dentyne/ Chiclets sign on the American Chicle factory has become an inevitable part of the scenery for travelers on the way from Manhattan to Long Island. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |