My coworkers brother has been less than a month shy of 30 years and he was offered only 4 months severance
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How untrue this article is, only a handful of employees were offered positions.
Tarrytown — When Kraft-Heinz eventually closes its offices here, it is poised to take with it nearly $800,000 in regional tax revenue and relocate 130 employees, officials say.
"That's a hit for all of the taxpayers in Tarrytown," Village Administrator Michael Blau said.
Montefiore Medical Center, which bought the property from Kraft Foods Group two years ago for $33 million, uses half the 300,000-square-foot building for administrative and back-office operations. It leases the other half back to Kraft-Heinz. The leaseback arrangement was struck in 2012 when Kraft downsized its Tarrytown operation, leaving about 200 research and development staffers to work there.
Kraft, which merged with Berkshire Hathaway-controlled H.J. Heinz Co. earlier this year to become Kraft-Heinz, recently eliminated 2,500 jobs across North America as part of the merger. Closing Tarrytown is part of the company's effort to centralize research and development operations, company spokesman Michael Mullen said.
All of the Tarrytown employees are being offered jobs elsewhere, Mullen said.
While Blau and other officials pleaded with Kraft in 2012 to keep a presence in Tarrytown, it was with the understanding the company would eventually move out one day, which now appears fast approaching. Mullen said the timing of the closure is still to be determined while village officials said all they can do is wait and see.
"They have to make a business decision and we have no say," Blau said.
With the glut of office space elsewhere in Westchester County, Blau said he would expect Montefiore to take over the entire building for its own uses. But that also would mean Montefiore's nonprofit status would exempt it from paying any village, school, town and county property taxes. It now pays about $172,000 in village taxes and $524,000 in school taxes on the part of the building leased to Kraft-Heinz.
Montefiore's leaseback agreement with Kraft-Heinz has a no-cancellation clause but both parties are negotiating an exit proposal, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Gurrisi said, adding that Montefiore is still looking into its options with regards to the space and had no immediate announcement.
Blau said it could be too much to expect Montefiore to aggressively recruit new tenants given the supply office space nearby.
"There's so much vacant office space in Westchester County, it's hard to market the Montefiore space," Blau said.
The building dates back half a century. At the time of the its dedication in 1957, General Foods, which built the structure and was later bought by Philip Morris and merged with Kraft, deemed it "the largest and most modern food research facility in the world."
Kraft is very into the class system. When I was let go, I got a 1 years severance with full benefits. My friend, who was non-exempt, got 6 months and they had worked there for about 16 years. I had 21 years.
Yes, non-exempt. Madison, OM Plant
Non-exempt, right? He should have a decent pension and 401k after 30 years. There are other people in worse positions. Good luck.
what plant was affected, if you can say?