Author Topic: Hostess is gone!! (And, Unions are evil!!!) (Read 2730 times)

Jehanne · « **on:** March 26, 2013, 07:49:09 PM »

I didn't believe it when I heard about it an hour ago. (Must not have been watching the news last fall.) The lost it all:

http://www.hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter

Prideful fools.

Matto · « **Reply #1 on:** March 26, 2013, 07:50:16 PM »

My dad misses them.

rcentros · « **Reply #2 on:** March 26, 2013, 07:54:17 PM »

Quote from: Jehanne

I didn't believe it when I heard about it an hour ago. (Must not have been watching the news last fall.) The lost it all:

http://www.hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter

Prideful fools.

Why do you blame the unions for the greed of the investors?

Jehanne · « **Reply #3 on:** March 26, 2013, 08:00:24 PM »

Quote from: rcentros

Quote from: Jehanne
I didn't believe it when I heard about it an hour ago. (Must not have been watching the news last fall.) The lost it all:

http://www.hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter

Prideful fools.

Why do you blame the unions for the greed of the investors?

Most of any company's costs are the salaries and benefits of its employees. Hostess could no longer afford the spiraling costs of its union's pension plan and medical benefits. The consumer is only willing to spend so much for a Twinkie, and the market would not bear the cost of making one. Something had "to give," and that something was the Company itself. In the end, the employees lost everything and now many of them are going to end-up with even worse jobs than they would have if they made the necessary concessions to keep their Company afloat.

Sigismund · « **Reply #4 on:** March 26, 2013, 08:21:31 PM »

Their "food" was basically poison. it is no loss, although I am sorry for the people who are now unemployed.

rcentros · « **Reply #5 on:** March 26, 2013, 08:30:12 PM »

rcentros · « **Reply #6 on:** March 26, 2013, 08:33:53 PM »

Quote from: Jehanne

Quote from: rcentros
Quote from: Jehanne
I didn't believe it when I heard about it an hour ago. (Must not have been watching the news last fall.) The lost it all:

http://www.hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter

Prideful fools.

Why do you blame the unions for the greed of the investors?

Most of any company's costs are the salaries and benefits of its employees. Hostess could no longer afford the spiraling costs of its union's pension plan and medical benefits. The consumer is only willing to spend so much for a Twinkie, and the market would not bear the cost of making one. Something had "to give," and that something was the Company itself. In the end, the employees lost everything and now many of them are going to end-up with even worse jobs than they would have if they made the necessary concessions to keep their Company afloat.

Are you aware that, while the executives were tripling their wages and raiding the pension fund, that the workers had already given up $100 million annual cost concessions to them just a few years earlier? Are you aware that (with overtime) a baker was now (at the time of the shutdown) making $35,000 a year (when they had been paid $45,000 a year five years earlier)? -- and that the executives wanted to cut their pay another 10%?

The owners of Hostess were corporate raiders -- the same type of greedy thugs who used leveraged buyouts to destroy so many businesses in the 1990s. As the unions said ...

Quote

The bakery union often derided Hostess’s management, saying it was composed of Wall Street investors and “third-tier managers” from nonbaking companies. It said the investors were trying to “resolve the mess by attacking the company’s most valuable asset — its workers.”

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12928-hostess-failure-not-unions-fault

So, I think, you need to look at both sides of the picture -- and not just read owner's skewed (and lying) view.

As one of the bakers said ...

Quote

Interviews with more than a dozen workers showed there was little sign of regret from employees who voted for the strike. They said they would rather lose their jobs than put up with lower wages and poorer benefits.

"They're just taking from us," said Kenneth Johnson, 46, of Missouri. He said he earned roughly $35,000 with overtime last year, down from about $45,000 five years ago.

"I really can't afford to not be working, but this is not worth it. I'd rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment," said Johnson, a worker at Hostess for 23 years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-hostess-labor-idUSBRE8AL06U20121122

He had been there for 23 years but suddenly it was his greed and the "greed" of his fellow workers that took Hostess down -- not the greed of the new ownership and the general greed of Wall Street, in general, that did it?

Color me skeptical.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #7 on:** March 26, 2013, 11:29:41 PM »

I guess this means if you find an old Twinkie laying around somewhere you can hang onto it as a collectible, since it's not going to decay. It'll be something you can wow the grandkids with 50 years from now along with that fruitcake.

Cato · « **Reply #8 on:** March 26, 2013, 11:58:56 PM »

Ultimately, it's not a Union versus Management question anymore. Even though Hostess is an American icon, not enough people buy their products anymore. The Union and Management just don't have enough assets to quarrel over.

A lot has to do with American eating habits. Dollar menus have won out over home made lunches. Those home made lunches often came with a Twinkie or Ding Dong. Not only are there more Taco Bells for the working stiff, there are more Applebees, BJs, and Soup Plantation for white collar people. Few women stay home anymore these days too. There's no one willing to make a brown back lunch today. It's easier to hit Chipotle or BK. People are more health conscience too. It must have been 15 years since I had a Hostess Twinkie; I think most people haven't eaten one in years, too.

rcentros · « **Reply #9 on:** March 27, 2013, 12:13:21 AM »

Quote from: Catholic Samurai

I guess this means if you find an old Twinkie laying around somewhere you can hang onto it as a collectible, since it's not going to decay. It'll be something you can wow the grandkids with 50 years from now along with that fruitcake.

People were trying to sell Twinkies on eBay for something like $50 a box. I hadn't bought Hostess products in a long time. When I was kid their fruit pies actually had some fruit in them. The last one I tried (a few years ago) had the consistency of apple sauce.

No big loss on the products, but the owners of what's left of Hostess (after dividing what was left in the company and employee pensions amongst themselves) will be selling the brands off to the highest bidders -- so, sooner or later, we'll be seeing Hostess on the shelves again. And I think the Hostess brand still survives in Canada and Mexico.

TKGS · « **Reply #10 on:** March 27, 2013, 06:46:44 AM »

Quote from: rcentros

Quote from: Jehanne
I didn't believe it when I heard about it an hour ago. (Must not have been watching the news last fall.) The lost it all:

http://www.hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
http://hostessbrands.info/ceo-letter

Prideful fools.

Why do you blame the unions for the greed of the investors?

I really would like to hear a reasoned explanation of this statement.

The investors lost the company and are using the assets to pay off their debts. They are not enriching themselves by closing. Yet this seems to be the gut reaction by many people and it is probably the most idiotic reaction possible.

People who invest in business opportunities are not, by that reason alone, greedy. If no one invested in business, there would be no business. Everyone on earth would live on a subsistence basis in homes they built themselves and with only the resources they were able to provide for themselves. And there certainly would be no internet, no forums, and no CathInfo. Instead of "greedy investors", we'd have to worry about greedy strongmen who prowl the countryside killing and maiming and stealing all we work for. In short, the whole world would be like Chicago, except for the comforts that even people living there enjoy.

Jehanne · « **Reply #11 on:** March 27, 2013, 09:19:23 AM »

Quote from: rcentros

Are you aware that, while the executives were tripling their wages and raiding the pension fund, that the workers had already given up $100 million annual cost concessions to them just a few years earlier? Are you aware that (with overtime) a baker was now (at the time of the shutdown) making $35,000 a year (when they had been paid $45,000 a year five years earlier)? -- and that the executives wanted to cut their pay another 10%?

And, what is he making today? $35K is not bad, and as an employee of any company, one could always find a "better job," but, of course, that sometimes takes work, which means getting a degree, more training, better networking, etc. The executives of that Company will continue to do well, probably, elsewhere. Not only did all the workers lose their jobs, they also lost all of their health insurance and dental care, which is, IMO, one of the principle reasons to have a job in the first place.

SJB · « **Reply #12 on:** March 27, 2013, 11:15:35 AM »

Quote from: Sigismund

Their "food" was basically poison. it is no loss, although I am sorry for the people who are now unemployed.

Only if you consider ALL processed food to be poison. It may not be the healthest food, but you aren't supposed to live on Twinkies. They were basically sponge cake with a whipped fat filling.

Renzo · « **Reply #13 on:** March 27, 2013, 11:25:51 AM »

Eventually, they'll just make the snacks someplace where they can literally pay workers a tenth of what they pay american workers and they won't have to pay any benefits or taxes. If the workers do try an organize, the state will send in the army/police to break it up. Of course, those countries are also seeing their birthrates falling dramatically, because women are being forced to work, because their husbands don't earn enough to support a family, because the wages in the factories are too low to support a human family. Thus, the family is going into general decline, all over the world. Hence, the coming demographic crisis.

SJB · « **Reply #14 on:** March 27, 2013, 01:24:47 PM »

Quote from: Renzo

Eventually, they'll just make the snacks someplace where they can literally pay workers a tenth of what they pay american workers and they won't have to pay any benefits or taxes. If the workers do try an organize, the state will send in the army/police to break it up. Of course, those countries are also seeing their birthrates falling dramatically, because women are being forced to work, because their husbands don't earn enough to support a family, because the wages in the factories are too low to support a human family. Thus, the family is going into general decline, all over the world. Hence, the coming demographic crisis.

The trend is to automate and eliminate line workers. Those who leave by retirement are simply never replaced. This is true in most healthy manufacturing companies. The number of jobs simply decreases over time without any major layoffs.