Icy goodbye from Ben and Jerry?

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Polls and surveys have voted Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s among the most worker-friendly bosses in the US, and now they are fed up with their new bosses and might be quitting, reports CONSCIOUS CHOICE. The ice cream industry’s most progressive leaders were bought out by Unilever in April, and were discouraged with the recent appointment of a Unilever veteran as CEO, instead of their preferred candidate.

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The founders say they were duped into believing empty promises from Unilever. “I am troubled because there were a bunch of commitments made by Unilever which I thought were legally binding, but now I understand they are not,” said co-founder Ben Cohen.

“We have not decided whether or not to remain with the company,” their recent public statement said. Their disappearance could hurt sales for myriad reasons, but perhaps primarily because consumers associate the company with those two friendly guys from Vermont, not a multinational laundry detergent manufacturer.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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