West Side Groups Renew Push for Local Hiring at Cloverhill Bakery 

Workers and labor organizers gathered Oct. 23 at the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, 5500 W. Madison St. in Austin, to demand that JTM Foods LLC, the new owner of the former Hostess plant at 2035 N. Narragansett Ave. in Austin’s Galewood neighborhood, honor promises to hire directly from the surrounding community rather than rely on temporary staffing agencies. 

The meeting — billed as a community solidarity hearing — was hosted by Westside Workers United, Get to Work Inc., the Northwest Austin Coalition, and Working Family Solidarity. It followed months of outreach to JTM Foods that organizers say have gone unanswered since a March “speak-out” outside the bakery. 

“We fought very hard to win back local hiring,” said Edie Jacobs, founder of Get to Work Inc. “When JTM bought the bakery this year, we reached out and could not get a hold of them. We met once in April, and since then, nothing. JTM has been AWOL.” 

The Galewood facility, known locally as Cloverhill Bakery, produces cinnamon rolls, honey buns, danishes, and other packaged pastries that supply major retailers across the country. JTM Foods — a Pennsylvania-based company best known for its JJ’s Bakery snack pies and other sweet baked goods — purchased the plant in March from The J.M. Smucker Company as part of a $40 million acquisition. 

Jacobs and others said community advocates helped increase local and Black hiring at the bakery after years of campaigning that began in 2017. But since JTM Foods took over from The J.M. Smucker Company in March, advocates argue those gains have eroded. 

According to figures tracked by Westside Workers United, the share of Black employees has fallen from roughly 24 percent to 15 percent in six months. Organizers attribute the decline to renewed reliance on JobSquad Family of Workforce Solutions, a Downers Grove-based temp agency, rather than direct hiring.  

“Temp agency hiring is bad — local direct hiring is good,” Jacobs said. “Qualified people from this area keep applying and keep getting rejected.”

Victoria Smith, 26, a single mother from Austin, said she has applied repeatedly for positions at the bakery without any explanation for why she hasn’t been called back.

“I moved to Chicago two years ago because it seemed like there were more job opportunities, but the experience has been horrible,” Smith said. “My Indeed account shows I’ve applied for 244 jobs. I can do the work at JTM, but they don’t hire many people from the neighborhood.”

Anthony Carr read a statement on behalf of his cousin Cassandra Ellis, a former bakery worker who left in August after six years on the job.

“They care more about honey buns than people,” Ellis wrote, saying job stress worsened her health conditions and that two relatives who applied this summer never heard back.

Veronica Vaca, an organizer with Working Family Solidarity in Little Village, said her group joined the Austin campaign because “direct hire jobs are the best jobs for working families.”

“They usually offer more stability, more workplace rights, and help strengthen local economies,” Vaca said.

Michelle Samluk, senior human resources director for JTM Foods, and Joe Amboyer, vice president of operations, met briefly with Jacobs and other organizers after the March 31 speak out and said at the time the company was committed to community hiring. In an interview then, Samluk told The Culture that JTM had “two jobs posted right now and … only hire[s] community members,” adding, “We’re more about direct hires.” 

Jacobs said that commitment hasn’t materialized. She noted that JTM held a job fair on July 31 without notifying Get to Work or other community organizations that had previously partnered with bakery management to recruit local candidates. Organizers learned about the event independently and brought a van of neighborhood jobseekers, but only one person was hired — and not on the spot, as promised. 

After the hearing at the Aspire Center, the workers traveled to the Galewood bakery to deliver a statement expressing their demands to JTM Foods executives, who were unavailable to meet. Samluk could not be reached for comment on Oct. 24 about the most recent complaints.

Jacobs said workers will continue pressing JTM to reinstate community hiring commitments and to meet publicly with neighborhood organizations before the year’s end.

“Everybody in, nobody out!” she said. “We’re not going backward on fair jobs in our own community.”