For Chobani’s Workers, an Unexpected Windfall

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/opinion/for-chobanis-workers-an-unexpected-windfall.html

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To the Editor:

Your April 27 front page starkly dramatized the moral range of today’s corporations, from depraved to inspiring.

“In ’06 Slide Show, a Lesson in How VW Could Cheat” shows a company engaged in the most cynical, shockingly destructive behavior imaginable. “At Chobani, It’s Not Just the Yogurt That’s Rich” reveals the fairness and generosity of a chief executive, Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant, who has decided to pass on 10 percent of his company’s value to his employees, turning some of them into millionaires.

Unfortunately, the news about Chobani is the more surprising.

IVAN KREILKAMP

Bloomington, Ind.

To the Editor:

I commend Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, for recognizing the workers who have made him very wealthy. Owning shares in the company provides a tremendous opportunity for the workers at his plant in New Berlin, N.Y., an area where working at a state prison or owning a small dairy farming business are two of the limited options.

While Mr. Ulukaya’s acknowledgment of the plant workers is monumental, it neglects the hundreds of dairy farmers who have been making increasingly less money supplying Chobani with its main ingredient: milk.

Mr. Ulukaya’s profits are a result of paying dairy farmers the convoluted federal minimum price for milk, and the Greek yogurt boom is driving the price down. That price is so low that it is pushing many of New York’s small family farms out of business.

I urge Mr. Ulukaya to extend profit shares to the dairy farmers and farm workers who toil each day to supply Chobani with fresh, high-quality milk. This would set a strong example of how we can revitalize rural America. And to those Chobani workers turned shareholders, I hope you will make this the first order of business at your inaugural shareholders meeting.

LAUREN MELODIA

Brooklyn

The writer is general manager of Milk Not Jails, which promotes economic alternatives to rural America’s dependence on the prison industry.

To the Editor:

The generosity of Chobani’s founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant, toward his employees displays that immigrants remain a key foundation of what makes this nation great.

America welcomed my grandparents and parents, who left Communist Cuba for a better life and future, with open arms. Immigrants play a vital role in our nation’s economic future and prosperity. Unfortunately, with the talk of building walls and deportation throughout this presidential election cycle, many Americans are forgetting this.

President John F. Kennedy wrote, “Every aspect of the American economy has profited from the contributions of immigrants.” As this article shows, truer words couldn’t have been spoken.

ALEJANDRO LICEA

Odenton, Md.