Working Families Party: Why Does Pez Get Sweet Treatment?

The Connecticut Working Families Party isn’t so happy with Pez Candy Inc.  

Activists from the minor party are currently picketing an Orange, Connecticut factory that produces the little sugary candies.  They are urging the state to dispense with a program of granting below-market rate loans to businesses under the economic development umbrella of creating jobs.

Chanting “One company; Two million dollars; Three jobs,” the group, organized by Working Families Party, expressed its displeasure with the Pez deal. The group’s chant was in reference to the low-interest loan the company got in 2006 and an audit that found Pez’s employment had increased by 3 workers in 2010, though supporters of Pez and say the number is inaccurate.

The protest comes on the heels of protests across the country over corporate influence in government affairs and just a month after revelations that the federal government provided a $528 million loan to a now-failed California solar company, Solyndra.

In 2006, Pez took out a $2 million, 10-year loan at 2 percent interest as part of a nearly $9 million upgrade of its factory on Prindle Hill Road in Orange, where it makes the candy that goes into its iconic dispensers.