Tina Rosenberg, NY Times, May 29, 2019.
If you want a job at Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, N.Y., just north of the Bronx, it’s yours. There’s no background check, drug test, credit check or call to references. Greyston won’t even interview you. You just go into the bakery and put your name and contact information on a list. When a job comes open and your name is next, you start work as a paid apprentice.
Greyston was founded in 1982 by Bernie Glassman, a Buddhist Zen master from Brooklyn. He had opened a small bakery and cafe to support a community of Zen students. The mayor of Yonkers — which at the time claimed to have the highest rate of homelessness in America — invited Mr. Glassman to move there. Following the Buddhist principle of non-judgment, the bakery hired local residents who wanted work, no questions asked. Greyston Foundation, which owns the bakery, also runs community programs, such as supportive housing, job training and community gardens.
The bakery (it’s actually a factory — there are no rolling pins here) supplies all the brownies for Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. You can buy Greyston’s brownies in Whole Foods and Wegman’s, and Delta gives them out on flights. All 71 workers on the bakery production line got there through open hiring. The bakery has been profitable since 2009.
Comments (0)