‘Twas moronic, retrograde unions that killed the delicious beast.
Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said.
“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”
To review what happened: Hostess is struggling in the anemic economy and needed to cut its costs to survive. It cut worker pay and benefits, but its workers were unionized, and members of its second-largest union went on strike. Go ahead and strike, Hostess warned, but if you’re not back to making Twinkies by 5 p.m. Thursday then you won’t have a job to come back to because the company will die. The union workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, stayed out on strike. Well, some of them did. Some of them crossed the picket lines, only to have the union leadership threaten to fine them. It’s hard to fine people who don’t have any money, but whatever. Today, Hostess says it’s kaput. The Twinkie is, at least temporarily, dead.
But I’m sure liberals out there will say that the company’s CEO is just doing it wrong. There’s no such thing as an economy so weak and at the same time so hostile to companies working on tight margins that all costs of doing business can’t just be absorbed or passed on to the customer — who, by the way, is less and less likely to have a job allowing them to afford to buy Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
It is possible that Wonder Bread, the Twinkie and the Ding Dong may not be dead after all. The quote above hints that the recipes and brand names, as well as the companies’ bakeries and other physical assets, could live on after Hostess sells them. Maybe Little Debbie will ride to the rescue.
Other casualties of the death of Hostess include Dolly Madison, Drake’s, and Nature’s Pride.
Hope ‘n change off the cliff, thanks left/libtard union agitators.
Zerohedge has a good writeup of this.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
Lando: This social compact deal is looking worse all the time. (puts hand to throat).
Was there not a series of private equity LBOs that led to the current “Hostess Brands” management?
Same thing happened when Nabisco offloaded Stella D’Oro to private equity, after RJRNabisco had been LBO’d by KKR. KKR paid too much, the debt could never be paid off, and that is what happens when you reward “vulture capitalism”.
Assuming the background scenario is the same?
There’s that term (vulture capitalism) again.
Point of fact is that the left has killed the goose that lays the golden eggs in favor of a one time goose dinner.
Eat up now – because a famine is coming. Enjoy!
There’s plenty of fault to go around, and pretending that it’s all the union’s fault doesn’t help us address the real problems.
It might make you feel smugly superior, but it doesn’t do America any good.
We DO have a huge problem with short-sighted greed in our business community, and short-sighted “get mine NOW” decisions leave weakened companies in their wake.
This short-sightedness is manifested in many ways, one of which is our willingness to take on impossible debts, in order to gain a short bump in the stock value so that executives can profit.
They system is badly broken, and the unions are a big part of the problem. But only a PART.
Even if that were true, the situation is what it is and the responsibility for the solution lies in the hands of those who are in a position to do something now. A refusal to accept reality and move forward towards a solution, even if is not the best outcome one can imagine for oneself, does not relieve people of the responsibility for what happens as a result of their decision.
If debt were the driving force, then bondholders would have been in a position to accept a significant reduction in principal or interest rate rather than taking the nearly total loss they now face. No news article currently out on this subject indicates that interest payments were a driver. The position of the Teamsters union strongly support the position that employee compensation was the issue.
So, we made this mess now you can mop this up. Suck it up? Legitimate situations where working together may be beneficial, but it’s being designed in the process. It’s getting old.
Trouble is, any successor/buyer gets the contracts in place and the duty to bargain with the striking union remains. In a sane world, the company could attempt to use replacement workers for the strikers, but in Comrade Obama’s world, the NLRB would NOT be a neutral and it would rain unfair labor practice complaints and restraining orders. Since much of the rest of the company is unionized, the other workers may resist working behind a picket line or alongside replacement workers. The individual employees might be willing to work but “union solidarity” would trump. This may well be the end of the brands.
No, not if they just buy the assets in a liquidation. And the recipes are IP. They can be sold, too.
Actually, the way it works is like this. To bust a union you have to close down your business for one year at which time you can reopen your business on a clean slate if in a right to work state. Otherwise, he comes the union workers again and –
Someone buys the assets (including IP) in the bankruptcy. They move to Texas, or Chihuahua, and start making Twinkies again. Union discovers people using big baking machines aren’t worth more than the price they can charge for Twinkies.
The snack food void will be filled.
Hipsters love $5.00 designer cupcakes to fuel them as they speed around on their single speed bicycles. They also love irony. They will happily pay big money for vegan, organic, sweat shop free boutique twinkies and HoHo’s.
The largest baking company in the world is Pan Bimbo of Mexico. Pan Bimbo bakes many familiar brands in the USA and makes a mexican version of the twinkie south of the border. Mexican twinkies will soon invade the USA.
For true twinkie lovers the emotional void will never be filled.
Like the brainwashed voters, the unions decided that they want everything.
And they will have nothing.
Unions, Obamacare, and anti-capitalist policies will kill the economy.
That’s probably why unions, that used to be 60+% of the private sector work force, is now below 12%(??) and dropping steadily. People are finally waking up to the fact that unions are suicidal and have been for 140 years.
Bambi just took action to allow the Unions to get the personal addresses/emails/phones of non-union workers so they can try to pressure them into joining…
“Nice little house/car/family ya got there…Sure be a shame if sumpin’ was ta, you know, “HAPPEN” to it…. Now If you wuz ta join our mob, uh, Union, we could, ya know, sorta, make sure nobody bothers you…”
See here: http://washingtonexaminer.com/reward-obama-nlrb-looks-to-give-workers-private-contact-info-to-unions/article/2513567#.UKZ8B4ZsvMh
which refers to an AP story that backs it up…
Quote from AP:
“A new rule expected from the Labor Department would force companies to reveal relationships with so-called union-busting consulting companies even if the companies have no contact with workers. The National Labor Relations Board is expected to start work on a rule that would force businesses to turn over workers’ phone numbers, emails and shift times to union organizers.”
Outrageous…
If this were me, I’d fight this all the way to the USSC. So much for privacy.
Meathead finally got Archie’s Twinkies.
RIP, Twinkie.
Meanwhile, you might want to save this article as a standard template. For some strange reason, I think you’ll be writing quite a few of these RIP notices in the next few weeks, months, years.
Good one!
Wrong! Rest in peace for Hostess.
The various brands such as Twinkies will be sold to other companies without the union workers & their exorbitant pension & health plans. Hostess could not afford these plans structured as they were to remain competitve. To pay off the creditors, the brands will be sold at a discounted price.
Twinkies & other viable Hostess brands will be back in the market soon.
duh.
They want a bailout of course. And why shouldn’t they expect one?
It’s happening faster than you expected, isn’t it?
But don’t worry, Karl Rove and John Boehner are hard at work proving that they can win the next “election” and compromise with Attila the Hun. That’s leadership!!
Shut-in bloggers and computer programmers hit hardest…
– now if only government workers would go on strike.
Who would know?
the coastal asphalt, getting a rest
Maybe a package deal, you get a free Chevy Volt with a box of Twinkies.
Maybe if they color them green, they can get a $500,000,000 loan from Obama.
First the face eating bath salt consuming living zombies, then mindless hordes moving in concert to wring the life from those few left (at the voting booth) – now the twinkies are gone…
I thought all this time that the movie Zombieland was a work of fiction – not a documentary!?!?!?
with CO and WA legalizing weed use, I predict this will end badly…
This is the story of the unions: they kill their own jobs. They hang themselves (and unfortunately, we all have to suffer by losing Twinkies) when you give them enough rope.
I guess they don’t think they need their jobs, after all. And another 18,000+ to add to the unemployed stats.
“And another 18,000+ to add to the unemployed stats”
And two years of Unemployment bennies.
These Union Bums will milk us one way or another
Interestingly, the extended (2-year) unemployment benefits “unextend” after the fiscal cliff.
Shouldn’t the Left be happy? They want us to give up sugar, right?
And Wonder Bread? Isn’t rye or wheat better for you?
The Left should be celebrating Hostess’ demise. Michelle must be jumping for joy.
Even the twinkie has gone galt, I’m next.
I realize the logistics are against it but it would be nice if they could reopen the bakeries in China.
just like the Union movement to attack wal mart. Their website is Ourwalmart.org. Sound familiar. You didn’t build that wal mart. No that Wal Mart couldnt work on being better to employees but a Union would destroy the whole idea of Wal Mart. Cheap prices that is…
Wait, no Drake’s Coffee Cakes?
This really sucks.
That’s a new name for me. Where are they from?
Eastern Airlines.
Plenty of others aside from Eastern. Even if the unions don’t kill the entire company, many times they have celebrated higher wages and benefits even as thousands of fellow union workers lost their jobs, something the union bosses agreed to allow to happen. Just look at the Aerospace industry alone for examples of this.
Strike at LAX just in time for thanksgiving day travel. Cause JUST as much pain as possible!
First, I’m as anti labor unions as you can find! However, its finally poetic justice for “Hostess”
Most of you aren’t old enough to know their unwrittten history. If you didn’t agree to become a part of hostess for only a few pennies on the dollare they ran you out of business with $.05 and $.11 cent bread when the normal retail was $.15 to $.25 cents. They started by destroying nearly every local bakery and thus, most flour mills in nearly every county seat in the plains states and bigger and bigger prey over time. They were an early Walmart only just in the bakery line.
When was this?
Those prices sound like the 1930′s or earlier.
How long did Hostess use these tactics?
No snark please, I am genuinely curious.
This sounds close to how Hormel established dominance, except I don’t recall hearing about the coercive side.
BTW, I’ll miss the Cupcakes.
Ed, I’m not into what I believe “snark” means.
As best I remember, it was the early or mid 50s about the same time as the local dairy creameries plants were highjacked in much the same manner. I think our local bakery lasted about a year after they were extorted and the flour mill about another three years. They simply “dumped” bread, buns and rolls, etc., off in community retail stores and what didn’t sell in a weeks time at their give-away prices they donated to the small area hog farmers.
Today, Suiza Foods/Dean Foods are the kings of consolidation and dairy market share. They have about 35-38% of the national market and in some market areas as much as 95-98%.
The early consolidation of foods manufacturers and processors was a very dirty business with a lot of very negative consequences for most of rural america’s communities much like the eventual consequences of Walmart on communities.
Of course today, consolidation and centralization has left no economic industry sectors untouched.
Nothing wrong with underselling the competition as long as you’re not dumping product (i.e. deliberately selling it at a loss because you can afford to lose money longer than the competition can and thereby put them out of business).
– United, the only way to not fly.
Buy up the equipment and move to right to work states. I’m sure Texas, Alabama and others would just love to have those jobs. Just make sure to leave the union slobs behind.
I think that Irving, TX is their headquarters.
And I think there are federal laws that prevent companies from busting unions that way.
The original Anti Trust laws were amended to prevent their use against Unions. It makes no sense to me, after all if microsoft monopoly is bad, and standard oil monopoly is bad, why isn’t a labor (union) monopoly of teachers, bakers, auto workers etc bad?
Prior to Standard Oil, oil was pumped into barrels. Each barrel was hand loaded onto trucks and/or train cars, shipped out, and unloaded again either at the final destination or other trucks and trains for more moving.
Standard Oil developed the tanker, both train and truck, which could be filled much more easily and the oil delivered also more easily. This greatly reduced the cost of business and they thrived. I think they also started oil pipelines which cut costs even more.
Either way, instead of copying this successful pattern, the other companies whined to the politicians in their pockets who, in order to protect their benefactor and grab more power, they started anti-trust proceedings. They all ended up copying the tankers and pipelines anyway, but they still got their jollies ripping into a competitor using pull rather than business acumen.
Actually, it is the phrase authorizing “… concerted activity for mutual aid and protection …” and the compulsion of the employer to recognize them in the Labor-Management Relations Act that gets them around the anti-trust and conspiracy in restraint of trade issue.
If correct, that may have applied to Hostess. However, if another companies buys the equipment, they should be able to move it where ever they like. The new firms could move to free states.
Otherwise, I won’t be surprised of that stuff ends up heading to Mexico or China, either whole or after it’s been chopped up for scrap metal.
No, if you buy one of their bakeries, you get the union contracts with it and you get a duty to bargain with the striking union. If you relocated to a right to work state, you still get the unions but the unions can’t compel dues as a condition of employment and a smart employer can usually decertify within a year or so – or at least that’s the way it was back when we had laws. In a sane world, you can get the Bakers to impasse and impose the bankruptcy courts terms and begin hiring replacement workers. It was a minefield to do this even with neutral Boards, but it could be done. Now that the Communist SOB has given the NLRB to the unions, who knows what an employer can do.
What could happen is that another company looking to expand into the snack food market will buy the IP (brands, recipes, etc.) and start making Twinkies in their own factories. The ovens, mixers, and other capital equment will be purchased by Hostess’ competitors at a steep discount and shipped to wherever they decide to build or expand factories. The land and buildings will be seized for taxes and either lie vacant or be purchased at auction for redevelopment. One thing I’m fairly certain of, there won’t be any baking going on at those facilities for a long time.
So the unions “won 100% of NOTHING! Maybe b.”INSANE” obama will issue an executive order that Hostess has to stay open no matter HOW much money they lose. Can’t have his union buds on unemployment for ONLY 99 weeks because that will endanger democrat candidates in 2014. I know, let’s just make unemployment an open-ended entitlement (for union members and no one else).
WAIT????
Why didn’t the workers just take over the machines? DO THEY NOT OWN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION???
Are you saying …the workers can’t make Twinkies without management telling them what to do?
No, they don’t own the means of production, and if they did what you suggest without buying them, they’d be shut down and arrested for violating several laws.
Remember those photos of empty bakeries in Russia, the lines of babushkas still standing outside for days to get a loaf as soon as the delivery truck arrives..
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Stood in line six hours to get a loaf of bread
I got empty racks instead
I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR
I wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that the Baker’s union leadership is in a conspiracy with Hostess’ competitors, and connived with them to drive the company into liquidation.
Yes…the unions really DO work that way. I was rank and file union for over twenty years. Even the Teamsters union was telling the Bakers that this wasn’t the smartest move, but they did it anyway.
Good luck getting any investigation of this going though.
The nutter libs I know are blaming it on the CEO’s pay raise. Those eeeevil 1 percenters.
According to that zombie movie, Twinkies have a shelf life of 40 days. Enjoy them while you can, Talahassee.
Is the Obama economy to blame for the first time Hostess declared bankruptcy? Which happened in 2004? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe that Obama was president in 2004.
Any of the media outlets want to talk about how much the unions gave back to the company in an attempt to stave off that 2004 bankruptcy? Nah, didn’t think so. Every one of those 18,500 employees who lost their jobs knew this was coming because Hostess has been run by idiots for years.
Also haven’t heard too much in the news reports about how private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings swooped in in 2009 and loaded Hostess down with nearly a billion dollars of debt financed by GE Capital and hedge funds Silver Point Finance and Monarch Master Funding among others. Kind of hard to stay afloat when you’re saddled with that kind of debt. Of course Ripplewood, GE and all the rest have already made a killing off of the downfall of Hostess. If you don’t understand how that could be, just ask Mitt Romney, or do a little homework on how private equity works. No, no no, never mind reality, just tune into Fox and believe that Twinkies are gone because those greedy union workers went on strike.
Were 18,500 jobs lost in 2004? No?
Thanks for playing. Obamee owns every single one of these lost jobs, along with the corrupt union thugs who work for him.
Funny how in reality conservatives are the ones who love to play the victim and blame someone else for their problems.
Hostess should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and take some personal responsibility for their situation.
Hostess owns every single one of those lost jobs because they were horribly mis-managed.
Or to paraphrase Herman Cain, if you can’t run a successful company, don’t blame the government, blame yourself!
Thanks for playing.
Well, Hostess played its part in making America obese. Sorry to see the union jobs go, though. The middle class just got smaller today.
To all the anti-union posters: you are the perfect example of why Republicans are going to have a hard time winning national elections.
It will be you union thugs, retards and leftist commies that have something coming, real soon. It’s called NO MONEY, zip. The productive will stop producing and no revenue will result which means you thieves will actually have to go out with guns and try to steal the money directly.. at which time you will be shot dead. I’m waiting for all of you.
And there it is, the ill-informed “they’re doing it wrong” argument. Government is never wrong, unions are never wrong, Forward! Comrades! Forward!
Yes, believe it or not, companies go under because they are poorly run. Some fail to adapt to changes in the market, some have a hard time effectively managing resources and liabilities, while others can’t deal fairly and honestly with labor. Hostess seemed to have a problem with all three. I know it’s so much easier for you to blame Obama, but really, pull your head out of the sand.
Forward!
Unlike most of the people yammering here, Bryan, I’ve spent most of my adult life in labor relations. When I was young and dumb on the union side, most of my career on the employer side though now that I’m retired I’ll take a little union work if I like their position.
We on the conservative side of the ditch do nothing for our cause with a kneejerk “the employer is always right” response to LR issues. The employer is OFTEN wrong, often stupid, often avaricious, often arbitrary and capricious. Unions don’t win half or more of all the cases they take to arbitration or labor boards because the deck is stacked for them, though sometimes it is; they win because they were right.
I don’t know the facts of Hostess’ financial position but they sure wouldn’t be the first company that was taken over, drained of everything of value, and the bankrupt husk left behind. Even without much unionization The South is littered with derelict textile plants simply abandoned to become Superfund sites.
Now where I get crossthreaded with unions is I don’t believe that management is any of their damned business. They get to bargain over wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment – PERIOD! Management policy is not a part of the duty to bargain. If the union thinks the management is taking the company down the tubes, they’re well advised to start seeking better layoff rights, better severance packages, training and relocation allowances, etc. but they don’t have a right to bargain over the path the company is taking. At the rank and file and elected leadership level, most union activists are active because they think their talents haven’t been recognized by management and as much as they protest to the contrary, what they really want is to run the company. This is why the people whose job it is to actually run the company tend to really, really dislike union activists. My name is on the appearance line at the arbitration or labor board level of several cases that went to the State Supreme Court and every one of them was about where the line was drawn between mandatory subjects of bargaining and permissive or illegal subjects that impinged on management prerogatives. Oh, and I got a few things wrong along the way, too.
^^^^ What Art said. ^^^^
Unions need to be there in a properly functioning system, they just can’t let the hotheads get carried away, or you get a result like this. And they need to stay out of politics. But when some dildo manager starts promoting his son-in-law, somebody needs to be there make them follow proper process.
The real problem is that the unions very quickly start pursuing their own agendas and start ignoring the reason why they are there in the first place. Things always end badly when one side thinks they have all the power. In this case, the union thought they had the power to force a company to lose money indefinitely. Just like the government does. To an economic illiterate, it makes sense. And this misperception cost them their jobs.
I’m sure Art could tell you stories about the union loudmouth running around the plant telling them that they’re lying about bankruptcy, and have a secret money stash. Every plant has such people, and they tend to be active in the union. Unfortunately, too many people bought the story. They must have honestly thought the company was sitting on a secret bank vault somewhere where managers spend all day diving into the money piles like Scrooge McDuck.
I’d like to hear what they’re saying today.
Equity firms make mistakes. Like it or not, Bain was not in business to invest in and then shut down companies.
In this case, though, Hostess does have debt, for whatever reason, that is reality. The private capital firms came along because the company was already struggling based on a stagnant market, high labor costs, and non-competitive work rules, just like the difference between Nissan’s assembly costs vs. GM’s. GM is obsolete, the old Hostess was obsolete in a world where fewer people eat Twinkies and more eat jerky.
So now the current union is striking in defiance of a court-imposed union contract revision where the judge looked to see what is necessary to survive in today’s market. Instead, they chose to kill their jobs. Good luck all of you. I have little sympathy- I’ve been through the death of three different employer firms, and every employee I knew would have applied for their old job at different compensation had they been able to do so. Lifetime employment in a company is not a right- the company has to survive first.
Maybe the union can stop wasting its money on perks for the leaders and political action, and invest in some of these companies to actually help their members.
The Teamsters in fact have an equity position. Read the linked piece below for a look at the tangled web of DEMOCRATS that own the mess and organized the deal that led to this bankruptcy.
Sure, but the strike does prove that the unions didn’t feel these jobs were worth saving. Hostess told them straight up that they either go back to work or there won’t be a Hostess anymore. Regardless of how they got to this position, the union was left with the choice to go back to work and take the deal they were offered or stay on strike and let the company go out of business. They chose to let the company go out of business. Now, the company may well have gone out of business in a few months anyway, but the workers chose to hasten that day. I hope it works out well for them; may they find better jobs somewhere else.
“…Hostess has been run by idiots for years.”
Are you talking union members? Too? No, unions have nothing to do with the worplace. No power to change things there.
Adjustments? Not part of an ongoing businees plan? That satanic ownership and those non-union workers wanted Twinkies to go to Hell. Baking is “free” there, and “the wages” are “free” too.
This is a choice one – “Kind of hard to stay afloat when you’re saddled with that kind of debt.”
Like… $17 trillion?
Do YOUR homework, dimbulb.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
Liberals – the GENIUSES – own this one.
Pull your OWN head out of the sand.
Aren’t liberals the ones who are always opposed to labeling and prejudgement? Maybe I have that wrong.
That is an INTERESTING piece. So, Dick Gephardt was the rainmaker, the leading “vulture capitalist” is a big-name Democrat and the Teamsters Union has an equity position. ‘Course the taxpayers are going to eat a good bit of that $2B in unfunded pension and somebody will probably make a LOT of money off the real estate holdings. I thought all the evil financial people who caused people to lose jobs were Republicans. Slaps forehead!
“Every one of those 18,500 employees who lost their jobs knew this was coming because Hostess has been run by idiots for years.”
So these overworked, underpaid, starving union workers spent years knowing they were working for idiots, what does that say about them. They must be idiots themselves.
“Delicious”?
Moderately palatable, at best. Maybe if Hostess had made something worth eating…
Apparently Teddy Kennedy had quite a few of those. With a 25-year shelf life some may be still in his body.
Tell me again what unions are good for?
Apparently this one was all about cheap snack cakes and tobacco products. Sorry for snickering, but the stereotypical union idler inexplicably comes to mind.
Legally, Hostess may be liquidating, but chemically? Not possible.
LMAO!
We can all get high paying jobs working for the gubmint. No worries mate.
Michelle Obama & Mayor Bloomberg must be smiling. No more unhealthy snacks for you! Now come the baker’s union bailouts!
Al Powell: “You alright, Roy?”
John McClane: “Just firing down a thousand year old Twinkie. What do they put in these things anyway?”
Al Powell: “Sugar enriched flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, polysorbate 60 and yellow dye #5. Everything a growin’ boy needs.”
Classic.
Local news showed union strikers at a plant back from the town I was from.
They can go home now, permanently. The company is finished.
This is biting off your nose to spite your face.
What’s worse… making less money or making NO money.
I guess they’re all going on the obama payroll now.
Oh Noes! What will we fat people do?!
chug cans of sweetened condensed milk? YUM!
There’s always the Lard Glug Homer and Marge drank a couple of seasons ago. Yummy,
That’s easy – move to Cleveland, get on disability and pick up your FREE OBAMA PHONE!
I don’t get it, union guys. Help me understand wouldja? Why can’t someone who doesn’t like his or her job, just quit?
And go finds theyself another job?
How come they want to stay holding the job they don’t want, while their cost and presence wrecks the whole enterprise for everybody else –how does something that weird get to enter the picture?
How come all the union fellers who went to work at their dad’s and grand-dad’s shop, don’t seem to care anymore whether or not the company will be able to offer the same careers to their own sons & daughters?
===
anyhoo, maybe there’s something we aren’t seeing.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/hostess-goes-under-developers-drooling-over-prime-/nS75b/
I don’t know the status of the Hostess bakery here but it is on one Helluva valuable piece of property.
Generally, it’s not the union worker’s fault but the union officials who enrage these uneducated workers to strike. I’m sure if the workers knew the facts they would agree to the concessions that management proposes, which seems reasonable compared to current standards, in order for them to keep their jobs by keeping the company solvent.
The union officials are everyday turning more & more irrelevant. Many of the typical union grievances have been corrected by state & federal laws & applicable agencies.
Except to some degree in the skilled trades, probably 70% of union members are members only because they have to be and pay dues to keep their jobs. A miniscule percentage of union “members” actually go to meetings and take any active part in union affairs other than voting on contract ratifications and such. Consequently, unions are “run” by a small but very active and often radical minority. The Teamsters had a moment of uncharacteristic honesty when they said that the Bakers’ rejection of the concessionary terms should have been by secret ballot rather than a voice vote at meetings at the Halls. I’ll guarantee you that was mob rule or simple “counting until you get it right” union democracy. Think the vote at the Democrat Convention on putting God back in the platform.
In a stable, long-established bargaining relationship, there is really not much to bargain about on any ongoing basis except when some new federal or state program comes out or there is some technological change. I represented a public employer in bargaining from 1987 to 2006. The bargaining relationships had been relatively stable since bargaining began under Democrats in ’72. We were broke because of the oil price crash of the mid-80s and wanted concessions. We never really got any because we never had a governor willing to take the heat of a work stoppage. We did however hold the line economically for the better part of a decade and get some operational concessions by taking away some Democrat giveaways. Most actual bargaining is about keeping wages up with inflation and since the ’80s managing the cost of health care. From the late ’80s we told the unions that every dime that went to healthcare costs was a dime that didn’t go on paychecks and were actually able to get some pretty significant concessions on co-pays, deductibles, stop-losses, etc. so that even though we offered what many would call a “Cadillac Plan” our costs were quite low relative to other large, unionized emloyers. The technological changes of the 90s led to a lot of bargaining about privacy rights on employer computers (none in my time) and such, but basically in a stable relationship it is all about arcane local work rules, union reactions to perceived management abuses and such. Usually if the union is smart, they let some of the “aggrieved” employees either be on the bargaining team or come and say their piece at the table whereupon the employer assumes its expected role and tells the aggrieved employees to go die; everybody thus living up to their billing.
On the grievance front, grievance being defined as a complaint under a contract that the contract has been violated, somebody is always doing something stupid. Employees do stupid stuff and get disciplined so the union grieves the fact or level of discipline. Supervisors, believe it or not, do stupid stuff and the union alleges a contract violation. This is the routine of life in a unionized environment.
Can’t The One just declare this a “green” business? That would qualify them for a couple hundred million at least…
Green Twinkies? Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.
Soylent Green is people!
One hideous movie that everyone should see just once.
First they came for the Twinkies. And I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a computer punk…
Darn, liberals have successfully circumvented the poison aimed at the 47%.
Soon antique twinkies will appear on Antiques Roadshow. Remember items kept in original packaqging are worth more. Fortunately Twinkies will survive almost any type of disaster….I know this for a fact
Good riddance. If you can’t afford to pay your workers a decent wage, you deserve to go out of business. No more Twinkies means less diabetes and less obesity, which means fewer fatties in the ER on my dime. It’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.
Forward! Comrades, Forward!
I have no doubt that there are plenty of hard working people out there who would consider Hostess’ wages decent. However, the union would rather destroy the company than let others who want to work, work there. So, it is not win-win, it is lose-lose.
One of my favorite stupid union stories took place at Philco Radio in Philadelphia in the 1930′s Philco sold their first radio in 1929, the year the stock market crashed. During the Great Depression, they actually GREW to become the world’s largest radio maker. Along the way they increased their employee roles by thousands. During the Great Depression… They employed so many because they prided themselves on making everything in-house. They even made their own screws, nuts and bolts. So, how did the unions thank this innovative, job-creating company who was adding jobs while others were going out of business? You guessed it, they went on STRIKE! Yippee! We will teach greedy Philco! Philco was forced to give in, but the unions could not stop them from outsourcing things like screws, which they needed to do in the harsh business environment in order to survive. In the end, the union “won” but at the expense of a few thousand jobs.
Philadelphia and the surrounding region was the “Japan” or “China” of their day. From RCA and Philco radios, to ships and Baldwin locomotives, the regions’ products were exported around the world. Fittingly, today there are few union manufacturing jobs left in Philadelphia. The Hostess workers can now proudly add their names to those who helped destroy American industry.
They still make Tastykakes in Philadelphia. They’re way better than the Hostess stuff. Just don’t eat too many or you’ll look like the Obama Phone Woman.
You must be one of those tolerant, caring lefties we keep hearing about.
Lack of activity is still bad too, though. An improvement in diet is always good, but one needs to keep busy to be truly healthy. Whether one performs manual labor (what’s that mommy?), or office work (what’s that mommy?), work, if nothing else, can give one a sense of purpose. Or make you money (what’s that mommy?).
I hope they just don’t start to eat more “bad stuff”, to make up the difference. How about more cheeseburgers? (“cheeseburgers! cheeseburgers! cheeseburgers! no Coke! Pepsi!”) Or pizza? Steaks? How about more beer? Oh, I know! How about if Obama puts them ALL out of business?
I’m sorry. I meant to say, how about if George Bush puts them all out of business? At least America’s obesity will finally change. (i knew that damn Bush was up to no good)
I just hope they don’t eat more “bad stuff” to make up the difference. How about more cheeseburgers? Or pizza? Hotdogs? How about more beer? OH, I know. How about if Obama puts them ALL out of business?
I’m sorry. I meant to say; how about if George Bush puts them all out of business? At least America’s obesity problem will have changed. And Bush will have finally done something right! I mean left. I mean…..ummmm…. never mind.
Sad, we’re left with one Twinkie, and one Hoho,……..aka, The First Couple.
LOL.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Obama will now give all the out-of-work union guys cell phones with monthly charges paid, welfare payments, food stamps, and they won’t have to do any work – they will just have to vote democrat forever.
“to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce…”
Bravo Zulu morons. Eat Twinkies now…very Reagan of that CEO.
Grupo Bimba of Mexico to the rescue. Thanks Obama.
You’d think the market for things like twinkies would be booming right now, what with all the millions getting food stamps to buy them, paid to sit on their couch watching soaps while eating them, then getting their resulting diabetes treated all on the taxpayer’s dime. For a lot of people on food stamps, if they can’t find a way to turn them into liquor, tobacco, or drugs, they’ll spend them on the cheapest least healthy things they can. Anything you can eat right out of the package without taking the time and effort to prepare. Stuff like twinkies, doritos, McDonalds, and soda are always a big hit. I’ve known plenty of these people, if I’d wanted to I could’ve eaten very cheaply in college because people were so eager to trade $60 worth of food stamps for $30 in cash to go support their habits. You would think cheap fatty stuff like this would be thriving in the Obama food stamp economy.
You would think so. It must mean Bushanomics still really, really, suck. Don’t worry though, Obamanomics will change everything. (sarcasm)
–but that $30 goes back to $60 once in the Chicago mob’s hands, because it generates no tax liability, and has the same buying power as $60 of taxable income. So, you see, it’s all fair in the end.
To paraphrase Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat Twinkies.”
R.I.P. Hostess
- Alexander the Great
Went to the grocery store this evening, and just for the heck of it my wife and I took a look at the snack cake shelves. Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, and Ho Ho’s gone, gone, gone! Lots of the little Hostess donut things left, but all other Hostess products were gone.
Woo, Hoo! At least 99 weeks of unemployment and then right on to disability for life due to extreme “mental distress.” Obamanomics in operation, and its FREE, FREE, FREE! (sarcasm off)
Let us celebrate the life of the Twinkie.
http://policyinterns.com/2012/11/16/a-paean-to-the-twinkie/
Obamacare Summed Up in One long Sentence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdnY8r7_fLw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
…in the end, it was just little old ‘cash-flow’ that stopped the ‘grow-into-the-oversized-capital-structure’ plan.
The financing is identical to that of the USA itself, the article makes the point, only if Hostess was the USA it could create the needed cash flow by the Fed and Treasury endlessly supplying and demanding Twinkies.
Something very similar happened here in the 1980′s. A well established local manufacturing company, Valley Foundry and Machine Works, was put out of business by a wildcat strike. The union membership wanted increases in wages and benefits. The owners kept saying we cannot afford this. The union’s head guys asked to see the financials that would support this. After looking at the books, they told their membership, the owners were correct and advised them to accept the final offer. They didn’t and the membership voted for a wildcat strike. Valley Foundry shuttered their doors and has remained closed since.
Until we let business run business, this sort of thing will continue.
it was probably a good move on the part of the union. Company was going down anyway and the money made from the sell off of the assets may go to fund the pensions. If you were in position to benefit, you would have gone along too, not for the country, but for your own family- just the way it is.Don’t take it so personal.