Real Reason For The Muzio Baking Closure

There is a rumor floating around Sacramento that the Muzio Baking Company closed so the owner could sell the property to one of the local hospitals. The offer to the employees was intentionally low to facilitate the closure of the business.

“The writing was on the wall. We thought we could ride it out, but … we just couldn’t continue to raise our prices,” said David Fahn, who owns Muzio with father Mervin Fahn, who bought into the business in 1955, eventually taking over the bakery. “We’re not making money, we’re losing money.”

“We needed to ask the employees to make some concessions in pay,” David Fahn said. “We notified the union that this was our final- final offer to keep us from the breaking point.”

But the concessions were too great, said Jerry Gil, an agent with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 58, the local bakers union. Among them, a cut in pay from $18 to $10 an hour. A second option would have cut pay to $16 an hour, but employees would no longer receive health benefits, he said.

A counteroffer in which employees would contribute more money toward the company’s benefits plan was rejected, Gil said.

Fourteen employees, including the company’s eight bakers, will lose their jobs. Source SacBee