BIDDEFORD, Maine — Labor leaders in Maine say the resilience of the Hostess workers on the picket line at the company’s Biddeford plant, which is in the process of being shut down after the company on Friday said it would liquidate the business, gives them inspiration in the face of what they believe have been ongoing efforts — by politicians, including Gov. Paul LePage, and corporate investors — to reduce union influence.
Bakers’ union officials and their supporters say also that the demise of Hostess Brands Inc., which failed to convince striking workers to return to their jobs, is a warning sign for corporate investors seeking to squeeze more profits out of the working class.
“Unions have been losing power for years,” said Ken Rumney, a striking worker outside of the Hostess plant in Biddeford on Friday. “This is an exceptional case. If Hostess had been allowed to get away with what they’d been trying to do, other corporations would have lined up to try the same tactics. Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to [try to] break their unions.”
“I think we’re the first ones who have stood up and said, ‘We’re not going to let you get away with it,’” said Sue Tapley, the strike captain on hand Friday morning at the Biddeford plant, which employed nearly 600 people. “You can fight them. You can shut them down.”
At issue is a slate of concessions the company, best known for producing Twinkies and Wonderbread, asked of its workers — reportedly an 8 percent pay cut and changes to their pensions agreements, among other things. Hostess officials maintained that the company couldn’t stay viable without making the changes, while union leaders countered that the concessions went too far.
Workers began striking last week, and the company gave them a 5 p.m. Thursday deadline to return to the job, threatening to close its 33 American plants and lay off all 18,000 of its workers if they didn’t.
Members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union refused to concede, and Friday morning, Hostess announced plans to file for bankruptcy, let go of its entire workforce and liquidate all of its assets.
The union’s willingness to go down with the sinking ship — and in some cases take credit for sinking it — in the Hostess case may prove to corporate investors that the working class must be reckoned with, said University of Southern Maine economist and labor relations expert Michael Hillard.
Hillard said he will be interested to see what the ripple effect of the Hostess bankruptcy will have for labor relations nationwide, as the combustion comes on the heels of scattered Republican-led efforts to weaken unions through state laws, not to mention a steady decline in leverage in the 30 years since then-President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers.
In Maine, Gov. LePage and the Republican-led Legislature in 2011 proposed so-called “right-to-work” legislation that would have allowed workers to refuse to pay dues or fees for union representation at workplaces where active unions negotiated on their behalf for wages and benefits. The bill was ultimately defeated in the face of fierce opposition by labor leaders across the state, who characterized the legislation as a “union busting” measure.
“You’ve seen ownership practices for any kind of large scale manufacturing operation replaced by this short term financial mentality, that’s come largely from Wall Street, and looking at companies less as enterprises than as bundles of assets that can be moved around a chessboard,” Hillard said. “They’re operating with the idea that you can always squeeze more — squeeze more out of operations, squeeze more out of labor, squeeze more out of distribution, just find any way to get more profit.
“The idea that this is how you run a healthy economy is a question, and so who’s standing up to this? Labor unions are one of the ways people have to make their concerns known about the economic conditions in our world,” he continued.
Sarah Bigney, spokeswoman for the Maine AFL-CIO, a labor coalition representing 26,000 members from a wide range of local workers’ unions across the state, said the resolve of the striking BCTGM workers has been “inspirational.”
Bigney said that when she visited workers outside the plant holding signs in Biddeford, most cars honked and drivers waved in support, while other people stopped by to donate food or firewood for the strikers warming their hands by barrel fires.
“Everyone can relate to the fact that the worker class is funding the investor class,” Bigney said. “People have been doing enough in terms of ‘shared sacrifice’ on the workers’ end, and now union members are saying, ‘We’ve given enough and we need to see some shared sacrifice by the corporation, too.’”
One of those people who stopped by with firewood was incoming state House Majority Leader Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham.
“Unfortunately in the corporate world, it’s a race to the bottom, it’s about maximizing profits for those at the top,” he said. “When that happens, it’s important for the workers to stick together.”
Biddeford Mayor Alan Casavant said, “philosophically, I think the union wins” in the Hostess standoff.
“They’re saying to the world at large, ‘We deserve a working income. We work hard, we deserve a living wage, and we don’t just want to be pawns in a corporate game,’” he said. “There’s a philosophical victory. But in an economic sense, you’re walking a fine line, because all of a sudden you’re cast into a void of not knowing what tomorrow brings… Putting myself in their shoes, I’d be scared, because there’s so much uncertainty in this economy.”
I see where the workers are coming from and I understand the corporation side of things. But as a working individual, before Thanksgiving, Christmas and winter wouldn’t a job with lower pay been better than no job?
you’d think so. I doub’t every single member of the union was on board with this and the union bosses pushed it through.
But its ok because they all will get unemployment now. Even though their strike contributed to the business tanking and their now unemployed status.
So the company was stealing money out of their retirement funds and wouldn’t even tell them where it was going. Now , not knowing the whole details, you have passed judgement that it was their fault. Typical!
No one was stealing their retirement funds, put the Union spin aside and look at the facts.
you must be on union koolaide….what do you mean ” STEAL YOUR PENSIONS” it is a benefit a company offers…it isn’t an entitlement.
Hostess
Brands is unprofitable under its current cost structure, much of which
is determined by union wages and pension costs. The offer to the BCTGM
included wage, benefit and work rule concessions but also gave Hostess
Brands’ 12 unions a 25 percent ownership stake in the company,
representation on its Board of Directors and $100 million in reorganized
Hostess Brands’ debt.
Well, technically, the missing two billion in pension underfunding is a contractually promised part of the payment to workers for work they have already performed in the past, so it really IS an entitlement of sorts. Think of it this way: if you get paid every two weeks, then on the day you finish working in a two-week pay period, the company owes you that pay. You’ve done your part of the two-sided promise – now the company has to pay you. You are entitled to that pay even if you walk away right then.
That’s a lie. The company was in bankruptcy and trying to mitigate loss of jobs. But unions got greedy. They wouldn’t back off of demanding raises even when others in the company including management have accepted steep cuts. Union Greed killed this company.
poppycock.. I’m certain the management took no cuts to themselves.. none at all… and they wanted to bleed the turnip dry.. an 8% pay cut is HUGE.. not to mention, cutting into pension funds… that’s ludicrous.. I dunno about you, but they deserved what they got.. no more twinkies, and hostess cakes… not that I’ve eaten any of them in the last 5 years..
evidently you like to form opinions sans facts. the 8% paycut wasn’t hostess ordered. it was bankruptcy court ordered. the article left that nifty little fact out and you havent bothered to properly educate yourself on the issue before forming opinions.
i repeat -> a bankruptcy court ordered pay cuts to the company. you know … as in a court ORDERED and legally binding requirement. you know .. the law at work. the workers ILLEGALLY refused to accept the courts orders and striked. hostess begged them to come back. they refused. hostess didn’t have the money left to survive even long enough to get a judge to order them back … so hostess died.
so, whats ludicrous? a company in financial trouble going to bankruptcy court to get help? or workers refusing to obey the decison of the court and killing the company?
come on … you were quick to post. now you have the facts. will you be as quick to retract your poppycock?
What about the cuts they took in 08 ?
those were also court mandated but the price of flour continued to rise every year way out of proportion to other cost increases or even inflation. it wasn’t enough.
if a company cant be profitable then it needs to cut costs or expenses. a company like hostess has its prices dominated by FLOUR. that cant be cut or reduced. they cut and reduced everything else to the bone except worker salaries, pensions, benefits, etc. even those took a modest hit. it wasn’t enough.
at the end the workers had two basic choices. compromise, accept less, but continue to receive it OR be unwilling to compromise, put the company out of business, and receive nothing. its a no brainer … or … at least it should be. these workers killed the golden goose.
a few facts -> http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/New_York/News/2012/11_-_November/Twinkies_maker_Hostess_says_may_close,_cites_strike/
MSNBC to the contrary the 4 top officers were working for $1 annual salary.
You have a wild imagination. Prove it.
Union ignorance killed this company.
It is quite clear that the company is stealing the money and hiding it in the executives pockets along with the Hedge Funds who own Hostess. Let’s do the math. 18,000 employees. The average yearly cost per employee with benefits is $50,000. I am high balling it just to see. That comes out to about 1 billion a year in wages and benefits. That leaves the company with 1.5 billion dollars! Their expenses are not more than 1.5 billion dollars! They are fabricating the books and the executives are pocketing serious money. In the hundreds of millions! Let the company burn! Period! Greg Rayburn is a liquidation specialist. They hired him a couple of months ago to liquidate the company. Don’t get it twisted.
Salary Increases at Hostess.
Some creditors question Hostess pay raises approved in late July.
Brian Driscoll, CEO, around $750,000 to $2,550,000.
Gary Wandschneider, EVP, $500,000 to $900,000.
John Stewart, EVP, $400,000 to $700,000.
David Loeser, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Kent Magill, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Richard Seban, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
John Akeson, SVP, $300,000 to $480,000.
Steven Birgfeld, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Martha Ross, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Rob Kissick, SVP, $182,000 to $273,008.
This is Bain capitalism at its worst……..a company using bankruptcy as a bargaining chip……..it failed so they are liquidating a profitable company…..
You keep posting that. IT doesn’t get more true everytime you repeat it. Why don’t you look at people’s responses and rebuttals?
shut up, union sucking sycophant
unions do nothing to solve the issue
8% cut or a 100% cut. A bunch of morons. But at least they now can get an Obama phone.
What’s an Obama phone?
“Obama phone” is a reference to a famous video where a black woman talks about how happy she is that Obama got her a free cell phone, and that that’s a reason to vote for him. In fact, while the program is an example of the excesses of the welfare state, it predates Obama and is not due to him. (It is paid by one of the taxes/surcharges on everyone else’s phone.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio
So if it predates Obama is it a Bush phone or is it a Clinton phone?
Yes the program was started at least as long ago as Clinton. But Supporters of Obama are bragging about their ‘Obama phones’
If I remember correctly the program goes back to the Reagan era (perhaps to the breakup of AT&T?). It was originally for covering the costs of local landline service. Cell phone instead of landline option I’m going to say was late Clinton or more probably Bush era.
Saw a news report where a 20 something pulled out about 7 state of the art cell phones she got for free. She was proud and said it was easy. Like voting, there was little verification and they were encouraged on the street to do it – and do it often.
What about the cuts they took in 08 ?
What about them. If the bankruptcy court says they must reorganize where do they get the money to pay the workers?
What part of “not having the money” are you having trouble understanding?
WHO CARES!!!! Now they are out of a job!!!
That’s the conclusion the Company was hoping for. The union said ” we won’t be your slaves” we will die first.
let them die then, I have zero pity for a striking union member
labor is a commodity. it is lawful for people to band together and sell their labor. if you don’t care for that why don’t you leave the country for some other place more to your liking.
If you were selling your labor, they weren’t buying.. They should of scabed their factories.. Since they weren’t buying labor from the unions It’s their right to hire who they want. Correct??
you might want to do some editing because I’m not sure what you’re asking
It’s “should’ve,” a contraction of “should have.”
i need a good job, hostess, i am willing to work for HALF what you were paying the union “laborers”
And as such the company has the right to not buy their labor. Brilliant idea. “I’d rather have no job then a job where I had to give up 8% of my pay to keep the company viable” Well, guess what? you got your wish…..morons
Also, in an economy with 8% unemployment rate the law of supply and demand is not on the side of the unions. This is Not rocket science people.
What about the stuff they gave up back in 08 ? Do a search an you will see that
it’s “and you will see”… I lost 60% of my business because of the dear leaders policies, how about you pay you your fair share and give me some money? oh, I’m sorry, income redistribution is for the rich, right?
here’s the thing…..if there’s no money, THERE’S NO MONEY. You do realize that the executives are out of a job too, right? And the investors that dumped money into this sinking ship have all lost everything they invested, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100M.
Do you really believe these executives made the decision to put themselves out of work just to stick it to the unions?
Immaterial!
“This is Not rocket science people.”
Nope, ‘cuz it’s RACKET SCIENCE!!!
It was more than that.
America is not supposed to be a race to the bottom.
Then why did we elect obozo again?
The reason is written in the stars and is not for us mere mortals to know!
Because smart people saw through Mitt Romney’s lies.
In order to pay high wages you need to make a profit. No profit, no jobs.
Communism is a race to the bottom even in America. Dummy.
Why are you bringing up Communism? Teabilly.
Very informed response.
These idiots have all the right to strike, now they have no job. They should not be allowed to collect Unemployment insurance however, they did this to themselves, just like quitting.
Agreed. This may be a gray area in the law. Perhaps they are not entitled to Unemployment as their decision caused the shutdown.
Amen to that…they shouldn’t get unemployment…the unions should cough up the money to pay their unemployment.
You will see back i believe that the union gave up stuff to help the company now the company wants to take more how much do you give before you are working for nothing . Do you know that wall street was planing to drop Hostess ? do a search an you will see that hostess was have troubles for many years before this. Thats were i got all my info for doing a search
First of all, your slippery slope doesn’t work. No one is proposing that people work for nothing…excepting the bakers’ union, which seems to believe that the primary purpose of Hostess’s existence was to give their workers jobs, and damn any profits.
And so what if the union “gave up stuff” before? That doesn’t automatically mean that this time they get the better deal. It’s about preserving the long-term health of the BUSINESS. You know, that thing that employs people to make products? That thing that, if it no longer exists, its employees won’t be employed anymore? I can understand not being happy about a pay cut. I would HATE to take one. But I’d take one anyway if it were the only way I could keep my job, as would any sane person — especially in this economy.
Second, your statement that Hostess was having troubles, ungrammatical though it was, is accurate enough. That’s why even the Teamsters cut a deal with them. Have you ever known the Teamsters to take management’s side in a labor dispute? When the labor organization that has the biggest reputation for being nasty, hard-nosed fighters who always try to squeeze every last penny out of the Man that they can — well, when those people look at Hostess’s books and then decide to TAKE A PAY CUT, what does that tell you? To me, that says they thought it was their best option — they wouldn’t take such a transparently lousy deal otherwise. That makes the bakers’ union look doubly stupid. (And you, for supporting them.)
Neither side is immune from economic realities. If lower wages or benefits are untenable for an employee, they can find another job. That’s what their reality is now anyway. But they’ve also taken everyone down with them. Nice going.
exactly…they were not laid off…they were basically all fired…the company closed it’s doors..ok…you don’t want to compromise a little to keep your job?…fine we quit…no unemployment…you’re fired!!
Let the union pick up the unemployment tab.
Or we, as individuals, can sell our labor at a cheaper rate than any union stooge!
Like these guys were getting rich working there. Right.
Right! There was a time when General Motors paid assembly line workers $60K to put lug nuts on vehicles and when GM filed for bankruptsy our dear leader gave them majority ownership (I believe) of the company!
Nobody wants to buy their labor.
You mean Mexico where these jobs will be heading? Make no mistake, hostess may be defunct, but the need for cupcakes goes on, and that demand will be filled by companies running factories south of the border.
It may be lawful, but it is also dumb! It is something like: “I will show you, I will commit suicide!”
Your first sentence is absolutely correct. Today, however, the commodity of labor is not in demand here like it used to be. I think unions need to recognize this a bit more.
They banded together and their greed cost them their jobs. Many of those union goon losers will never have a real job again, and that makes me chortle.
I am sure they will find the unemployment wage …HUGE lol…idiots. Unions will forget about these people and move on to another company …and all these strikers will have left is their stupid signs
Race to the bottom.
Since they basically quit their jobs would they even be eligible for unemployment benefits?
we will die first? then hurry it up then…
How cute.
R.I.P.
Where would that end?
It’s a Winter Wonderland of Welfare.
Most educated people have marketable skills that allow us to largely pick and choose where and for whom we work. If I don’t like working for company X, I can look around and with a little luck make the move to company Y or Z, or A or B or even move to a different part of the country and work for K or L or M.
Unionized workers are unionized precisely because their skill set does not allow them to do this. Some don’t possess anything that we would call marketable skills. Others work in industries where one or two companies are all that exist. While they may have skills, those skills aren’t transferable to other kinds of work. They cannot leave and work somewhere else, at least not without taking a huge pay cut.
This creates what I call the Serf Mentality. Just as medieval serfs were bound to the land, these unionized employees are bound to the company for which they work. They cannot leave. They cannot find gainful (or at least comparably gainful) employment somewhere else. So they invest all of their effort into trying to extract as much as they can from that one company and fight tooth and toenail to hold on to what they have, even if that means the company itself ends up failing.
So it is not the least bit surprising that the union would drive the company into the ground. The pay and benefits offered by companies for normal employees are determined by the market for the services required. If other companies are willing to pay more, good employees will go seek jobs there. Unionized employees are unionized because there is no functional market for their services, and so they try to squeeze everything they can out of that one company where they can find work, even if that means the company goes under.
I have little sympathy. Actually I take that back. I do have sympathy for those employees who worked hard and didn’t ask for more than their job was worth. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut, and those who lead meek but honest and industrious lives are worthy of respect.
Two things are certain. The first is that the types of products that hostess produced will not go unmade. There is a market for them and firms will either respond to serve that market, or new companies will be formed to serve it. They probably won’t be called Twinkies, but they’ll exist.
The second certainty is that regardless of whether a new company is started to fill this market, or existing companies expand production, these new jobs will be created in right to work states or in foreign countries, with Mexico being the most likely place.
You won’t see a company starting up production in a place like Maine where doing business means having to wrestle with labor unions.
My advice to those who look at the decline of unions and feel anxious is this: Stay in school. Develop marketable skills. Distinguish yourself and be valuable as an individual. Build skills and competencies whose demand is both broad and high. If you want a normal middle class (or better) life then you have to have the qualities and traits that make such a life possible. Being in a union isn’t going to get you a good paycheck. Only YOU can do that by being worth that paycheck as an individual employee.
Nice diatribe, but it ignores the fact that the most vibrant, sustainable economy in the world got that way by working with unions to produce excellence.
This greed driven economy will have a short half life. As a manager I need my engine firing on all 8 cylinders. My relationship with my employees, union or not, is the most important factor driving excellence.
You might have great individual talents, but where will you go when greed wipes out whole industries? What do we do with the people who are out of a job because of greed and mismanagement?
Do you really believe that when you hit 50 that your amazing talents will keep you in your job? This greed driven system run by bean counters will have YOU out the door the moment you get sick or the company decides they can hire a kid out of college for half your pay to work twice as hard.
Good luck with that.
To the extent the situation at hand was “greed driven,” it was the greed of the bakers’ union driving it, which makes *your* diatribe amusingly displaced. The fact that the Teamsters — hardly ones to roll over and take the first deal management offers — actually CUT A DEAL with Hostess is ample evidence of this. Yet here you stand, atta-boying the bakers’ union for costing their members jobs. What a bizarre thing to support. If the union had gotten all the workers blackballed from any further employment in the field as well, I bet you’d be beside yourself with their brilliant stroke on behalf of workers’ rights.
The historical role unions have played in allowing workers to fight back against management corruption, exploitation, and overreach is well-documented and not under dispute by any sane person. Unfortunately for you, unions no longer play that historical role. They now serve to ossify company structures more than they do to protect their workers. A healthy labor force is a positive boon to a free society. But so is a healthy capital class. Businesses need BOTH management and labor to survive, in case you hadn’t noticed. And if labor makes it impossible for management to keep the business running, don’t be surprised when management cuts their losses by cutting their labor — even if, as in this case, they have to shut down to do it.
Frankly, I doubt you are a manager of any sort. You don’t seem very well-versed in the real nature and purpose of a business. But let’s say you are, just for funsies. What will you do when the greed of the union you deal with — NOT the employees who supposedly make up the union, but the bosses who control the institutional machinery — drives your company under? Your employees will be out of a job. So will you. Yet I bet you’ll blame your bosses, even as you polish your resume to send to another company where you can participate in the same choking cycle all over again.
I’d wish you good luck with that, except that the people who really need it will be the employees who get priced out of their jobs by their overreaching union leaders, with an assist from middle-management types who share your troglodytic outlook on commerce and prosperity.
You are ignoring one basic fact. Union contracts are contracts. Management and labor sit down and make an agreement; It’s a contract. It is a negotiated agreement.
This issue is about breaking that negotiated agreement. Breaking that contract. If you hire someone to replace your furnace based on a negotiated price, but because the company decides it’s not enough and they ask for more and you give them more and then they come back and ask for more. At what point do you decide that enough is enough?
The answer to your question of what do I do if the greed of the union bosses seeks to drive my company under is easy. The Union membership is MY employees. I am the one who signs their checks. I am the one that cultivates my relationship with MY employees. I am the one who walks the mill every morning and asks how they are doing, how is their family? I’m the one who celebrates with them when we achieve some great results.
If I do my job of management, who do you think they are going to follow? Workers are not stupid. They know when the company they work for is at least trying to balance their needs and the needs of the company. All union contracts need to be ratified by the membership.
Explain how it is that Germany did not eliminate it’s unions but transformed them into a powerhouse of excellence and productivity.
Among other things they built manufacturing plants in the Carolinas while keeping their engineering in Germany!
they are right to work states to an have the highest unemployment too
It’s standard law and practice that contracts can be broken when a company is in bankruptcy — i.e., losing money with no way to meet all obligations — as Hostess is. A judge can tell the stockholders that their stock is now worthless, but he can’t require them to keep coming up with additional moneys beyond their equity investment — that’s why it’s called a Limited Liability Corporation.
You really think enforceable contracts still exist in the US? The law is dead. The Constitution is dead. Look at the bailouts of industry and banks. How did Germany become a powerhouse? Have you ever been to Germany? You wont find competing products that arent German. Siemens, Mercedes, VW, Bayer and all the AG’s compete abroad but not locally. They have the same market protection model that the Japs do. As I stated above unions only work when their markets are protected from domestic competition.
Germany is an exporting nation, not an importer. Germans also buy German. Two things we are totally oblivious to in our race to the bottom here in America. Not as many billionaires in Germany either. Plenty of millionaires though. Maybe Germans are in favor of success leading to wealth, not insane greed like us.
hmmm….greed seems to be the word all pro-union people make….blame it on the corporation as greedy…..i think your definition of greedy is my definition of capitalism…..but then again, I dont agree with you, so I am wrong……
The productive are always greedy; the lazy are always victims of the productive greedy.
When Warren Buffet bought Dexter Shoe from Harold Alfond it was a profitable company that employed hundreds of people in the local area at a living wage. In typical capitalist fashion he thumbed his nose at the workers who built that good name one pair of shoes at a time and moved it to communist China. You call that capitalism, I call it greed.
It is quite clear that the company is stealing the money and hiding it in the executives pockets along with the Hedge Funds who own Hostess. Let’s do the math. 18,000 employees. The average yearly cost per employee with benefits is $50,000. I am high balling it just to see. That comes out to about 1 billion a year in wages and benefits. That leaves the company with 1.5 billion dollars! Their expenses are not more than 1.5 billion dollars! They are fabricating the books and the executives are pocketing serious money. In the hundreds of millions! Let the company burn! Period! Greg Rayburn is a liquidation specialist. They hired him a couple of months ago to liquidate the company. Don’t get it twisted.
Salary Increases at Hostess.
Some creditors question Hostess pay raises approved in late July.
Brian Driscoll, CEO, around $750,000 to $2,550,000.
Gary Wandschneider, EVP, $500,000 to $900,000.
John Stewart, EVP, $400,000 to $700,000.
David Loeser, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Kent Magill, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Richard Seban, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
John Akeson, SVP, $300,000 to $480,000.
Steven Birgfeld, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Martha Ross, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Rob Kissick, SVP, $182,000 to $273,008.
This is Bain capitalism at its worst……..a company using bankruptcy as a bargaining chip……..it failed so they are liquidating a profitable company…..
Why would you cite Bain Capital in your post. Bain has no equity position within Hostess Brands
From wikipedia
“With the leadership of Craig Jung, the company emerged from bankruptcy as a private company on February 3, 2009.[15] The plan included a 50 percent equity stake by Ripplewood Holdings and lines/loans by General Electric Capital and GE Capital Markets, Silver Point Finance and Monarch Master Funding. Interstate’s union workers made contract concessions in exchange for equity”
you might be very surprised at how high business expenses are. Most people I know think business is all profit and sees the money going in. They have no idea how much goes out.
Your list of salary increases amounts to about $4,000,000 total. Not even a drop in the bucket for keeping the company alive.
You have revealed your ignorance; Bain was not in business to liquidate companies. Your accusation has nothing to support it. Bain built tens of thousands more good jobs at strong companies than were lost in the few companies that could not be saved. And the Bain jobs are good high paying jobs that still exist.
Your silly figures that you pulled out of you ace are not even close to the real world. You clearly have no idea how much insurance costs the employee and the employer together. In your imaginary company there is no roof, no electricity, no equipment, no materials, no shipping, no water or sewage, no gas, and no tools. Have you ever gotten a paycheck before? I kind of doubt that you have but I am certain you never signed the front of a paycheck.
At your company the workers would be taking home less than 10,000 a year and would not have health care.
Pretty smart of them to see the writing on the wall and pack their parachutes accordingly. They certainly had the greedy intransigence of the union pegged!!!
that was july 2011, in april 2012 the execs took paycuts. 5 of them now make just $1. http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/04/09/hostess-cuts-four-executives-pay-to-1-after-big-july-raises/
Once a company enters bankruptcy the contract can be voided by the court.
The German economy only grew at .2% last quarter. You may want to find a new model to brag about.
You may want to learn that growth is not the only indicator of a healthy economy.
Oh, trisailer. Let’s discuss the biggest point you’ve screwed up. Union contracts are different from the one-time contracts you appeal to in your furnace example.
This will require some elaboration for your benefit, so do try to follow. I go to someone to see about fixing my furnace. He quotes me a price. If I take it, we’re in business. If I walk, we’re not. Maybe we haggle until we’re satisfied, or until one of us walks away. Regardless, I am choosing to hire (or not) someone for a one-time job, and he is choosing whether he wants to work for me this one time. If the job works out, we might build up a longer-term relationship, but it would be based on mutual satisfaction of need.
Hostess doesn’t have that option. They have to deal with the bakers’ union, end of discussion. The contract is signed for years in advance, locking in jobs and operating costs which the company will later not be free to adjust if their existence is threatened financially. And the relationship is ongoing because of the nature of the contract. If Hostess doesn’t come to an agreement with the union at contract time, they have to shut down production. That means no cash flow, and no profit. That provides unions with a powerful whip hand…one which they use.
This time, one of them overreached. The union insisted on striking to enforce contractual terms that they wanted, and damn the continued ability of the company to operate. As a result, there is no more company, and there are no more jobs for over 18,000 people (not all of whom are even members of that union! The union killed their jobs too!). And if Hostess is to be believed, there won’t be any jobs from the companies that buy their intellectual property either. The labor union has overextended all the companies they could work for, to the point where they won’t need to hire any more employees to take up their pieces of the Hostess production line. This is the labor union you are defending…remember that. They have ossified the structures of the companies in their industry by loading them up with too many labor costs, and then they got some of their members thrown out of work with no prospect of future work on the horizon. Genius.
If I were contractually bound to my furnace repairman, and he continued to ask for more money despite our agreement, I would have two choices — pay him or freeze. Since I am not actually bound to my repairman, I would choose the third option that a contractual commitment would foreclose…fire him and seek someone better. Congratulations. In your attempt to support the decision of the bakers’ union, you have just provided an excellent argument against both their labor arrangement with Hostess, and their decision to force Hostess’s hand — to freeze instead of paying up and staying warm. Kudos.
“Explain how it is that Germany did not eliminate it’s unions but
transformed them into a powerhouse of excellence and productivity.”
I might consider it — when you explain the varied decisions of the bakers’ union and the Teamsters. Or is it your contention that the Teamsters, by acting to preserve the jobs of their members, were acting against the interests of their membership? As I said somewhere else on this thread, I would hate to take a pay cut. But if the choice is between a job with a pay cut, and no job or par at all, I know the choice I would make.
Obviously this situation is far more complex than my (poor) furnace example, but as I understand it Hostess is demanding that employees take another pay cut and give up company contributions to their pension funds. It appears that the feeling of employees is that the company has not made changes at the top to reduce costs, have accumulated more debt, while giving executives huge pay raises. It does appear that the company is being picked clean and the government will be left to bail out the pensions.
I’m not suggesting that the union is right and the company is wrong. this situation is extremely complex with several unions and investors involved. Read this article and you’ll get the idea.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
I am guilty of combining my general opinion of employee relations, unions and frankly this situation is far more complex than anything I have ever dealt with. There are some very good comments following the article from employees and management people.
My beef is that in general unions get blamed for bringing down companies and industries when in fact these situations are far more complex. My experience is in the Maine paper industry. I have seen with my own eyes poor management that produced vicious conflicts between companies and unions that added to the lack of capital investment and crippled important advancements. If you have worked in management you should already know that with narrow profit margins the difference of a few percent of quality and productivity is the difference between life and death for a company. I can be the best manager in the world and get 110% from my employees, but in an industry like paper you need capital investment.
In the 80’s I got to tour paper mills in Northern Europe and I was amazed at the difference in the levels of capital investment and the professionalism of employees. I could have predicted then which Maine mills were going to survive and I would have been correct. I had my own problems with getting capital support for important improvements. One of the companies I worked for we went from needing a 3 year payback for capital projects to 6 months. It crippled our efforts to meet market demands. When I got to corporate I saw the reasons why. The company was focused on trying to protect it’s independence by defending against hostel takeover. It ended with a poison pill and bankruptcy.
There is volumes written about Germany’s labor relations and the productive results. Most German companies have union people on their boards and they implemented quality circles and other programs that provided for employee input. Did you know that Germany’s labor unions were established by Marshall? Marshall believed that workers unions are a hedge against socialism. MacArthur did the same thing in Japan.
My general opinion is that unions are by no means perfect, but it is usually the company and mid managers that produce the relationship at the employee level. I worked the strike at Jay and saw everything I had learned about management turned on it’s head. I never saw a more hostel work environment or a worse bunch of managers.
IP got rid of it’s union, but lost it’s competitive edge in the process and never recovered. Maine lost jobs, the replacements were from Alabama, The state sat on it’s hands and I think it could have helped retain the jobs.
I don’t know what the Teamsters strategy is, but the workers appear to be willing to follow them.
Fox news re-run. Let me restate part of your rant. Workers want to have pride and negotiated their pay, so that means they are greedy. Employers should set any pay they want banding together to force all wages down but you would prevent employees from having the the same rights.
United States=Union of States, did you miss that?
United States=Union of States, did you miss that?
>>> Except back when some of the states wanted to set up their own right-to-work shop, Mr. Lincoln forcibly kept them in….
My company takes care of me because they don’t want to lose me and they want me to be happy. Where do you work where there is an adversarial relationship between employees and employers? Do all unions create this adversarial relationship with employers?
First off, a union of workers is not the same thing as a union of states. Tell me you understand the equivocation you constructed. Please tell me that you were smart enough to commit a logical fallacy intentionally, for rhetorical effect, and you’re not stupid enough to believe you just drew some legitimate equivalency. Sadly, I’m sure you are that dumb. I bet you typed that it, sat back, smiled, and went “Ooooo, BURN!”
As for the rest of what you said, I suggest you get some reading comprehension lessons. You clearly need them. What makes the union greedy, in this case, was that it pursued what it wanted irrespective of whether that would allow the company to continue to operate. Are you naive enough to believe that exploitative policies can only be pursued by a company, in the context of a business-labor relationship? The difference is that this time, the exploitation didn’t take. the choice turned out not to be between the terms the company wanted and the terms the union wanted, but between the terms the company wanted and the extinction of the company — and all the lovely jobs that went with it.
Since you seem to believe that anyone who thinks this union was stupid in this case is automatically on the side of employers and/or labor exploitation in every case, let me give you a remedial education in how this whole thing is supposed to work. (Call it the Narsbar Memorial Lecture for the Economically Simple.) Workers have the right to form unions, even in right-to-work states. And if they do form the unions, employers have the legal obligation to deal with them (though some of them try not to, which is against the law and should be punished). When management and labor sit down across from each other to do business, they need to fight for their self-interest. I hope you would be smart enough to agree with me on all of that. Now…
Rule #1 is, or at least should be, that there is one thing in the mutual self-interest of management and labor. Else there could be no deal. And that is, simply, THE CONTINUED SURVIVAL AND PROFITABILITY OF THE COMPANY. The company is the vehicle by which management makes its money. It is the entity that provides labor with jobs and paychecks. It is what has to be preserved, therefore…otherwise both sides suffer.
If management decides to exploit labor by holding down wages and insisting on bad working hours and conditions, labor will respond by refusing to work for management, which will kill the company. So it is ultimately in management’s best interest to accommodate labor, even as they fight for the best terms they can get. Similarly, if labor decides to exploit management by pushing for a larger piece of the pie than the company can afford, management will kill the company by shutting it down. So it is ultimately in labor’s best interest to accommodate management, even as they fight for the best terms they can get.
What we happen to have here is a case where the union forgot that management was their partner as much as their competitor. The Teamsters, never one to cave into management unless they had to, were smart enough to understand that. You, and those who agree with you, clearly are not. Fair enough. You have excellent job-killing futures as union executives. Just remember that ultimately, your jobs depend on whether you keep theirs.
Oh, and by the way…I don’t watch Fox News.
Ooooo, BURN!
the problem was that deals were made with the union during profitable years. then ethanol subsidies encouraged farmers to plant corn and less wheat was planted. less wheat = higher flour prices.
hostess found it suddenly facing costs that couldnt be reduced that made it much more expensive to produce their products. their market niche was luxury junk food and in a bad economy raising the prices would have been counter productive.
hostess went to a bankruptcy court to try to get assistance. they had billions in sales a year but almost no profit. the court ordered a 8% pay cut for the workers. thats right. court ordered. the union refused to obey the court order and went on strike.
for days, hostess begged the workers to come back. hostess didn’t even have the cash on hand to survive the time it took to get a hearing in front of the court again so the court could issue an order to obey the previous order. hostess felt the union would just ignore that order too and it would probably come to late in any case. so hostess decided to not bother going to court, issued one last plea, and then decided that it just wasn’t worth it anymore – and quit.
the only ones i saw in a greed driven economy … were the workers.
Unions producing excellence? YGTBSM!
Is it any wonder unionists live in the past and rail on and on about “greed”? Like all outdated 19th Century concepts (like Marxism), the world has long since passed you by.
Greed. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Im 52 and I have people beating my door down to work for them daily. I work 12 hrs a day to improve my skills. Unions can only flourish in an environment where there is no competition from abroad. If unions want to be more effective they should turn their whining to stopping the flow of cheap goods and labor into the US. Then, and only then, will unions become relevant.
well look at BIW they are going strong. The navy can reject any bid they want . with the company that has BIW now the union works with them an the employees get bonus to every time a ship gets finish so i guess the union is driving BIW into the ground
Again….what does the company OWE you??? You work a days work, you get a day’s pay. You effing keep acting like business exists to keep YOU living the good life.
My company treasures Subject Matter Experts. Business must maintain the intelligence behind their operations. If they lose a key person with key knowledge it can hurt the business until they can train some one new. Most industries do not have interchangeable positions.
So yes, the company must keep me happy or they will be punished when I leave because they will have to suddenly replace something that they cannot define.
As a professional I’ve always had a contract with my employers. They owe me what they agreed to in my contract just as I owe them what I agree to.
This is about keeping agreements. “Say who you are and be who you say you are”
I call Bull. Unions were formed to protect workers and make the workplace safe. It wasn’t ever intended to ‘provide excellence’ unless you mean the kind of excellence at GM where the workers smoke pot and drink on their lunches. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,601545,00.html
http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/14/chrysler-workers-misconduct-insult-taxpaying-americans
My skills have me still working as I approach 60. And I have never worked for any union. As a grown man I negotiate my own contracts and have most of my life. I do not need a union goon to steal from my paycheck and give it to a totalitarian politician I refuse to support. Unions are no more than forced political contributions and the union bosses sit fatly on top of the pile and do nothing for anyone.
You are correct that unions were not formed to produce excellence, but neither do they have a objection to it if they are convinced that it is in their best interest, which of course it is. Business managers can negotiate anything that can benefit the company.
Of course not everyone wants or needs to be in a union. It is customary for professionals to negotiate their own contracts. I’ve worked with both union and nonunion workplaces. Most people don’t know that when the mill in Jay was built the company INVITED the union to come in and represent the employees because they believed that it would be a benefit.
In a perfect world they would be no need for unions. By the same token unions are not necessarily bad. I could never figure out why unions didn’t take the lead on important issues like safety and productivity to improve their negotiating positions. Neither could I figure out why a company would risk such huge losses to bust a union if the had one.
I don’t see the world as black and white. In management you take what you have and make it better. There is no reason that union contracts can’t be a win win.
I’m sick of blithering idiots calling the recognition of economic reality, “greed.” If not for the “greed” of investors and entrepreneurs, businesses would never survive, dummies.
Certainly dimbulbs who think that working hard, saving, and investing represent “greed” are incapable of accomplishing anything useful or worthwhile.
No one is questioning the value of entrepreneurs and investors. I don’t even care if greed is their only motivation. This situation is about the company making promises that it can do it’s job of managing a recovery and failing to do that over and over. Each time going back and asking for employees to bail them out.
Greed may be good if it produces results. In this case the results promised.
Nobody is saying that working hard, saving and investing is greed. If you look at the history of this situation there has been a train of new people coming in and telling employees, keep working hard, be experts at what you do and we at the top are going to fix it. Were going to turn it around because we are guys in suits and we know what we’re doing. Six CEO’s later the company comes looking for more concessions from employees. The employees are not stupid. They know that major issues of cost, maintenance, and overhead have not been addressed and they know that executives have received huge raises. They have lived through a decade of empty promises and now they are being asked to “invest” their pensions.
When your dealt a bad hand maybe it’s better to fold.
Absolutely correct post! This is the best statement of the union mentality that I have seen! It is also, unfortunately, the statement of why Maine cannot actract New companies bringing new business to Maine!
No company will EVER commit to capital investment in a state where the cost overheads and hassles of unions are the norm. The NLRB saw to that with their Boeing debacle. Any company even considering setting foot in a union-centric state dropped those plans after that nonsense went down.
Manufacturing will grow in right to work states and overseas. It will shrink and disappear in non right to work states.
This isn’t the future, this is here and now.
Vote with your feet.
In Germany, the unions are doing fine, so is business, and so is the economy. Your derogatory take on unions misses the real problem: big corporate greed. No country can function in a healthy way when the free market has been subverted by the rich so they can become richer while everyone else sinks.
Then why is it that when those big German companies locate plants in North America, they don’t locate in union states or provinces? On the surface, it would seem that Maine would be a logical place for BMW to locate a plant–significantly lower shipping costs of parts and supplies; shorter travel time to/from corporate headquarters; and–for the most part–better schools for the children of expatriate managers sent to manage the plant.
Yet BMW chose South Carolina; Mercedes-Benz chose Alabama; Volvo Trucks chose South Carolina; the overwhelming majority of BASF’s plants are in non-union states; the list goes on and on. Why are none of them in Maine?
The answer could be found yesterday at the Hostess plant, on the picket line.
Again, the unions in places like Germany and Canada are doing just fine. They are accepted by the culture as important elements in improving and maintaining the quality of people’s lives.
In America, quality of life has been sacrificed for Greed at the top. Companies used to care about workers in the USA–like they still do in Germany, Canada,and elsewhere–but then profit became god when everything was de-regulated.
It isn’t Germany’s responsibility to look after the quality of life in the USA, it is ours. The American people are starting to wake up and realize that Greed should not be our god, and that corporations don’t have the best interest of the people or the country on their selfish agenda.
Put your money where your mouth is. Form a private equity firms and buy Hostess.
Mitt probably already has that covered! I can see it now….Chinese Twinkies!
Buy the time they get here there product would be out dated
But greed is the Union god. They want to strip their companies of profits. They will not allow anyone to make a profit which stops anyone from lending to you or investing in you.
@spruce unions serve no purpose other than infusing democrat totalitarians with campaign money. That is all they are. Unions do not have the best interest of the workers; they are more concerned about the politician they support.
This union was so useful it got 18,000 people to lose their jobs at Thanksgiving. That is certainly in the best interests of somebody but it isn’t the workers.
It took a couple of decades of corporate propaganda to trick people like you into giving them more and more while the quality of life in America slid and slid.
Everyone knows that Big Oil companies, for instance, or Time Warner, epitomize greed. Calling the dying unions greedy is ridiculous.
When unions prove to be valuable to both their members and their employer, like they are in Germany, they will prosper in the US. As long as they continue to act as a threat to the prosperity of the employer they will never succeed here in the US.
Look at BIW .
Excuse me, but you really need to nail down your terms. Our current Corporatist economy exists because of the socialist policies of the establishment Republicans and Democrats and the crony capitalism that funds elections and maintains the establishment power base. In no way does this country practice free market capitalism. We have not had free market capitalism in this country since Calvin Coolidge. This is only a class war fare argument because the left wants to distract its sheeple from the truth, but it is a false argument. If you can see through the political party BS, I believe we would be on the same side.
So corporations don’t donate to campaigns? Why is it that congress likes to fight any campaign finance disclosure laws tooth and nail?
If thats the case then way hasn’t BIW gone under ?
BIW gets Federal contracts. They are required to pay at a certain rate.
And wasn’t there a huge restructuring toward automation at BIW that cut the labor force ( relative to total production) dramatically. And didn;t the State make that restructuring possible with direct financial aid?
What can they automate . Beside the workers have brought down there cost down an the Navy tells BIW how many people that they need to do the work
Hi Eugene..didn’t go into it very deeply but I agther as in auto manufacturing many of their operations are now robotic. The cchange dramatically reduced the amount of labor used at BIW ( per unit of producion) but without it BIW would not have remained competitive. Also I believe ( and here again I am speaking out of school because I have not spent much time researching what all went on at BIW during their restructuring) I believe they also defined a niche for themselves a specialty in which they excel..they more or less had to do that as part of the move to automation but I believe it has been successful and who knows..as they gain maret share there they may also regain the numbers of jobs lost in the original automation.
BIW remaines competitive because of its workers
They build bigger building so they could build bigger unites higher
B.I.W. only survives because of our tax dollars. If the union says the employees need more money B.I.W. just ups the contract with the feds.
No BIW does not up the cost the Navy can reject the bids
So that they don’t have to disclose (among other things) the huge amount of union money funneled to them.
Yes. Of course they should disclose that. Once again, a union is only as good as the people in it.
The difference is that Corporate money comes out of corporation money and hits their bottom line and shareholder value. Union money comes out of enforced worker dues and does no damage to the Union bigwigs who make the campaign donations to politicians who then use taxpayer money to hand out goodies. Study California as an example.
Then the union members ought to go after the bigwigs. People need to pay attention and get ticked off enough to do something about it. Sadly, this isn’t the case.
Nothing spells hypocrisy like those who enjoy the fruits of organized labor while condemning those who struggle to keep them there.
You are right if it was not for unions they ( nonunion )would have what they have today
If what you say is try then how come BIW is doing good an the profit share with there employees an BIW has done work for diffrent compainies . So i guess the union is bad for BIW
Right On!!
You libs keep coming back to the same, tired corporate greed nonsense. Corporations in the U.S. pay the highest tax rates on the planet. The Obama administration keeps yapping about companies taking their businesses offshore but then regulate and tax them into oblivion. The only “selfish agenda” belongs to Barack Obama and the Democrats. The real end game here is redistribution of wealth. Period. You libs all take about taxes as if it’s your money- it’s not your money, it’s theirs. We’ve all heard the “you didn’t build that”, but the truth of the matter is that business owners DID, through their own hard work become successful. Look, I’m probably more poor than the vast majority of posters here. I was successful until my health robbed me of my career but I don’t think it is the responsibility of someone who has worked to build a business to take care of me. I do get a little help with LIHEAP, for which I am deeply grateful to all of you folks who work so hard to help me. How high is enough to place on the backs of job creators- 75%, 100%? Who are you, I, or anyone else to decide how much money someone is allowed to keep? Here’s the dirty little secret- you can tax the h*ll out of “millionaires and billionaires” but even if you tax them at 100% it won’t make a dent in the $16 trillion dollar national debt and unless and until the government does something about spending money we don’t have, this economy will fail. Then what has your fine ideology gained, besides driving every American company to either close or move offshore. Incidentally, the swamp needs to be drained of as many Republicans as it does Democrats and THAT is all we conservatives are trying to convey.
The big corporations in the USA pay no taxes at all in many cases, due to loopholes that even Romney said he would close:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/
After that, your Fox-News diatribe just goes farther and farther into Wonderland.
Large, multi-national companies pay a pretty low tax rate. This is true. They do this primarily by keeping the profits from their foreign operations out of country and in countries where the tax rates are much lower. I work for one of these companies and we have many billions of dollars overseas right now that we won’t bring back due to the higher tax rates in the US (compare 13% in Ireland to 36% in the US).
When you combine the foreign tax rates with the gambit of tax credits and loop holes some corporations (like Obama’s friend Jeffrey Immelt runs) pay no taxes or even get tax refunds.
If Obama was really interested in spurring growth in the US economy (which I don’t believe that he is) he would lower the corporate tax rate on all US based off-shore profits to 13%. That money would come flooding back into the US economy and the government would realize $390 billion in tax revenue (there is an estimated $3 trillion in profits from US based companies that is sitting in foreign accounts).
13% vs 36% is a lie. Ask instead what the effective tax rate for GE has been. It has been negative, our tax dollars go to them each year. The tax loopholes for the largest corps. make for an effective average tax rate of 2 to 7%. Their greed will never stop unless controlled.
Those are the corporate tax rates in Ireland and the US respectively. As I said in my post, combining the off-shore tax havens (like Ireland) and tax loopholes and credits (all approved by the US government) many large companies pay little to no corporate tax.
You just disagreed with a fact and then restated what I said in my post. Thanks.
Don’t be picky. The top rate is actually 35% if you want to pick nits.
The U.S. rate stands at 39.2% when both federal and state rates are included as of March of 2012.
Which states? Now to the real issue. Tell me the effective tax rate for GE.
The corporations that are out of business pay no taxes in all cases and additionally employ no workers. Good luck with that.
GE paid no taxes plus companies have tax lawyers that work for them an they know every rule an them some . When was the last time you heard of a large company getting audited ? They will never get audited because they are so big an companies can have this dragged out for years an years an it would cost them more money then its worth . The IRS can not squeeze the big compainies like they do the little people
The first two years of the Obama presidency, the Democrats controlled both houses of the legislature and the white house. Why did they not close the loopholes. The “rethuglicans” could not have stopped them. So why did those all so caring Democrats do what you consider to be the right thing when they had all the levers of power in this country.
The Republicans, bent on obstructing anything positive for the country in order to get back at Obama for winning the election, continually threatened filibusters and other tactics. Democrats were in a position to override their obstruction for only about 2 months.
“Here’s the dirty little secret- you can tax the h*ll out of “millionaires and billionaires” but even if you tax them at 100% it won’t make a dent in the $16 trillion dollar national debt and unless and until the government does something about spending money we don’t have, this economy will fail.”
Then the government should stop trying to “save” money by outsourcing everything now. This is a totally different work world today. We revolve around the sub-contractor. Guess why? Because sub-contractors are one heck of a lot cheaper than regular employees. Look at all the money “going green” has saved banks for example. Where they once employed literally floors of employees for the purpose of processing check and visa payments, everything is now done online. Where did that saved money go? That’s a lot of cost savings just in employees.
From the link below.
“Do other countries outsource like us?
Think of it as the logic of the free market taken to the extreme. No other country in the world takes private sector government relations to this extreme. The United Kingdom is a close second behind the U.S. in terms of privatization, which is interesting because many military contractors are also based there. But if there’s money to be made, what’s to stop the Chinese starting up some military contracting companies? Or the Indians? Or the Saudis? There are dangerous implications for the international order.”
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/11/06/military-contractors-and-the-perils-of-outsourcing-war
Your link point to an opinion piece, not a news article.
Do you know the difference????
Yes, I do know the difference. The points are still valid. Besides, given the level of so-called “journalism” these days, that’s pretty much all we’ve got.
They did not build the roads, the police department, the food inspectors, the treaties with other governments. They did not build and fought safe working conditions, a 40 hr. week.
The did not build that by themselves.
What a rant! And you still persist in spouting the same lies and accusations.
But while headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.
At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Unionpointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Certainly, the company agreed to an out-sized pension debt, but the decision to pay executives more while scorning employee contracts during a bankruptcy reflects a lack of good managerial judgement.
It also follows a trend of rising CEO pay in times of economic difficulty. At the manufacturing company Caterpillar, for example, they froze workers’ pay while boosting their CEO’s pay to $17 million. And at Citigroup, CEO Vikram Pandit received$6.7 million for crashing his company, walking off with $260 million after the businesslost 88 percent of its value.
your just flat out wrong, the top 5 execs cut their salary to $1 back in April. http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/04/09/hostess-cuts-four-executives-pay-to-1-after-big-july-raises/
Now if you had search more you would see when they came out of bankrupsy they would of got that money .. Do a search an you will see this so yes they gave them self a raise
I read it three time an now were does it say they are working for 1 dollar
It said it in the head lines but now were in the article did it say that they took it . So the head lines are miss leading
As a Canadian, I have to wonder where you got the idea that Canadian Unions are doing fine?
They’ve all been accepting huge cutbacks for several years now.
Of course on difference may be that Canadian unions aren’t as heavily ideological as American ones (it’s all corporate greed, lol), and realize that the explosion in commodity prices and energy costs are crippling many companies.
Whenever I bring up Canada, someone invariably responds that they are Canadian and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Interested readers can learn more about Canada’s unions here:
http://www.ufcw.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=49&lang=en
And keep in mind how much better the Canadian economy is doing than ours with 30% of their workforce in strong, protective unions.
We’ve pretty much destroyed all our unions, and the wealthy have quadrupled their income while the rest of us sink.
You do realize that German economic growth was only .2% in the 3rd quarter don’t you? That’s worse than even here in the states. Not to mention it’s likely to decrease even further given that the EU has officially entered a recession.
You do realize that quality of life in the USA, including health and longevity , is less than Germany and many other countries with strong social welfare nets?
Again, unions protect people and give them higher salaries and better lives. 30% of the Canadian workforce is in unions. They are doing better than us. Unions are not the problem–big corporations subverting our democratic is the problem.
You keep running of at the yap about this “Quality of life” nonsense. Could you come up with a more subjective term to throw around, this one is tiresome.
Keep in mind that we all know someone who you would point to as an example of one afflicted with this “Quality of life” deficit. We also would know that they have a roof over their head, an Obama phone, food stamps , Flat screen, free/discounted cable, better sneakers than my kid,ect.ect.ect. and a whole lot of time to lounge around and play So enough of your nonsense.
Canada is doing well for a few reasons, non of which are unions or free health care. The biggest reasons are population density and a ridiculous amount of energy.The same type of energy that you and your treehouse living hippies will not allow our Country to exploit as Canada has done successfully. The Hydro power they produce alone is staggering added to an an abundance of oil they have to export to US. These two things have much more to do with how well Canada my be doing than any of this Union nonsense you are trying to sell.
What an ignorant post. Once again those phones began with a Republican president.
Your rant about ‘welfare’ is unfounded as most are facing time limits and actually perform workfare for their benefits. Get with the program before you spout off about what you don’t know about.
Take it easy…the truth will put him in shock or something. The left have a hard time with the truth and actual facts.
What percentage of the 30% of Unionized Canadians are Public Sector? The two largest unions in Canad are for Public Sector employees, with the bulk of them being in Ontario, a province that will soon see a radical reduction in employees in the Public Sector as a means of balancing the budget.
Spent a lot of time in Germany, have you, sprucie?
In Germany, a worker has the right and freedom to negotiate his own contract he he can get a better contract than the union can. In other words, in Germany, labor doesn’t have a monopoly. Let’s try to the same thing here in order to keep unions honest.
Let me state this more bluntly than I did above. The average American laborer is not well educated. At all. Which is one reason why they require a union to protect them. They aren’t that marketable a commodity elsewhere in the work force.
The same isn’t true for the German laborer. They are well educated with a broadly marketable skill set an an intense focus on quality. Unions made up of people like this have considerable leverage against their employer should they need to use it but, as you point out, in Germany that is rarely ever the case. That is because culturally, German laborers focus on quality output. That is their number 1 priority. That is something owners and executives understand and can work with and is a sharp contrast to the unskilled labor force of the US that focuses only on how much they can extract from management.
So how is this unions refusal to accept concessions, leading to all these people losing their jobs and paychecks, having the best interest of the people in mind? Any company exists to further the finances of the shareholders/owners, but it’s the unions primary JOB to have the workers best interest in mind and to negotiate for that with the companys management. In a profitable, successful, company, both groups can make out just fine, but they will always have opposing priorities about how profits should be distributed and there’s nothing wrong with that. But in this case, the owners of the company were losing money and without relief from the unions, that wasn’t going to change. The union refused to budge so the owners did the only rational thing and shut it down. The union declares a victory and 18,000 of their members no longer have a paycheck. The unions “strong message of union resolve” won’t pay the bills for any of these newly unemployed workers.
But while headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.
At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Unionpointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Certainly, the company agreed to an out-sized pension debt, but the decision to pay executives more while scorning employee contracts during a bankruptcy reflects a lack of good managerial judgement.
It also follows a trend of rising CEO pay in times of economic difficulty. At the manufacturing company Caterpillar, for example, they froze workers’ pay while boosting their CEO’s pay to $17 million. And at Citigroup, CEO Vikram Pandit received$6.7 million for crashing his company, walking off with $260 million after the businesslost 88 percent of its value.
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/04/09/hostess-cuts-four-executives-pay-to-1-after-big-july-raises/
keep spreading the lie,
So they agreed to stop drilling holes in the lifeboat after it sunk. You forgot to mention the rest of the story showing how they had been looting a company in trouble while demanding more cuts from employees.
Gary Wandschneider, John Stewart, David Loeser and Richard Seban–had seen their salaries increase by 75% to 80% last July, at a time when the baking company had already hired restructuring lawyers, according to creditors.
four additional executives agreed to return to the salaries they were receiving before the July increase.
Greed, lousy management and more greed is what was killing the company not the Unions.
The unions had already given deep concessions. They were being told to give more. If they had agreed again, they would have been told (again) that even more concessions were required.
I don’t disagree that the unions had already given deep concessions, but you are speculating about what would have happened. Despite the prior concessions, the company was still losing money due to forces beyond the companies control. Wouldn’t it have been better for at least many of the workers for the union to agree to deeper cuts in order to keep those jobs alive? For those workers who couldn’t afford to take this round of pay cuts, they would at least have had a job while they searched for another job with better pay, and for some of the existing workers, even at lower pay, at least they had a job. It seems to me that losing all 18,000 jobs is the worst possible outcome for the workers and the union is supposed to be representing those workers. So how is this a win?
Apart from a delayed gratification, results/work oriented culture, the reason Germany is more successful today than its EU counterparts is that they underwent a painful restructuring in 1990 after reunification including wage moderation and industry restructuring. Govt spending on employee compensation fell by 1% of GDP for 1992 to 2000 and the private sector followed the public sector’s lead.
Another critical factor was that the Deutschmark was the strongest currency in Europe and Germany profited in the conversion to the Euro. Since adopting the Euro, Germany has seen its exports regain world share, rising 0.5 % points from 2000-2009. Compared with a 11.6% drop in other advanced countries, in the same time period.
In other words, you have no idea why Germany is “doing fine” and it has zero to do with unions or “greed”.
Canada also made serious reforms including opening their failing single payer healthcare system to competition.
We have done nothing but borrow money and fight among ourselves for a “fair share” of an ever hollowing pie.
Excellent response!
Amen!
Or, maybe the answer could be found on how much they contribute to their local representatives’ campaigns and how powerful their local representative is.
How about they may have chosen those states because there is a significant difference in energy costs – most especially trying to heat a plant in the dead of February? It’s pretty easy to just blame just the unions.
I know after working for my employer for more than 24 years now, if they wanted to cut my pay by 8%, I might have a problem with that too. I’m getting awfully tired of hearing “Isn’t a job with less pay better than no job at all?” and veritably in the same breath, hear ranting about this being a “welfare” state.
Well what do we expect? I know people working 3 jobs who still struggle to pay bills in this state. I know someone right now who is sweating bullets because he’s afraid he’s going to have to go from making $16 to $9 (if he’s lucky to find something full-time) from Garelick going under. Sure, he can be retrained, but where will he work? Garelick used to be locally-owned. They were sold twice and now some multi-million dollar corporation has decided to cut cost by screwing Maine.
Then too, it may be because Maine (being little more now than a playground for states who have ruined their own land with concrete jungles) has truly become “Vacationland” and they would like it to remain that way.
We reap what we sow. Everybody seems to want the best of everything, but nobody seems to want to pay for it (IMO).
The answer may also be lack of interest in living 3-5 months a year in a really cold and difficult climate and finding enough workers willing to live in that climate to staff the operation.
Are you impyling that no one that lives in Maine is smart enough to work in auto manufacturing. Last I knew Detroit was pretty cold also.
There’s a substantial import duty on assembled luxury cars. Nuf said?
Just more nonsense; German unions are the reason/s there is no growth in European companies in Europe. They are killing the goose there also.
The American people aren’t falling for this anymore. You can no longer say things like, “Oh, Canada and Germany are terrible places, and so we don’t want healthcare and unions for our own people.”
It’s not going to work. We deserve a higher quality of life and big corporations obsessed with profit and power are not going to just hand it over.
You deserve a higher quality of life??? NO…You don’t deserve anything…you EARN it
As citizens of this country we do indeed deserve a good quality of life. You people fear that we may be equal in that respect.
We deserve a higher quality of life and big corporations obsessed with profit and power are not going to just hand it over.
>>> Why should they? You seem to think businesses OWE you something.
If you think you just “deserve” a high quality of life and the answer is just to force someone else, with a gun to his head, to “hand it over”, you are the problem.
You have to work for it. You have to earn it. I do not need any union to get between me and my employers. I am a grow man and I can do my own negotiating. I do not need a nanny union or a nanny state. If you are so enamored with Germany perhaps you should go there and allow us to live the way we want? Free and unencumbered by having to provide cash to political PACs by law. A union is just another goon standing in line with his hand out between me and my paycheck.
No one should have to work to earn basic human rights, which include affordable access to a doctor and a fair playing field, not one dominated by huge corporations that have no respect at all for the USA or its citizens, only their own pocketbook.
who do you think should “give” you these rights.
Basic rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they are not granted by any government — they’re already ours from the moment of birth. Anything more is transactional in a market. It’s your job to acquire the necessities for your survival, and you do that through work. Sounds like you think someone else should provide for your welfare and pay for it, too. How about assuming the responsibility and expense yourself? Too much work? You seem to have no understanding of free market dynamics. You can capitalize on it yourself, you know.
Why don’t you go out and complain to God. “Dear Lord it so unfair of you to force us to grow our food before we can eat it. and create wealth before we can consume it . Please change thing so that all my needs will be fulfilled without my having to work. ” and lo you drop dead, your wish has been granted. Hopefully God will forgive your desire to enslave doctors.
Spruce, take a good look in the mirror! YOU typify the kind of person that easily convince any potential employer that Maine is not the place to locate their new plant or other business!
Every post you make on this thread reinforces the image of a trouble making loser!
A “right” to a material good or service implies an involuntary obligation on someone else’s part to provide that good or service. We call that involuntary servitude, serfdom or slavery.
how can it be a “basict human right” if you hve to force someone else to provide it for you??
Your shrinking pay check? Is that the one you are talking about? Remember, if your pay is not going up 3% a year to keep pace with inflation, it is the same as taking a pay cut.
You don’t think German and Canadian companies are “obsessed with profit and power”? Real world meet SD’s world.
“We deserve a higher quality of life and big corporations obsessed with profit and power are not going to just hand it over.”
What if the laws of the economic universe think instead that you deserve to starve and die? As your life ebbs away, will you figure out that the profits and productive power of the corporations was what was keeping you alive and providing the quality of life that you assumed was your natural birthright?
Feel free to emigrate.
Then move to Germany…This country was built on the free market way of doing things..Your so called big corporate greed funds 401k’s, many jobs, many charities and the list goes on. Union jobs typically fund “the Union” and political hacks..
We don’t live in a free market. We live in a corporate-dominated plutocracy. The big lie Republicans love is that our country isn’t corrupt at the top, the level of Wall Street and Big Oil.
You say this as though the government is some kind of innocent bystandard in all of this when in fact, it is the government that enables the crony capitalism that undermines the success of the individual worker.
Spruce, you’ll never see the handwriting on the wall unless you open your eyes and consider views other than liberal or progressive ones, such as the one presented in this slanted BDN article. Right to work states are where companies are heading. Regrettably Maine is not one of them. Furthermore it doesn’t make any sense to force people to join a union in order to get a job. Jobs are a basic right, not the privilege of union bosses who dictate who gets a job and who doesn’t. As a life-long union member I disagree wholeheartedly with the unions’ position against right to work laws in favor of laws or policies that force people to pay union dues.
If unions want to earn the respect of Americans and retain their former powerful status they need to drop their stand against right to work laws and party affiliations that cause much division and resentment among in their own members. They need to return to their emphasis on representing workers, not ideologies, political parties, and union party bosses. This doesn’t mean that they need to roll over to greedy corporations. If they fail to change they will ultimately lose their power and influence to assist the working class.
Unions are dying fast in the US and big corporations are at record profits. And the quality of jobs the American worker faces–WalMart, Target, McDonald’s–are pathetic.
We need our quality of life back. We need the American Dream back. And greedy corporations, and all the politicians in their pocket, and the right-wing news media in their pocket, are the problem.
What’s pathetic is that so many people are stuck with wall-mart, target and mcdonalds because they didn’t get an educationwhen they had a chance. too smart to go to school.these are the people that need a union
We could have the American dream back tomorrow, if we should so choose. All we have to do is go back to being an exporting nation instead of an importing one. We can do this by buying American and going back to making products that the rest of the world can’t live without. Just like we used to do. Don’t looked for any help from the bought and paid for politicians or their real employers, the top 1%. They are making a killing off of the selling of America.
Our lead export to Germany should be you. I wonder what kind of price we can get for bulk ignorance?
I disagree with the unions’ position that forces people to pay union dues too. I think that’s ridiculous.
That said, I think that if anyone doesn’t want to join a union, then they should be required to negotiate their own contracts and fight for their own pay rate.
I don’t think I could agree with you concerning the requirements you would be willing to impose on those workers who refuse to pay union dues for the following reason:
Work is basically a moral right. That’s why we have laws to protect workers. Your requirements would amount to replacing one mandate of paying union dues with another mandate for these workers who refuse to pay dues to negotiate their own contract and pay rates. On the other hand I don’t believe the union should be forced to represent these workers either. Mandates only interfere with workers’ rights, whether union members or not.
So those who aren’t in a union get to get paid the same as those who join once a new contract is negotiated? I endured having to listen to several ed techs once complain about not getting any raises – at all and their health insurance premium went up again.
Here’s the thing: the ed techs wouldn’t join the union. Unions, much like everything else, are only as good as the people in them.
I find the vitriole pretty sad. Thanks for keeping the conversation respectful btw. :)
Personally, I feel that in a perfect world, there would be no need for any unions; however, it isn’t, nor will it ever be a perfect world. Clearly, gauging by the vitriolic responses of those for and against unions, true compromise will never happen. Such is human nature I suppose.
Thanks for your response. First let me repeat in case you missed my prior post, I was a near life-long (30 plus years) member of a union until my retirement. So I am not against unions. I do however dislike excesses from either side, management or union.
As far as vitriol against the bakers’ union goes, I think some of it is warranted. Much of the comments in this section however are hardly vitriolic if at all. But consider the following: Over 18,000 workers, nearly 600 in Maine, lost their jobs in a company that was on the brink of financial disaster. As you know jobs are relatively scarce. Most of them won’t be easily replaced, and many of the workers who lost their jobs lack skills to work elsewhere. It’s going to be tough sledding for the families of these 18,000 workers and to the local communities that will be hard hit.
In right to work states union employees work right along side non-union employees, often in close quarters. Sometimes the salaries and working conditions are different for each, but fortunately in most cases they are not different. Companies are likely not to want to discriminate in order to avoid hostile working environments, if anything else.
By the way, where I worked, while most employees were union members, all enjoyed the same benefits. The union even voluntarily represented non-members when they had a grief with management. That in itself caused many non-member employees to join the union ranks. As a result roughly 9 in 10 workers were members and everyone’s employment right were respected.
I believe Maine would greatly profit by becoming a right to work state. Large and medium sized employers consider them friendlier. If Maine doesn’t change its status it stands to lose a lot of jobs to other states in the union. For far too long Maine has been at the nation’s bottom when it comes to jobs. We can help change that situation if only we can gather enough support from both major parties. Don’t worry about the Maine AFL-CIO. It’ll keep on surviving albeit perhaps with a wounded pride.
In the meantime we can only hope there will be no situations like this latest job loss for Mainers and Americans alike.
Thank you for your experienced reply.
I largely agree with you, but when I speak of vitriole, I’m pointing more at people who take every opportunity to cut welfare recipients down while at the same time, saying “Any job’s better than no job.” A job that pays substandard wages which require welfare to make up for what the job doesn’t pay, isn’t any better to me. The reason for this is that it will never change the fact that some corporations are only focused on profit – even if it’s to the detriment of their employees and the taxpayers. When we ‘ho hum’ that and say “well it’s better than nothing” then where does it stop?
Well, regardless of viewpoint, this nation is experiencing tough economic times. Our forebears however stood against far greater odds, so I remain optimistic. Thanks for sharing.
So the greedy owners of Hostess disband a company which, you claim, can do just fine with a whiny, violent union workforce. If they’re really greedy, why wouldn’t they continue with the company and do just fine? Doesn’t sound very greedy to me.
You are dishonest if you don’t admit that the German unions are run differently from the way they are in the US. Frankly the German unions are “under control” to a greater extent than here and probably would not have been “allowed” to be as stupid as the bakery union was in driving a company completely out of business.
SD, where exactly
do live here in Germany? I’ve been here for over 20 years in the “Glorious
Peoples Paradise Union” otherwise known as IG Metal. We are now starting
our first quarter of “short work” in the company which employs me due
to low sales and high prices from bailing out everyone here in Euroland.
We’ll work
Tue-Thurs with a four day weekend-oh yeah, and the low pay to go with it. What
did you say…the union will compensate us stalwart supporters with money from
the dues we’ve paid in? Not on your socialist lovin’ life! In fact, we are
expected to strike and sacrifice what pay we are getting paid to support it.
So you obviously
belong to the “rich elite” community here in Germany, because you
have no fricken clue what is really happening here in “der vaterland”
with us normal working class “pobel”.
Get used to the
socialist phrase we have here…”The government pretends to pay us, and we
pretend to work!”
Rather than listen to your spiel, I hope people will do some research and get educated about unions in Germany, Canada and elsewhere. They can start here:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/07/unions-boost-economy-in-germany/
They are not interested in facts, they get in the way. Daddy may have left them the family business and a disgust for labor, but he sure forgot the empathy thing.
You GOT to be
joking-right?! That “article” is more blatant than Pravda cheer
leading for communism. That male bovine fecal matter was as partisan an article
I have ever read. Don’t be stupid enough
to use an article with as much bias as that to sway people. Get a non-biased NEWS organization to rah-rah
the communi…er, unions and I might bother to read the article in its entirety. You just waste our time comrade!
Do you have a 401k account? If so, do you accept any of the blame for corporations trying to stay profitable?
Union presidents make huge salaries, the auto worker union own a huge luxury resort complex for use primarily by union officials, unions spend millions on politics, all extracted from their workers who in turn take it out of the company they get paid by . This money creates no wealth and handicaps the afflicted company to the extent that eventually the company fails.
The rich don’t hide their money under the bed or keep it in a swimming pool. They invest it to create more wealth, making the country more prosperous and providing yet more opportunity .
You should look into the education level of the average German laborer. They are marketable in many different work environments. Unlike our poorly educated work force. You can’t compare the two. It’s an apples to door knob comparison.
alas, it looks like everybody sinks in this (Hostess) scenario,
My point exactly! Businesses will move to right to work states in the South. Toyota did that a few years back by oening up a plant in Alabama.
Toyota also pays excellent wages and benefits and have more job security due to the success of the product they build. They offer child care, college tuition etc. My dad worked for JJ Nissen for over 30 years. He was a shop steward for the Union. I never ever heard him say anything but high praise the Nissen family and how they were treated. The company was sold and it was downhill from there.
In case you didn’t notice, the only businesses moving to the right to work states are the ones who would incur import duties if they built their products overseas.
Very well said!
Don’t tell that to New York or Mass.! This country was built by unions. Detroit isn’t doing that bad either.
Are you being sarcastic? Detroit is an urban wasteland and union jobs in New York and Massachusetts are a miniscule portion of what they were mid-century.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-before-and-after-pictures-of-detroit-2009-10
http://zfein.com/photography/detroit/index.html
You obviously know nothing about the Boeing issue but what you may have heard from Fox. Blackmail and threats are not considered legal in this country.
So how come BIW is doing do great an GD has put money into BIW
I think that you are so wrong in generalizing unions. I was a union member for 35 years and can verify the fact that the union that I was involved with educated and produced the most qualified and professional workers in the industry. Without the education and training the provided the companies would have come up short. Bear in mind that there are unions and there are GOOD unions
You are probably right about the union you were a part of. A union that seeks to secure its position by producing employees that are worth hiring and maintains high standards of training and achievement would be a good thing. Its just that in most fields the market itself does this, making such a union superfluous and therefore not worth the overhead involved.
In a private business the UNIONS seek the employees? What about the owner of the company? The USA doesn’t need a third party to hire and fire why not just give the business to the Unions and get it over with? Why does anyone want to pay a third party for the right to work in a free country?
The Unions were necessary at one time.
They are no longer necessary to work in this country.
The Unions gutted Detroit and Flint Mi wake up!
Professional associations choose their own members and in some fields you are legally required to belong to one before you can work. Makes sense for doctors, but not for hairdressers, which is sadly what things have come to.
But these are not unions. A hairdresser can work pretty much anywhere. There is a market for their services with many buyers and sellers.
A union that acted like a professional association and actually required training and education and other such things of employees to join could be a valuable partner for a company.
But then why bother when you can simply require employees to have a college degree in a specific field and get the same return?
That being said, something much like such an arrangement does exist, except we don’t refer to these “unions” as such, we call them outsourcing firms.
If I hire IT-GUYS-R-US to do my tech support rather than run it internally, I’m basically hiring that “union” to do that job for me same as when Ford hires the UAW. The difference is that unlike the UAW, there are lots of IT firms out there.
You can’t fix “Stupid” !!!
Youre obviously not talking about public unions such as AFSCME. I supervised union employees in PA. It would take between 5-10 of their collective knowledge to make 1 private sector consultant. Really. Union rules kept them from doing anything useful.
Perhaps its different in private unions but we can see the outcome with Hostess.
It’s possible, but In my experience (again MY experience so it varies) unions are worthless and only take your money. I was a teamster, CSEA, and two others I can’t even remember But those first two are huge, and they were WORTHLESS. I couldn’t even get the shop steward to answer the most basic questions. CSEA didn’t do a thing for me, including adding me to the roles, after taking dues for over a year.
What is the point of a union if they’re not going to do anything for the people who pay the dues? They’re an outdated concept, meant for the era of sweatshops.
I couldn’t have said it better myself and couldn’t possibly agree anymore with what you said. If only the rest of our country could figure this out we would be a much better nation.
I don’t really think I’ve said anything special, but then I was raised in an quasi-upper middle class community of educated professionals where EVERYONE went to college and making oneself valuable as an individual was highly stressed. The serf mentality I speak of is something I never would have dreamt existed had you asked me at 16.
Then there are those who grow up in communities where this mentality is the norm. I can’t honestly say whether I myself would have fallen prey to it had I grown up in such a place. I’m just glad I didn’t.
U are joking, right? Non-marketable skills because they are in a union? Come on, Serfs? Tell me you are joking.
No, in a union because they have non-marketable skills. Don’t put the cart before the horse. Yes, serfs, because they are bound to the company they work for every bit as much as a medieval peasant was bound to his feudal lord’s estate.
My uncle worked for the railroad for 40 years. He made good money right out of high school, but he could never leave even though he was miserable and the harsh physical nature of the work eventually ruined his back. He was heavily involved in the railroad employees union and wrangled with it and the SP and UP railroads almost the entire time, fighting with both over this and that, all for nothing. Had he stayed in school he could have made even more money and enjoyed a professional career with the job options and employment flexibility that such a career entails. Instead he cashed in his chips at 19 and became a serf, bound to that railroad line, for the next 40 years, alongside all the other serfs who made that same faustian bargain.
Oh, you are 100 per cent correct in your assessment of this situation. Another way to put it is they “cut off their nose to spite their face”. Yes, you won, you shut down the plant…now what are you going to do? It feels good to be right until the bills start piling up and collectors start harassing you day and night. It feels good to think you won until your kids start saying, “I need new sneakers for gym, I need money for a field trip, I need money for school photos”, and you have to say how sorry you are because you don’t have the money to give them. I say better to have half a loaf than no loaf at all. I am afraid your “victory” will be short lived.I guess you showed the big guys whats what didn’t you. Yes, you can collect unemployment for awhile, but then what? My son was out of work for 2 years and when he finally got a job he had to start all over at the bottom, again at minimum wage and he is still trying to dig out of the hole. Good luck to you all!
You’re putting the quality of American life below the cruelty of big corporations. When money becomes the reason for your right or wrong, you’ve lost all integrity, and you’re not getting into heaven, either.
How about the cruelty of greedy union bosses using the loss of 18,000 jobs as a means of setting an example to other company’s? Do you really think this hurt those at the top of the food chain @ hostess heck no they will end up with huge bonuses after whatever is left of hostess is sold off!!! Then they will simply get new jobs @ the company’s that bought off hostesses assets!!!
The unions have been slaughtered in this country. I mean really destroyed over the last couple of decades–and, correspondingly, the big Greedy corporations–entities like Time Warner, which Mainers are now suing–have become stronger.
What do we have to show for it? We have lower quality of life. We have Wal-Mart type jobs with little pay and no dignity. Meanwhile, over in Canada, the people have a high quality of life, and flourishing unions.
Any voluntary mutually beneficial relationship where two sides exchange what each has to offer (in this case labor and pay) has dignity. It is the entitlement mentality of those like you where people strip themselves of dignity.
Greed is not mutually beneficial. It seeks to maximize its own profit and minimize everyone else’s quality of life.
We don’t live in a free market, we live in a country with the same wealth distribution as an African dictatorship, where politicians are bought off and democracy is subverted.
So, for the sake of the argument, let’s say we have the same wealth distribution as an African dictatorship (is this racist?). The poor in this country have a level of wealth probably greater than most of that African dictatorship. So you’re problem is not that we’re poor (we aren’t) , but that you don’t have as much as someone else. Envy is a pretty self-destructive thing; judging by most of your posts, it has made you a bitter and resentful.
Speak for yourself. I have mad skills and I have a good job. I don’t need any union to force someone employ me.
Why would those of us who have suffered from the greedy destructiveness of stupid union goons have any sympathy for them? Why would I as their constant victim not rejoice to see their day of comeuppance and destruction? I think it is appropriate for the union scum to suffer they way they made other people suffer.
Welcome to Obamaville, You don’t needs jobs, you have
welfare checks, section 8 housing, EBT cards free Obamacare, and doesn’t that make you proud! Elections have consequences, now deal with it!
Meanwhile, over in Canada, the people have a high quality of life and a conservative government .
What provides value thrives. What doesn’t dies. In this sense the Union and Hostess have quite a bit in common.
Here is a company that refused to innovate. They offer moderately cheap, sugary snacks. That’s it. So what happens when the marketplace decides it’s interested in more healthy, organic alternatives to what Hostess makes? Then combine that with a recession where more people are under/unemployed and don’t have the expendable income for these sugary treats. Now what? Your market is shrinking, costs are staying the same and you have no inexpensive healthy alternatives to offer the marketplace. You’re screwed because you can no longer provide value to the marketplace.
The union, which is supposed to protect its worker’s jobs, couldn’t come up with a creative way to help the company maintain the margins they believed necessary to continue to do business. They could offer no value to Hostess nor, as it turns out, to their workers.
Two organizations unable to offer value so the market does what the market supposed to do. It kills them both.
if you have a wal-mart type job it’s because you have a wal-mart type education.
But while headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.
At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Unionpointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Certainly, the company agreed to an out-sized pension debt, but the decision to pay executives more while scorning employee contracts during a bankruptcy reflects a lack of good managerial judgement.
It also follows a trend of rising CEO pay in times of economic difficulty. At the manufacturing company Caterpillar, for example, they froze workers’ pay while boosting their CEO’s pay to $17 million. And at Citigroup, CEO Vikram Pandit received$6.7 million for crashing his company, walking off with $260 million after the businesslost 88 percent of its value.
None of them will get any of that increase now, will they?
Why would management talent agree to take on a failing company unless the compensation was worthwhile? It’s a big job to pull a distressed company out of bankruptcy. Hostess would have been gone in 2004 if an investment banking firm hadn’t infused needed cash at that time — it bought another 8 years of employment for 18,000 employees. And if this union hadn’t gone on strike, the company might have had a shot at survival. That the union sees this as a “victory” is surrreal. It’s nihilism.
As I’ve said in here over and over, the unions have been kicked down so badly in the last few decades, it is kind of ridiculous to keep making them the scapegoat for the real problem: corporate greed. The big players don’t care about the workers, or America, or the quality of life in America. If it will turn a profit, they would sell everything over to China.
And that mentality isn’t decent, healthy or survivable.
Oh please! The unions are the biggest money grubbers of all…and who made you the judge of whether or not I will get into heaven? By the way…go ask the union bosses how much money THEY make! Go see where Trumpka lives! He’ll be glad to show you around his great big mansion!
From his other posts I gathered Spruce is a non-believer who likes to humiliate and poke fun at Christians. It’s reprehensible that he should pass judgement on you when it suits him while not being one to believe in hell, let alone God.
Judge not that ye be not judged, my friend. It says in the Bible you can’t have two gods. And right now, our corporations worship greed–at the expense of the USA, at the expense of the people of the USA, and at the expense of the moral integrity of our society.
SpruceDweller said:
“When money becomes the reason for your right or wrong, you’ve lost all integrity…”
And also said:
“Judge not that ye be not judged, my friend.”
Ah, the sweet smell of hypocrisy in the afternoon.
It’s ridiculous to attack the unions as greedy when unions have already been kicked down so badly in this country they are almost snuffed out. We’ve been reducing unions for decades, at the same time giving corporations more power–and, yes, corporate profit is at all time high; but has that helped the rest of us?
NO. Trickle down doesn’t work. The old Republican canards won’t fool Americans anymore.
Watch California if you want to see what’s going to happen. The rest of us get our taxes jacked up sky high to pay benefits for the unions who promise the sun,moon and stars! Like I said….go ask Trumpka how much money he makes….along with all the other union bosses. It always comes to the same end, pretty soon you run out of other peoples money.
The cruel unions got 18,000 to destroy their company just in time for Thanksgiving. What a fabulous ‘quality of life’ those 18,000 workers have now.
And what the hell does ” When money becomes the reason for your right or wrong, you’ve lost all integrity” mean? It doesn’t make sense. Working is how you get things. It is how you exist. Without money you must barter. The reason people get jobs is to get money so they can get food and housing. Try to make some sense.
If you can’t understand why it is important to stand up to the concentrated power of Greed at the top of our society, I can only hope that most Americans will–and that they, like the Hostess workers, and WalMart employees, and Target employees, and all the others being exploited unfairly–will finally begin to take back this society from the corporate stranglehold that is destroying the quality of our lifestyle and our freedom.
Coveting is a sin that keeps you out of heaven, too!!! How about the wicked cruelty of the lazy extorting their living out of the honest and diligent? Some people have nothing precisely because they deserve nothing because they have earned nothing.
Thank you Jesus!
So far you’ve had 28 replies (not counting this reply), all of which are negative. That’s not even counting the numerous “thumbs down” and the relatively few “thumbs up” you’ve gotten from your comments. The sentiment is certainly going against you because people know the union representing the bakers did all the 18,000 workers (of which nearly 600 are Mainers) of the company and their families a huge disfavor. At this point you, this liberal newspaper’s writers, and Maine AFL-CIO are one of the very few Mainers who believe this union should not be allowed to die. Open your eyes and don’t let your hatred for pro-fit companies distort your views.
“Quality of American life” . . . “cruelty of big corporations” . . . “money” . . . “lost all integrity” . . . “getting into heaven”
Good grief, stop whinging.
does heaven have a union?
Here’s some detail we’re not getting from our vaunted newspaper reporters:
The controlling equity owner of Hostess brands is a Private Equity firm (Ripplewood) owned by an influential Democrat named Tim Collins.
Collins is a pro-union guy who wanted to get into deals with union-shop companies.
A crony of Dick Gephardt, the celebrated pro-union former Congressman and presidential candidate, Collins benefitted from an association with Gephardt’s labor advisory firm as Hostess emerged from the 2004 bankruptcy.
To get out of that bankruptcy, Collins persuaded hedge funds Silver Point and Monarch, the major lenders who had helped keep the doors open, to stick with the company instead of calling in their loans.
In addition to that, Collins (the pro-union Democrat) sought and obtained concessions from the unions, saving the company $110 million in annual labor costs.
In spite of these efforts, Hostess brands couldn’t turn itself around, due to a drop in consumer demand and a rise in the price of its ingredients and a resulting negative cash flow.
Meanwhile a huge unfunded pension liability was further and further from being solved.
Collins (the pro-union Democrat) sincerely wanted to keep the company afloat so he sought additional concessions from labor. The teamsters agreed. The bakers did not.
This time, the lenders are not willing to stick with Collins and Hostess.
In liquidation, the lenders (hedge funds) will recover pennies on the dollar.
Collins loses his hundreds of millions in capital.
And the workers all lose their jobs.
You can read about it here.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
Inflation. You know, the inflation which our Ministry of Truth says isn’t happening. Along with that recession they say isn’t happening. Kinda hard to stay in business when it costs you more to keep the doors open than it does to keep them closed and people aren’t buying your stuff as much anyway.
No matter what happens, the Marxist Socialist Media will try to blame this on Republicans.
They already are. Don’t you know that the Bush economy was responsible.
Thank you for this obviously well informed big picture look at this issue. You are 100% right and if Maine wants to position itselfwell in national and global markets and build 21st century trading partners it has to learn to look to the big picture and find the niche where it fits in.
Twinkies are no longer viable..this kind of company ownership is no longer desireable, especially here in Maine..the labor management polarity that unions arose from and still work from is nolonger viable..workers have to have a stake in the end product whether it is a manufactured product or a service product.
Love it anytime the unions take it in the shorts.
Wow, some actual facts about this unfortunate situation. I have to wonder why a BDN “reporter” couldn’t have dug this up, not really. It seems that this situation doesn’t exactly follow the Sprucedweller version of the real world, LOL! Interesting that it turns out to be a pro union democrat who is the actual “evil corporation” stripping the hard working common folks of their working wage.
The union may be calling this a victory but the people the union represents are now jobless in an economic environment where jobs are very hard to come by. Everybody lost and the fault lies with the overall economic climate that doesn’t allow an established business like this to pay its bills, so it has to be shut down. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to see a LOT more of this sort of thing before most voters realize that liberals fantasies are just that, and we once again embrace capitalism so our economy can once again begin to grow and provide the jobs working people need to provide for themselves and their families.
about time
The CEO of Hostess also took a 300% pay increase this year!
actually, in April of 2012 rayburn and 4 other execs cut their salary to $1. facts are such tricky things, huh?
Hostess’ creditors accused the company in April of manipulating executive salaries with the aim of getting around bankruptcy compensation rules, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. In response, Rayburn announced he would cut his pay and that of other executives to $1 until Dec. 31 or whenever Hostess came out of bankruptcy.
That was after Hostess had already awarded the company’s top four executives raises of between 75 and 80 percent, even though the company had already hired restructuring lawyers, according to the WSJ.
The situation isn’t specific to Hostess. Over the last 30 years, CEO pay grew 127 times faster than worker pay, according to a July report.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577323993512506050.html
This sounds like typical liberalisum, taking money from those who earn it and give it to those who don’t earn it.
no, it was mismanagement of the company that brought them down – of course workers should just sit down and shut up, take a wage cut while their CEO’s continue to get 300% wage increases while in the process of filing for bankruptcy. Btw, it’s “liberalism”. and according the election results, it’s no longer a “dirty” word. Republican’s are dinosaurs who are not going to win another election until they update their core values to the 21st century.
Come out Charlie. Your comment about executive salaries has been expanded and referenced to show how little you knew.
The execs were stripping the company, not the Union members.
It is common to thank those who educate you and we are waiting.
I can not fine in searches were they did they an people have posted links that they said it but i could not fined it in there .
Did he really? Possible after all he is a Democrat. Democrats believes in talking about helping the poor while they get rich. Oh yes Don’t forget it was the Bush economy that caused this.
So, welders, pipefitters, carpenters, electricians and other people working in the trades who are mostly union have no “marketable skills”, I would say thet those people might take exception with your opinion. I do not disagree with your overall take on how the union has cost these people their jobs
Excellent point.
Their skills are not marketable because the unions do not allow them to market themselves. The union must represent them. You cannot be an electrician in a forced union state without having union dues forcibly extracted from your paycheck and given to a totalitarian politician.
“So, welders, pipefitters, carpenters, electricians and other people
working in the trades who are mostly union have no “marketable skills”,
Nobody remembers the old saying, “Those who know HOW to do things will always have a job…working for the man who knows WHY!!!”
“Why” is the entrepreneurial function which liberals and other communists do not respect because they don’t think it exists.
Those are TRADE unions, not LABOR unions They primarily exist to limit and exclude competition for their members. There is great merit to the argument that an electrician needs to be properly trained and certified before stringing up wiring in someone’s house. I’m glad that these trade groups exist and that they enforce standards of competence. They keep houses from burning down due to crappy wiring jobs and if anyone tried to get rid of these groups I’d fight them tooth and toe nail.
That being said, they’re not universally good in all contexts. Wanna cut hair? You have to be certified and licensed. Total nonsense for that kind of job.
“Unionized workers are unionized precisely because their skill set does not allow them to do this.”
Your words, not mine. I understand the difference between labor and trade unions, I was just trying to make a point based on your original comment.
From your first sentence, you frame union people as inferior, and it just gets worse from there. In fact, in Canada, Germany and other places that are doing better than us, the unions are an important part of insuring quality of life.
That’s what it comes down to: what kind of quality of life do we want for our citizens? And are we going to make businesses not only focus on profit but also bettering the lives of their workers, communities and countries.
It is obvious you have never had an executive position. Every business I have ever worked for focus not only on profit but also on bettering the lives of their employees, communities and countries. How dare you claim otherwise.
Union people are morally inferior because they think in terms of coercion, extortion, and blackmail to get what they want rather than thinking in terms of serving their fellow man efficiently and effectively.
Tell me how you have the knowledge that all these jobs belonged to serfs that had no right to set a value on their labor. Your reply is good enough to belong to Romney, as it is both blind and shows you as a loser in the “Who is a human” contest.
Examples: Let me see your skills in driving an 18 wheeler across the country safely.
Let me see you drive a forklift while maintaining an inventory and do it for eight hours efficiently and with pride.
Your advice is patriarchal, unwanted, and unasked for.
They may set a value on their labor… obviously they overvalued themselves.
And you are acting like a rude little child stomping your foot, holding your breath, and calling everyone names instead of defending your position.
The company gets to set what they are willing to pay for given work. It is called a ‘budget’ and if you present a good one to the bank you get loans. I know totalitarian democrats like you don’t understand economics well enough to produce a budget so I will never be able to explain to you why the world works that way.
There is a reason that German car companies opened their US plants in right to work states where there are no unions. I will leave you to consider why that would be
But union officials and line workers said union workers had already agreed to a series of concessions over the years and the company had failed to invest in brand marketing and modernization of plants and trucks and had focused instead on enriching owners such as private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital.
Union officials said.
Yeah.
The day a line worker understands the complexities of corporate finance is the day they won’t be working on the line anymore.
Here’s a FREE online course on corporate finance taught by a prominent faculty member at the University of Michigan. It’ll knock your socks off. I found it to be highly educational and more than a little challenging. The videos lectures should still be available:
https://class.coursera.org/introfinance-2012-001/class/index
Couldn’t have said it better. Thank you for your careful and truthful thoughts
@ Lee Reynolds: It must feel good to pontificate and lecture from the high mountain your podium resides on. Poor “serfs” (???!!), if only they were “educated” and “marketed” themselves cleverly, they would not be in these self created dire straits!
The facts are that college graduates remain saddled with excessive debt due to the high cost of tuition and remain underemployed because of a shrinking job market.
They are working at (ironically) the very low paying, low skill jobs the serfs (through their Unions) “cling” to : bar tending, waiting tables etc. to pay off debt. Ironically, this leaves them “tied to debt”,in the same way you claim the “low skill” are tied to unions.
Your speech may have flown in the 60s, but the reality of 2012 is that the manufacturing base in this country has disappeared vital to a productive economy. It has been eroded because of bottom line profit taking.
Without the “serfs”, you see, you can’t have a skilled management and administrative class that enjoys the cheap goods and services the “serfs” provide.
These people are your fellow citizens, and they deserve better than being looked down on by corporate apologists with trite sound bites.
The college graduates of today that are saddled with debt and can’t find a job are the ones who went to college and got a degree in “basket weaving” that gave them no marketable skills! These “basket weaving” degrees are a product of the liberal arts mentality promoted by educational establishments to keep left wing professors employed!
People who obtain useful, marketable degrees such as in the various engineering fields are snapped up before they even graduate! And they can move to a different employer with ease if they so desire!
The college students you mention are those who majored in nonsense degrees that were created by universities eager to feed on government student loans and unconcerned about the job prospects of their graduates. Those students can’t find good jobs because they don’t know anything and can’t do anything. They have a piece of paper with their name on it to signify that they attended college, nothing more. They’re glorified high school graduates.
Meanwhile those with the brains and gumption to tackle the difficult majors that build marketable skills are making good money. Sociology majors….not so much.
This situation is unsustainable. There is a higher education bubble, and it will not last. What will happen is anyone’s guess, but I’m putting my money on the emergence of disruptive actors in the educational sphere creating skill-based certifications that will directly undermine the market validity of 4 year universities.
As for manufacturing, the situation that followed WW-II with the US being the premiere manufacturing power faded over time. The industrial base in other parts of the world grew and this competition has come to bear upon us, and will continue to grow even more. Global monetary cooperation, increasing political and financial stability, international trade and economic growth means new customers and new competition.
You can talk about greedy companies all you want, but the truth is that you’re competing with people all over the world for the privilege of making and selling manufactured goods to the world market. If you can’t compete, you can’t compete. Refuse to compete, and you lose by default.
I’m competing with people all over the globe for the privilege of creating and defining the software and hardware technologies that define our modern world. If I can’t compete, then I can’t compete. Luckily for me, I can. If the day ever comes when I can’t, then I deserve to be beaten by those who can.
If you have limited skills, wouldn’t those limited skills be easily transfered to other companies who use limited skills? It’s the highly specialized skill that is not transferable.
Your advise to work hard and distinguish yourself is about as anti-union as it’s possible to be. Unions are about everyone making the same pay and stomping on anyone trying to distinguish themselves.
Are you responding to me and to what I have written, or are you responding to things that others have said or written (possibly in the past and in another context) which my words merely remind you of?
Union hater, let me guess you voted for LePage and Romney
I don’t hate unions, I simply understand them. Hatred would require an emotional involvement, which would cloud my judgement.
If their skills are “unmarketable” – why are nurses usually unionized?
The same reason that lawyers are, to limit and exclude competition.
How typically tea publican of you. The tea party is dead in Maine for now and hopefully forever.
“Unionized workers are unionized precisely because their skill set does not allow them to do this. Some don’t possess anything that we would call marketable skills.” I spent a considerable amount of time during my career as a Skilled Tradesman in the UAW. Care to match skills? Your statement shows your ignorance of the subject! Unions in this country have been instrumental in building the apprenticeship programs that most civilized states enjoy! “The ability to make and use tools!’ Where do you rank?
You might want to take the time to actually read my entire post before responding:
“Others work in industries where one or two companies are all that exist. While they may have skills, those skills aren’t transferable to other kinds of work. They cannot leave and work somewhere else, at least not without taking a huge pay cut.”
While not referring to the UAW and the auto industry, my words describe both quite well. My Uncle worked on the railroad for 40 years and during that time he developed skills and expertise that made him very effective at his job. Couldn’t leave though, cause those skills were of no value anywhere else, at least not at the pay rate he wanted.
As for making and using tools, my entire career is built upon inventing, implementing and improving software tools. If you spend any significant time online, odds are you have interacted with something I’ve had my fingers on. The difference is that my skills have broad application. I’m not stuck working for one company or even in one industry. My knowledge and talents are valuable pretty much anywhere that people use computers to get their work done. The more I know, the more I can do, the more money I can make. If I don’t like working somewhere, I can leave. I’m not stuck having to choose among the “big three” for a job and I’m most certainly not trapped in the snow belt, nor even in Silicon Valley.
This is in fact precisely why there are no unions for IT/IS and software/hardware engineers. Every so often we hear grumblings about this, with people who come from a union dominated cultural background wanting to start such a union, thinking that this is somehow going to “protect” us from international competition, which is total horse shit. It would only make us less competitive. Luckily they never get anywhere with their ideas. Each of us lives or dies career wise on the basis of our individual abilities. Having a union would mean that those of us who are good at what we do would no longer be at a competitive advantage over others who are not so good. In a career culture where individual achievement and skill are deified, this is abhorrent. It would also mean playing political games and jumping through arbitrary hoops to become a member of a clique (say the local 232 of code monkeys) instead of dealing directly with those who are willing to pay the most for our skill set. Such an approach only makes sense for skills that are either not valuable (shit scrubbers), or not valuable outside a narrowly defined field (railroad workers, or bakers in the case of hostess). This would provide cover for those who can’t hack it on their own, but then we don’t want such people around anyway.
Some people accuse Republicans and the other usual boogeymen of the left in attacking and undermining unions and exerting all of our effort towards destroying them. Sounds like a nice scary story except that we don’t have to. Sinking ships don’t need help to succumb to the waves. Economic reality is your enemy, we’re merely amused bystanders.
The margins that made fat unionized labor possible in past generations don’t exist anymore. International competition means that you’re no longer competing for that skilled tradesman job with the guy across the street, but with hundreds or even thousands of people across the world, many living in places where they can live like kings on 1/5th the salary you desire.
How do you compete with them? You don’t. At least not on an apples to apples basis. If you understand the principle of comparative advantage, you look for areas where you come out ahead and exploit those. Or you retool your skill set and do something new so that they’re no longer your competition. In my line of work this is a continual process, not least of all because things change so quickly that anyone who isn’t running to keep ahead is by definition falling behind. Creative destruction isn’t just a catch phrase for us, but a continual companion.
What a boat load of condescending manure. There are many union jobs that require a skill set that you would never be able to achieve. No functional market for their services? lol. Do you put your brain in gear before you engage your mouth? I used to be a Chief Engineer in the U.S. Merchant Marines. That current position, a lowly union job, pays 100k and up. News flash: They wouldn’t pay 100k and up if they could get it done for $7 an hour. It requires proficient knowledge in diesel engines, hydraulics, pneumatics, electronics, plumbing, electricity, etc., etc., etc. No functional market for their services? What a completely dim witted thing to say.
Apples and oranges my friend. No one gets paid 100k a year for a $7 an hour job, at least outside of government.
You got paid for your skills, not because you were in a union. Even if that union didn’t exist you still would have been paid well, or that job would literally cease to exist. Outside of government, jobs with not economic basis for existence don’t persist.
How many hoops did you have to jump through to join that union? How many of those had nothing to do with actual skills or qualifications, but with make-work criteria in order to reduce and limit the number of on-paper qualified applicants for the job you did?
Lawyers have a union too, it’s call the bar.
Lee, That is one of the best responses I have ever read on this subject. You are to be congratulated. My only addition would be to say that the Ghost of the Lone Ranger will haunt every single one of those Union “persons” and their running dogs in the media, until their dying day. And, yes, you have to be pretty dang old to get that one.
And not only that: I suspect a lot fewer hedge funds are going to bail out ANYBODY that has a unionized work force. After this and the grief Romney got, I’d be amazed if they didn’t collectively just give ’em all the middle finger.
Nobody forces a worker to limit themselves to a single specialized machine or task. The fact that they can draw upwards of $20/hour with no intention of increased proficiency is their own doing.
“So it is not the least bit surprising that the union would drive the company into the ground.”
I take issue with that statement, not only is it dead wrong but it perpetuates a hideous lie.
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Executives awarding themselves raises despite they failed to develop new products, new markets and marketing solutions to save the company. That is what the bakers expect these overpaid greed-junkies to do.
To blame the unions for this is like blaming the rooster for making the sun to rise.
from my understanding the article wasn’t quite accurate. the request for the lower pay was NOT from hostess the company. the paycuts were court ordered by a bankruptcy court. in other words the workers were refusing to comply with a legal court ordered pay cut needed to keep the company viable. hostess begged the workers to come back because it was already on the ropes and couldnt afford the costs of a strike. the workers refused.
the problems of hostess had nothing to do with poor management. hostess was caught between two key events that they had no control over. first, the price of wheat and flour has skyrocketed (due to more farmers growing corn to sell for ethanol subsidies) making it much more expensive to produce the same items of food with there being no way to cut the cost. second, america and much of the world is struggling financially and hostess items are luxury junk food and as the prices were raised more and more people chose not to buy them.
the ethanol corn subsidies are causing all sorts of chaos. farmers plant what is most profitable and right now its corn. not as much other stuff is planted and that raises prices at the supermarket on fruits, vegtables, etc. the egypt/tunisia revolutions started because the governments couldnt afford to keep handing out as much free bread and cut the amounts – riots started and governments fell. i guess this shows that a stupid decision (paying ethanol corn subsidies at all) does indeed go around the world, cause all sorts of havok, and then come right back to america to get us too.
excellent and important point Wiliam…and we will definitely have an even deeper food crisis in 2013 than we had in 2008. The diversion of food crop and food growing space is only a small part of that crisis..The larger part is allowing pure speculation in food via commodities derivatives that distort both food and petroleum prices upward by as much as 40% above “spot”. All food producers are already on on the edge and many more will go over the edge on 2013. The one’s that survive will be those with growing not declining consumer demand. The leading edge of those over the cliff will be food products that are “out of date” ad “out of style” like twinkies.
the food situation is getting dire. corn and soybeans are at an all time high cost right now. two years ago food prices pushed 44 million people into poverty and led to rebellions around the world. drought in the usa, monsoons in india, and heat waves in europe decimated crops. reserves are extremely low. the president despite requests (from 150 lawmakers, the corn industry, and the ethenol industry) refused to eliminate the corn for ethenol subsidy.
another bad year or even an average year will have huge parts of the world unable to buy food. even in the united states there will be mass hunger. the prices dont just affect large food producers like hostess. small bakeries are getting driven out of business too, especially in europe where their prices are controlled by laws which lag behind the reality of flour prices.
we are all in an extremely bad position in regards to food right now but very few actually realize how precarious.
You are so right Wiliam and I share your concern that people are not aware of the complex causes of the prices for petroleum and food that are choking them financially.
I beieve food security , food price and food quality can be addressed with some effect at the State and local level and must be as national policy has not been willing to tackle these issues..the more we rely on the results of national food policy, the more crippled we are in managing our own food secuirty and food access issues here at home.
We have to fn a way to make this known in ways people can grasp…it is complicated to explain how disastrous our national decision to entrust food security to the workings of the rivate market ( giving up our food storage policy. Everyone’s eyes glaze over at any info n food derivative or how they disotrt and mask price discovery so it is a real challenge to “bring it home” in terms of awareness..
I hosted a conversation at TED about it last year and really only global food relief folk already plugged into this and working on it engaged.
It is probably the most important issue confronting Mainers and the nation in 2013. ( And was the principal reason for the Tahir Square uprising in Egypt last year..the cost of basic food had reached something like 70% of income)
We need to push our legislators to start workingon these issues with urgency and how can we do that if we can’t even explain in simple English what the urgency is.
(By the way you might be interested in the model of this built by the Institute For the Study of Complex Systems in Caimbridge. They recently validated the predictive reliability of the model and they are among those predicting are hard and very steep crisis in 2013)
farming has changed in the last generation. private farms are squeezed out and replaced by massive corporations. im not a conspiracy theorist by nature but (and its a big but) i liked having our food supply in the hands of millions of individuals. i dont like the fact that such a large percentage of our food supply is controlled by so few companies. their financial interests are not necessarily the best interests for the country.
on the other hand i am not sure that government is really the correct route to handle the problem. after all, although government didnt create the problem it has certainly made it worse. the ethanol subsidy is a perfect example. easy loans to farmers rather than heavy tax cuts for independent farmers is another – it buried them in debt, kept them one harvest from bankrupt, and one by one they fell.
i would really prefer to see the return of the private farmer. millions of people putting out as much food as they can with the government granting them heavy tax breaks for farming while not granting those tax breaks to corporate farmers.
i also find the use of gm to be rather scary. it is a pandoras box that opened to make tomatos red at harvest time and ended up mingling corn not fit for human consumption in with corn that is. we still dont know which we are eating when we buy corn. the corporate farmers are the ones who pushed for gm to make farming easier and more profitable. sooner or later we will pay a scary price for this.
but yes, many peoples eyes do glaze over when talking facts. not necessarily about food but just facts in general.
What is TED? i am unaware of that acronymn. i did know about tahir square and the costs of food. the government cut its ration of bread while the cost of food skyrocketed and chaos ensued. i could easily see the same thing happening in europe and america if food prices continue to climb while per capita income is decreasing.
i will check out the model you mentioned later. it sounds interesting. do you have a link handy? if not i will google.
William,
Here is the link to my now closed TED conversation:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/6056/commodities_speculation_a_cau.html
It’s a good read and has many links to organizations working on this issue including right in the description of the discussion a link to necsi ( the institute for the study of complex systems)
Also at TED many conversation on GM food ( TED is a global think tank..stands for Technology Entertainment and Design) anyone can join..anyone can propose a conversation . I haven’t written my closing statement for this conversation yet..have been collecting data and links..and waitig for the right moment when the world’s attention is somehow on food and no elections and oil pipelines..
The work you are doing here William..connecting these critically important issues to ordinary events in our own local appears is important work..Hope to meet you again next opportunity that arises.
thanks for the link. ive read a few weeks of the convo so far. it is very interesting.
i look forward to reading the closing statement :)
Yay! Let’s burn more food! Let’s have the government mandate that everyone burn an expensive fuel that ruins your engine and is made from food! What a great idea! People all over the world are starving and the government is forcing us to burn food in our cars.
Frankly, I only buy 100% pure gasoline with no ethanol in it. I don’t want to destroy my engine.
And you have to burn gasoline to run tractors to prepare the field, plow the field, plant the field, and harvest the field.
Then it takes energy to cook the mash and more energy to distill it. Then it has to be trucked around. And it burns hotter then gasoline so engines are not engineered for it.
The government as usual has mandated something stupid and destructive.
But it’s about ideology, not food on the table.
How else to explain this quote: “the worker class is funding the investor class”
First of all, in the USA, you can be a “worker” and an investor simultaneously. Millions of us are!
But she’s not talking about putting savings into a mutual fund, she’s talking about funding industry. So if it’s literally true that “the worker class is funding the investor class,” as her ideology dictates, then why doesn’t this noble and wise set of workers come up with the capital to buy the assets and operate the business?
Meanwhile, we’re told by political allies of these workers that “buy local and organic” is the right and just path for food production. Won’t the organic farming operations and organic bakeries offer them jobs now, saving them from the infamy of producing the anti-organic Twinkie?
Most of the employees agreed with your statement. It was the smaller bakers union that wouldn’t agree and ultimately cost the full 18K+ jobs. (Relative is a truck driver for them and we’ve been talking about this for almost a decade now. The company was horribly mismanaged, but the union was a greedy parasite as well.) Kissinger said “It’s a shame they can’t both lose.” in regards to Iran-Iraq. I feel the same way in this.
But this spin that it was a union busting op is just moronic. The union memebers should sue the organizers and recover all their dues from the parasites running the show. If they’re even able.
And, the union will be out several thousand members and their dues. Over the long haul this may be self-correcting.
Your trying to inject logic into a labor thug’s mind is a losing proposition.
Let Obama take care of them.
this corporation is 30% owned by the union mob, It benifits them to close it down to get rid of the union pension debt
I don’t blame them for striking. Wanting concessions from the workers when the big wigs get more money.
Hostess pay raises approved in late July.
Brian Driscoll, CEO, around $750,000 to $2,550,000.
Gary Wandschneider, EVP, $500,000 to $900,000.
John Stewart, EVP, $400,000 to $700,000.
David Loeser, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Kent Magill, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Richard Seban, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
John Akeson, SVP, $300,000 to $480,000.
Steven Birgfeld, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Martha Ross, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Rob Kissick, SVP, $182,000 to $273,008.
What I don’t understand is why don’t the workers get rid of the “middle man”/union bosses – the ones who won’t be without a job AND who make fat salaries – and deal directly with the corporate boss?
I can see where, in our history, unions were needed to negotiate better working conditions…but today, with social media and the regular media, any true hardships caused by an employer would be broadcast, immediately, 24/7.
The worker’s should do themselves a favor and let their union “bosses” go…they’d be amazed at the salaries and benefits afforded to them…and they’d have their right to work.
Look up the word “lemmings”.
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
People this stupid don’t deserve jobs.
I said the same thing about Paul LePage!
and after thankgiving and christmas where would you be
oh and by the way let me have your pension your 401k and half your wages i want to go to tahiti
Don’t you realize that Uncle Sam will take care of them. Maybe not as well as that paycheck and some political backsides will have to be licked but hey we showed those corporate bosses they can’t kick us around. OK so maybe the younger kid has to do with hand me downs and the older kid has to forget his college hopes but hey all that does not matter we kicked those corporate bosses butts. We are Union strong oh OK so we are broke but hey we are union strong. Sheesh.
The workers had already made one concession after another. The company’s aim was to use them to prove that workers can be bullied successfully, and finally be forced to accept whatever the bosses felt like demanding–while one CEO after another collected millions of dollars in severance despite having failed to turn the company around.
Yeah “Union resolve”,you just picketed yourself out of a job, greedy morons.
You don’t even know what you are talking about!
Well edjucate me on what I dont know,If you know anything Genius,Duuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh.
But “greed is good“*
*Gordon Gecko
So it is better to have no jobs??
They won’t realize until the union gives them nothing to grasp onto. It’s sad, seen it before with my Dad, and after his death my Mom years ago.
Race to the bottom.
Race to the real market value of your labor rather than your imaginary self-appointed overvaluation.
Having been placed in a position where I’d actually have prefered to have been laid off, I have to say that for many of these folks it probably is better to have no job than to continue with this company. Just move on and find something else on one’s own or perhaps with another company that is solvent or actually has some management skills.
Liberal Logic: Union breaks a business, 18500 people lose their jobs and its all probably for the best.
The workers there voted to strike. It wasn’t an arbitrary decision.
It wasn’t very well thought out decision.
Sadly you’re all too correct. 18500 people will now likely become dependent upon government handouts. It is Cloward/Piven all the way.
You don’t have a clue. These people think they showed the Corporation up. Now they have nothing. Mention the word corporation and people like you automatically think millions. Believe me , there will be more to come. “Just move on”. Are you living in todays world? Move on to what, the welfare line?
What is really incredible is that they believe they won something.
They’re stupid. That’s why they did what they did, and that’s why they’ll always be workers – if they can get jobs – and not owners.
98%of the country cant think. why else would they put a devil back in charge. now company’s will just shut down like restaurants do. and take the money and run. union day’s are numbered for the private sector.
Seems the company ‘managed’ this quite nicely! Go on strike, refuse concessions – lose your job! Simple and straightforward!
Yep, go out of business, give all your profit, profit potential and expertise to your competition and let them carry on doing what you failed miserably at, properly managing a solid company. Or in your mind are the best companies the ones that either go out of business or sell out to countries overseas?
If you had the slightest sense about business then you would of heard a little thing called profit margin. There is a limit on what you can get for two twinkies! They were already way over priced to the point they were not selling. Get it yet! Have you noticed the “little Debbies” in two years have tripled in price? Looks like the competition with an inferior product will be next to shut down.Any moe bright ideas?
Actually when it comes to pricing this junk food you may have me at an advantage. I don’t even remember the last time I saw a “Twinkie” or “Little Debbie” much less ate one. There’s no reason what-so-ever to assume that the competition’s product will be inferior to what you’ve apparently become accustomed to gobbling up. However, I would assume that since the competition survived and Hostess did not, they and I seem to have a better grasp on the realities of business than you seem to be showing here.
I happen to have owned a business for twenty six years, do you? Didn’t think so. You wouldn’t last six months in the real world. Oh it would be great to pay your employees $50 an hour, but sorry, that won’t work for long. But you have always been on the receiving end. Never had to worry about making the payroll have you? Didn’t think so. I don’t mind being called a conservative, but I prefer a realist, because I know what’s happening now. You, well , someone else is cutting your check, right?
You sound like someone who thinks a lot…about yourself and down on others. I’m not at all surprised to hear you don’t mind being called a conservative. Based on what you’ve just written I can honestly say that I’m glad I don’t know you, very happy I don’t have to work for you, and rather sad that I’ve wasted this time with you. Last word here is yours, take your best shot.
A judge of character you’re not. You couldn’t work for me. it’s too physical for you. As far as a waste of time, that’s about all you do anyway, right ?
I proudly look down on the willfully stupid, evil, and crazy. I suppose you look up at those people from your relaxed position?
ath2o, Congrats on your answer to stillrelaxin. Arguing with him/her is like arguing with an adolecent who has taken a course or two from Berkley. All mouth, no smarts, a phony expert on business and labor, etc., etc.
prices on food, to include Twinkees, etc, have gone up because of Uncle Sam wasting grains to make ethanol we don’t even get to drink.
that and the Fed causing inflation with QE, and higher costs of energy from Obumble’s idiotic energy policy and presto, everything costs more, even as income decreases.
welcome to Obamamerica, where less is more. Forward!
The idiots think “profits” are only a feature of capitalism. They have no idea about economic reality. The communists thought they had no need for profits, and look where it got them. Losses are bad for anyone, not just capitalists.
In this economy with the pending burden of Obamacare, many companies are having to make hard decisions. Fastfood places are raising prices and cutting hours. The bottom line is that all penalties, all taxes, all fees are ultimately paid by the consumer. And if you make a product or service too costly for average consumers, you can’t make money. No money, no profit, no jobs. It’s as simple as that.
Things were much harder during the Great Depression than they are now within the Great Bush Recession. Therefore I feel comfortable assuring you that Americans, American businesses and America itself will survive. You may be unaware of this, but most of what you just said above is nothing new to consumers, especially those who are poor or middle class. It does however seem odd to hear so many of those at the top complaining about what most folks have lived with their whole lives. The poor will survive being poor for a little while longer. By now they’re quite used to being in dire straights. Will the 1% be able to survive being knocked down to 5%? Golly, I’ll be saying my prayers for all of them tonight!
FDR made the Great Depression great, just like your SCOAMF is deliberately destroying the American economy and taking the recession we were coming out of when he took office and making it into a world wide disaster.
and yet you think he’s wonderful. that says a lot of things, but none of them are complimentary to you or your abilities.
Wow, suddenly we can SWEAR here by talking in conservative riddles that only someone like Rush Limpjaw can understand. I had to Google that one (SCOAMF). Once its meaning popped up I immediately ignored the rest of whatever it is you’re offering here. Don’t you find it interesting that both the Great Depression and our current Great Recession were both preceded by Republican leadership and wild unsustainable economic spending coupled with lots of really bad investing in the stock market? Seems once the conservatives have cart blanch for a few years it’s always going to end up being a hard road to hoe back to financial security for the rest of us. I believe many voters came to much the same conclusion in this last election cycle. They voted better leaders in so things will begin getting better faster, especially now that many of the trouble makers have be severally reduced in number.
I hate people who think life in the West in the 21st century is hard. I have no sympathy for such pig ignorance. These scum should read up on what life was like for the 6000 years preceding our present era.
Actually, what happened was the capital invested in making twinkies is now going to eaten up because there is no good place to invest it. If there’s nowhere to plant your seeds, you might as well eat your seedcorn.
It would be interesting to see what their books looked like over past five years, I can’t hardly believe that a company making the complete and ultimate junk food would have sales that reflect the change in healthy eating habits over the same time period. If a company is failing it’s usually because their product is inferior, out dated, no longer wanted, or finally, pure greed, I blame management totally, if they’re talking about the kind of percentages they’re talking about it’s their business model or something much deeper, They could retool and make healthy food, but Twinkies sells by the billions.
Lack of vision? Minds fixed in a group think trance? Someone’s half-wit son took over Grampa’s inspiration? For these reasons and many more bad businesses have always and will continue to put themselves out of business everyday. The difference being that some will do it with honor and class while others will blame blame blame anyone or anything they can find.
All valid and true
the increased cost of grains, driven by the government mandated ethanol fuel subsidies have driven up their costs, as has Obumble’s war on electricity generation and energy.
they made many products, not just Twinkies, but their cost of goods was being directly impacted by stupid and unnecessary government actions.
Are you aware that real un/under employment is about 16%? To what jobs will they move on?
Greed,Unions pump up wages and benefits gives these members swelled heads,lets see them struggle through winter and then they will realize they made a big mistake.
I’m betting that Hostess’s competition has been waiting for a long time to take over their sales. Now we’ll see real companies with good management sweep in and soak up all the profits and trained employees as well. Way to go away Hostess. We won’t miss you for a second.
The union forced the company to close over an 8% pay cut, and they’re proud of that?? What a bunch of idiots.
Good luck finding a job now.
If I were hiring in that area and I heard that one of these clowns was applying for a job, his app would be the very first to go in the s#¡tcan.
Yeah, go get em. Who wants a worker who has principles?
Principles maybe – no brains, certainly!
Yeah now its more like a 100% pay cut rather than 8%. Good thinking guys!
They were willing to take the cut. but they wouldn’t give their pension back to the company. How much would you be willing to give up to keep your job? You may have to find out.
They were not stealing the workers pension, they were just not going to contribute to the pension for a couple of years, and in return were going to give the workers a 25% stake in the company.
I’m self employed, so I work in the real world. When the economy drops, my pay drops along with it.
Don’t confuse liberals with real world experiences! It only makes them babel more!
That’s something I would like! A share in a mis-managed company that’s bankrupt! Right
better hope there’s no testing the next place you try & get a j*b.
if the drug screen doesn’t get you, the basic skills testing will
After another 4 years of obozonomics, we might all have to find out!
They gave pay concessions back in 2008 also to “save” the company. The company turned around and handed the money out to corporate executives in bonuses for doing such a great job mismanaging the company. Maybe they would rather be unemployed than give the big wigs another bonus. What , in your estimate, is a good percentage for the workers to bear in concessions? The 8% was just the first pay cut to take effect immediately, with more to follow. They were looking at a 30% decrease in pay and benefits overall. What would these workers be worth in your opinion. $1 an hour? $2, maybe?
So the response to their perceived affront was to kill the company and stomp their feet right out of a job.
I hear what you’re saying…but the corporate folks will be in new jobs in no time while the plant workers…yeaaaah
Exactly what they’re getting now–$0
“Maybe they would rather be unemployed than give the big wigs another bonus”
Well then, they got their wish!.
They would be worth the marginal value added to the factory’s product by their labor, not a penny more or less.
The union has already given concessions. The company failed to capitalize on those. Management is clearly looking to extract value on the way out.
Yes, extracting value on the way out is what smart people do. Unlike stupid union goons, who destroy whatever residual is left.
I think if you read the history of this situation the employees, represented by the union want the company to survive. How would it be in the interest of the union to destroy the company?
Agreed. Anyone with two gray cells to rub together could draw the same conclusion unless they believe in the mythical mind control powers of Union leaders.
The incompetent management has been sucking the company dry and sucking the employees dry for eight years through a mix of greed and incompetence. They placed people with no experience in control.
There are places in South America where you can get heart surgery for a hundred dollars or perhaps a cow. No pesty regulations, no nasty AMA demanding huge fees. Will you go there if you need a bypass?
I am a Union member and did not call you stupid. I did not call you a goon out of a higher level of respect for goons.
I will accuse you of being a Romney voter (how did that work out for you?), a probable serial Bush voter, and a Reagan voter, all of which prove what I did not call you.
“Bakers’ union officials and their supporters say also that the demise of Hostess Brands Inc., which failed to convince striking workers to return to their jobs, is a warning sign for corporate investors seeking to squeeze more profits out of the working class.”
Are these Union Officials for real …………………. the only warning will be more companies sending jobs to other countries.
I’m sure that the 18,000 plus out of a job workers are just as happy and will continue paying their dues …………………….. Don’t want those Union Officials not too have their paychecks when they go to Florida for the winter.
Union officials are also union workers. Unless they have a strike fund, nobody, including officials get paid! If this company could have sent those jobs overseas they would have done so before now. Companies that raid the retirement funds of the employees have no sense of horror.
Unions raid the retirement funds of workers….. They are dead….Long gone..
Union officials are not the workers they get paid by the dues of the workers. Their checks still come in!
Union officials still have thousands of members to collect dues from that work for other companies. This particular union has 80,000 members so the union could sacrifice them for furture contract negotiations. The article yesterday indicated only 30% of the Hostess employees were represented by the union. If that is true they only lost 5400 members. I’m sure they hope that whoever buys the bakeries will have to hire some of them back so it may only be a temporary loss for the union but likely will be permanent for many individuals. The Teamsters represented about 9% of Hostess employees and had agreed to concessions to keep the company running but the bakers union put those folks out of work also. The union officials don’t lose their union jobs, just the stewards that are elected to be the local plant representative did.
They can’t make Twinkies in China, or they would have bailed a long time ago with the rest of the treasonous s.o.b.s who moved their factories out of America and into COMMUNIST China, strictly for fun and profit.
I don’t know about that. Those suckers don’t decompose… they could make the trip.
Don’t forget what those dog bones made in China are doing to the animals. You really want to eat a twinkie made in China?
Where do the CEO’s spend their winters? The Cayman’s?
Where do union leaders spend their vacations? Same places because they are part of the defined “one percent”.
Corporate wants to take you out…take them out with you. My company’s “last, best offer” was rejected by 97% of the workers. We told them we would walk. At the last minute the company accepted a mediated compromise. Do any of you realize what it takes, how bad it can get, to make one want to walk and possibly give up your job? Some of us, no matter the cost, refuse to be part of the race to the bottom.
Then be part of the unemployment line!
Go away scab….
Twinkie Facts: 12 Things You Didn’t Know About The Beloved Snack.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/twinkie-facts-12-things_n_2144143.html?1353083301&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
Yes, the good ole post….Reliable source..
They are all facts that can be found elsewhere.
Oh I believe you.. The Post is just as bad as Fox News
Hopefully someone buys out the company and hires people who actually want to work.
I am sure they all want to work, but are tired of getting kicked around.
Are you implying that the people who were on strike do not want to work? They were looking at a 32% reduction in pay and benefits. They were only making an average of 30K to begin with. Mismanagement doomed that company, not paying workers an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.
How you left out the defined pension and other benefits that the majority (90%) of american workers don’t get
Yes, we are in a race to the bottom these days. The working men and women of America have seen their paychecks shrink for the last 20 years while the cost of living continues to climb. The people on the picket line were looking at a 30% reduction in pay and benefits. I wonder how many posters who are bashing the unions on here would stay on the job if their pay and benefits were cut 30%?
Mismanagement? Really, you know this how? A package of Twinkies has a limit to what it will sell for.
Poor products didn’t help any. Who eats that stuff anyway? I think Hostess was doomed by the First Ladys anti-obesity initiative regardless.
You give her too much credit. ;)
Really? I make 30K a year. I count that as pretty good money considering this economy that we are in.
I did better than 30K thirty years ago. It is not that good of money these days. That same job pays 60K today. In certain professions, the pay has kept pace with inflation, but most have not.
You do realize that out of the 18,000 that lost their jobs…13,000 of them _wanted to_ and _continued to_ work…right?
Most people don’t grasp that the striking union represented less than a third of Hostess employees. The 70% of non BCTGM members were collateral damage. A sacrifice by the union so they can get the rest of their members better contracts.
Yea, NON-UNION WORKERS!
A lot of union BS. This was not a standard negotiation, this wasn’t about how to divide the profits. This was take a pay cut or the company will have to close it doors for good. Take a 8% pay cut and hopefully we can stay open and you will still have a job. So now it’s not a 8% cut….it’s 100% pay cut. The unions did the same thing to the Jay paper mill a number of years ago. The union bosses go home with their jobs in tack and the workers are headed to the unemployment line. The unions are shooting themselves in the foot. It’s not union busting, it’s a lack of common sense.
you don’t know what you’re talking about
I guess that makes two of us. I was in a union till I saw through their BS. Back to, right to work laws.
Prove he doesn’t!
His is an accurate description of events.
Nice job Union. I guess your resolve is to kill 18,000 jobs. Very nice.
The workers stood up for what is right regardless of the personal financial consequences. This will help all Americans stand up to corporate extortion of its employees. These union folks are true heroes and ought to be enshrined as such.
This is real American spirit. This is what being brave and noble is all about.
They can bring their hero badge with them to the Bank in lieu to making a house payment
spoken like a truly miserable human being
Spoken like someone without a clue!
Smoke some more of that stuff..
That would have flown many years ago, but not in this day and age. This showed the company NOTHING and gave them an excuse to bail out of a sinking ship.
Another business gone. Thank you unions. The real American spirit strikes again.
Are you for real? What part of “YOU’RE FIRED” did you not understand?
Brave and noble never paid a bill!
The brave & noble thing would have been to tell the union to Kiss Off and the 18,500 would still be worrking & drawing a paycheck.
How do philosophical dollars spend….Yah, I think philosophically speaking not GOOD.
From working the Bread line, to being in a Bread line..
Maybe this was the wrong decision but my heart and solidarity is with those workers just the same.
solidarity sounds like a political party. or cult, This is a republic. GM unions will fold and join you soon enough.
Lame.
Maybe the dictionary meaning counts more than the way it “sounds”.
And so they should!
25 millons of people out of work and these guys distroy 18,500 jobs to make a point..
It’s inspirational to have fatally bitten the hand that fed you? That’s an interesting viewpoint. I always thought the point of organized labor was to preserve jobs, not force their elimination. I guess I was out sick that day in Shooting Yourself in the Foot 101.
Very, very well said!
Little Debbie will take up the slack. The puss cakes will continue to flow.
And Little Debbie is non-union, in a right-to-work state.
Yes, everyone has a “right to work” for minimum wage. This is still America and people are free to choose. They also have the right to collect food stamps, heat assistance, and “free” health care down at the emergency room, because they do not make enough to survive. You and I also have the right to pay taxes that support these programs. If it is a race to the bottom, let’s step on the gas and see what happens, right?
Steve’s Snacks in Skowhegan makes much better stuff. I don’t work for them but I carry 20 pounds of their pies under my shirt everyday. :-)
http://stevessnacks.com/
Little Debbie is yucky. The people in front of me in line at Hannaford’s tonight bought a bunch of Twinkies and Funnybones. They are going to sell them on Ebay. A box of Twinkies is expected to fetch around a hundred bucks!
They don’t seriously believe they will get that do they? :D
Hey, they were selling those annoying mechanical hamsters for an arm and a leg not too long ago lol Some people will buy anything, I guess!
Yeah. I probably shouldn’t discount the ability to sell stupid stuff. We know what they say about fools and their money.
People bought “pet rocks” back in the 70’s. Nothing surprised me after that.
maybe we should paint this scene on a mural
Yeah boy, I guess the union showed them. Not!
This has got to be just about the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. Destroying the company they worked for, and watching their jobs go down the toilet, and then bragging that they didn’t let the company get away with anything.
What planet are these jamokeys on anyway? Do you suppose they will figure out what they have done, when they don’t get the next paycheck?
Do you suppose they will ever figure out that they just shot themselves, right between the eyes?
I think it was the 20th-century English writer and wit G.K. Chesterton who observed that if the only reason you’re doing something is “the principle of the thing,” that’s a pretty good indication that you should not do it.
Another reason why unions suck. How many of those workers would have taken the 8 per cent cut until they found a higher paying job? I’m guessing a lot of them. God bless those people. It’s going to be a tough winter.
How much do you think the average worker gets paid at Hostess?
They WERE making more than they are NOW, that’s for sure. An 8 per cent cut is better than a 100 per cent cut.
The economy is like rush hour traffic. Except now we are going so slow we are backing up.
And it will continue for the next for years. I hope enough people wake up in 4 years, but I hoped the same thing over the last four years.
You just can’t fix stupid!
Hillarious…. These people let a Union take away their jobs….
lets see, average 30 grand minus 8% = $27,600. or $500 a week. Plus whatever bennies.
Just what is now considered a living wage? Just what is considered fair wages for this type of labor?
How dare these people step off the plantation.
Straight into the outhouse.
Did you mean the entitlement plantation? Not hardly.
An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work is not an entitlement Cheesecake. Those people were working for an average of 30K a year. That is barely above the federal poverty level for a family of four. None of them are driving Rolls Royces. The hedge fund creeps that stripped the company of it’s assets and started the whole chain of events are though.
Now they are on unemployment. Well done.
So,can anyone tell me what resolve taste like,can’t feed your family with that.
Not many jobs for your line of work.
and thank you for killing Twinkie the Kid
Way to go Union workers, about time you get a does of reality, you know how many people protest, and complain, that are non union about pay cuts? Do you know what tends to happen, either the business closes or their boss tells them to take the door and don’t come back. It’s too bad that your “union weight” meant nothing this time, but thanks to your actions you killed yet another company off the map, shut a business down and put people out of work before the holidays…I hope you are some proud of yourselves. Maybe if you get another job, and you are told to take a pay cut, just think about what could happen next time. Congratulations for putting more people out of work.
So these morons are out of jobs and unions are getting stronger? Shows the “mentality” of unions. It’s the same “mentality” that reelected OLoser to the White House.
Or was it repeated bad business decisions that broke the business? Easy to take sides eh? You often need to look “deeper” to know what your’re talking about.
Good advice! You should probably take it yourself!
Can’t yet, too many people are counting on me to show up to work.
Funny one!
And what is your job? Union steward?
Personal attack? Is that the best ya got?
Another personal attack! Gets old typing that doesn’t it?
One would think conservatives would learn from their mistakes and I wouldn’t have to. I suppose as the last election has so clearly demonstrated, they’re not the fastest of learners.
Clearly you haven’t learned anything yet. These closings and loss of jobs and yet you still believe in the “money tree”. Shortly you will see the error of your ways. Then YOU will be the fast learner!
I do? I will? Here’s what you’ve clearly missed by being nourished by twinkies, talk radio, and fake news. Spreading fear and making threats seldom brings one good will from the voting public.
Sorry, no talk radio, have to work. No fake news. 5’9, 150#’s, not many Twinkies. Get voting and politics off your mind, it’s much healthier for you.
I predict the voting public is going to starve to death. Why should I be afraid of suicidal maniacs?
One party promised increased handouts. the other promised tough change to increase jobs, and pay down the deficit. You wanna work or you want a handout? 51% of America chose handouts.
Amen!
One would think that liberals would learn. Look at who controls Hostess — an Obama donor. Look at who has a 10 percent stake in Hostess — Dick Gephardt, a former House leader and big-time Democrat.
Those workers all got played. For that, I find it hard to have a lot of sympathy.
Elections do not change economic reality. Voting for free lunch does not produce free lunches, only very expensive stolen lunches.
All he did was repeat what you said to another poster. The same could have been said about your initial post.
I’m sure you know the answer. What really scares me is people like you get to vote
Which gives us a second term for the worst president since Hoover!
“Easy to take sides, eh?” Are you from Nova Scotia?
too high of wages and unaffordable benefits is bad business. They made junk food and got paid better than an educated person in most cases.
You know that’s the same thing owners of professional sports have been saying for 30 years, yet for some reason they still keep paying out higher and higher wages and better benifits. Why? Because they’re doing such a good job of running their businesses that they still are making great profits. The same cannot be said of Hostess. It’s illogical to focus the blame here on employees for the countless bad business decisions of management.
dude, did you know only 1/3 of major sports teams make a profit? As in, not great profit, they lose money every year. If they were unhappy with their jobs, they should have quit and not cost the jobs of everyone else.
Interesting, and yet you seldom hear of one of them going out of business. Perhaps you should attach a source citation for this “claim” of yours?
Please cite your source for that statistic?
the public seems to finance quite a few sports stadiums
Unfortunately (and dumbly) yes!
They pay ever-higher wages in sports because there is a limited talent pool to draw from. This is not true of bakery workers. This may be the worst analogy on record. Sorry.
Professional sports teams keep paying higher and higher wages for one reason, because it’s still highly profitable to do so. When it’s not then they will stop increasing wages. Clearly, poor managerial decisions going back many-many years are what spelled the death blow for this company that most of us didn’t even know was still in business. Lets get real for just a second. Were the employees also responsible for this company’s lack of research, product development and marketing? Not likely. Guess who was? Guess what happens when a company fails to develop and market their products?
High wages keep getting paid to athletes and owners make profits because they have fans willing to pay those high prices. In a time when people ‘try’ and eat healthier, and there is such a competitive market, where you can get something similiar to a twinkie, and pay less, it’s harder to make a profit. In NY, you have 2 baseball teams, Yankees or Mets, there are many types of junk food available. I’ve worked for a company that went under, and because management refused to run it any slimmer, i.e cut salaries etc. But everyone who wound up getting laid off would’ve preferred a pay cut before losing their job altogether.
StillRelaxin, The reason that sports owners keep paying out higher and higher salaries is because they keep jacking up the price for their tickets. Once they reach the point where the average fan decides it’s not worth it, those owners will cut their labor costs. Another reason sports owners haven’t had to deal with economic realities is they’ve convinced politicians to finance their stadiums and arenas with tax payer money. So your heralded businessmen are sticking to their customers and living off corporate welfare. By the way, I can’t wait to see the players unions squeal like pigs when their salary demands catch up with them.
I totally agree. They run their businesses like all corporations. The only difference between them and Hostess is that (for many reasons) they do it a heck of a lot better. Well managed companys survive, bad ones die.
these people weren’t getting rich doing that job
It’s a saturated, shrinking business. They make food that every doctor says stay away from like the plague, their food will kill you. They had to adapt, but Unions didn’t allow that.
The union prevented the company from doing research and development of new products or doing better marketing? Highly doubtful. Booze will kill people just as fast as Twinkies. I don’t see any cutback in the number of drunks around do you? Bad products sell and will continue to sell like hotcakes every day. Honestly, the first time I’d heard of this company in the last 15-20 years was when I saw their management complaining and making threats against their employees a couple of weeks ago. It’s irrational to think that the reason we’ve all forgotten they even exist is because the “union” was preventing us from knowing they were still in business. Management at Hostess has clearly been doing nothing for a long-long time.
Any food consumed to excess can kill you. Water can kill you if you drink too much. An occasional Twinkie doesn’t break the bank.
Unless you’re diabetic.
So 5,000 striking workers just lost 18,000 people their jobs. So much for “the needs of the many”…
Well the strike is over and union can go home and keep warm at least to the oil runs out.
The unions were beneficial when there were poor or dangerous working conditions. Was this the case with Hostess? No. It was just greed in a be grateful for what you have time frame. Now the former workers will be poor, and if they can find work, the conditions will probably be worse. Plus, good luck recovering all the union dues they paid.
Are we all missing something? Yes, the bloodthirsty union stuck to it’s guns alright! Now they are all unemployed! How is that winning?
You union schmucks got exactly what your dues paid for – NOTHING! Feel all high and mighty when the checks stop coming!!!! And where will your union thug bosses be then? Probably Vegas!
There you go Biddeford…..congratualtions on your legislative representative……instead an 8% pay cut, you get 100% pay cut….I think Shaws just announced they are accepting the new :Philisophical Food Card”
Eventually a dog that is beaten into submission will turn on it’s master and bite it’s master, securing it’s demise………..These CEO’s and shareholders have been beating their employees into submission with scare tactics, threats, and innuendos for months, if not years…………AND, as Unions loose bargaining power for wages, benefits, and job security, the REST OF US will suffer from lower wages, benefits, and job security too, at our non-union jobs. First they come for the Unions, then they come for the rest of us………
Fools.. Out of a job now…… Now the tax payer will pay… Good ole Unions…
” the management ? Fools.. Out of a job now……”
Were they willing to give 32% in their wages and bennies back to save their
Ding Donks ?
Who would ?
All out of a job now…..I would rather lose some pay and have a job instead of having no job…
I guess you can’t post links in here anymore? Anyway, here’s some info from the WSJ concerning wages paid to the top folks at Hostess just ahead of them filing bankruptcy:
* Brian Driscoll, CEO, around $750,000 to $2,550,000
* Gary Wandschneider, EVP, $500,000 to $900,000
* John Stewart, EVP, $400,000
to $700,000
* David Loeser, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256
* Kent Magill, EVP,
$375,000 to $656,256
* Richard Seban, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256
* John
Akeson, SVP, $300,000 to $480,000
* Steven Birgfeld, SVP, $240,000 to
$360,000
* Martha Ross, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000
* Rob Kissick, SVP,
$182,000 to $273,008
Yep, the union workers are the big bad guys. Get a grip.
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/04/09/hostess-cuts-four-executives-pay-to-1-after-big-july-raises/
Just like a big league ball team you buy talent. You can’t get a starting pitcher for a middle relievers salary. The same applies in business. You find talent especially if times are tough…. and you need to pay them. Otherwise you are the Boston Red Sox going 69 & 93.
The people at the top with stakes in the company were working for a dollar annually.
I wondered when you would show up Cheesey. Yep, we can see what that talent did now can’t we.
We will never know because the union took and trashed whatever plan they had.
Those wages sound reasonable to me given their positions in the company. Certainly there are many CEO’s and VP’s of other companies making much more.
You missed my point. They raised their salaries just before the filed for bankruptcy. Then they want the union guys to take the hit.
Fine, but I wouldn’t stick around in a company that handed out such raises at the top while telling the rest to suffer. I fully understand that the executives have important jobs, but there is also sharing the pain with the team.
Excellent post!
While all you troglodytes are thinking about these rewards that accelerate the race to the bottom. Look at the countries that work WITH their unions to produce excellence for everyone. They have trade surpluses. They are profiting from globalization and demonstrating that managing for excellence is not only sustainable but profitable.
Yeah, I noticed that it wouldn’t let links go through. Those are the payraise figures that I was looking for. Thank you for posting the facts. :)
If the union bosses are sipping on their single malt tonight wondering what the “poor people” are doing…they have 18,500 calls to make to find out. Remind me who gave a half a billion bucks to obama….unions…good call guys, let the blood letting on the jobs front continue. Hopeless & Changeless moves forward
The people who are sipping on their single malts are the Sheldon Adelson’s and the Koch’s and your support for them only shortens the time until they come for you and your job and your pension.
Wrong again…the two names you reference are not union bosses.
No, they are not, which is exactly my point.
Which is to say, you have no point.
Of course they don’t come for your job and pension because these are the people who create your jobs and pensions! The union workers don’t invent, design, build.and invest their life savings. All they do is turn up each day and pull in a paycheck.
If not for the the makers you would have nothing.
These stupid arse union members just don’t get it, do they? How many people are going to be out of work because of their unwillingness to bargain? So, everyone formerly employed by Hostess, thank the baker’s union now that you don’t have a job. What a bunch of gutless wonders.
Whose the stupid arse
In bankruptcy they’ll see some of their pension fund,
The company’s ultimatum … with its short, no compromise deadline…
was give it all us so you can work for less.
No part of the pension is/was at risk never was.
You bite the hands that feeds you? I smell a Greece fire….
Is it possible that both the unions and the executives, and most importantly, the free market all share the blame here? Why yes, that seems to be it. Though by all means, continue on with the “it’s all the unions fault” or “it’s all the greedy 1%ers fault” people.
‘The union’s willingness to go down with the sinking ship — and in some cases take credit for sinking it — in the Hostess case may prove to corporate investors that the working class must be reckoned with’
Oh, and causing lost jobs is the way to go? How about this take on it:
The company’s willingness to shut down was a strong message that they’ve gone too far while the company struggles. Union loyalty only for unions will cost jobs and income in the long run. But go ahead, go on the dole and let us suckers work while you don’t.
They’ll just collect 99 weeks of unemployment and tax the rich. Dumb way to end a country
Show of resolve, or cutting off one’s nose to spite your face?
No, to save some of their pension.
Their pension was intact. It was not raided as another poster claimed. They were offered a 25% stake in the company in return for forgoing additional pension contributions.
” They stopped paying into our pension fund contractually they were supposed to be paying into people’s pension fund,” explains union representative John Price.
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
sounds like the strikers won the battle but lost the war?
They lost both the battle and the war.
Nope! This is nothing more than proof that these pinkie ring thug union bosses have no business in America any more. The auto industry practically collapsed under the weight of the United Auto Workers Union. Sidebar, when I worked at Unicel when they were bought out by Verizon Wireless, corporate officers met with everyone and basically told us that if we were approached by the union that their landline company was represented by we were to report it immediately. It was a fireable offense to not tell corporate officers about being approached by these thugs.
What were the corporate officers worried about?
That we would agree to unionize. I wouldn’t have because as a rule I dislike unions. That’s why we have right to work laws and a host of government agencies to support workers right
Yes, they were afraid you would unionize. Why would that be? Perhaps because pay and benefits would be better? Hmmmm. Perhaps managements yearly bonuses were partially dependent on holding down the workers wages. I’d bet that….yep.
Actually I made 43k that year year I worked there. Time and a half after 40, double time and a half after an additional five
Calling them thugs is too kind…and i cannont print what they should be called, although i thing scum sucking bottom feeders would pass.
Outstanding job to the union, now no one has a job.
The cost of sugar is a HUGE factor, and Florida sugar is largely controlled by the Fanjul family, who use disgusting labor practices and Congressional lobbyists to protect their billions, while they tool around in Palm Beach in Ferraris.
They don’t use sugar. They use high fructose corn syrup, which costs next to nothing thanks to the American taxpayer.
The now bankrupted AGAIN company will have to honor it’s employee benefit and pension CONTRACTS. Strange how all the detractors hold contracts in CONTEMPT. You people make me sick.
You’re exactly right. Don’t make a deal if you don’t plan on honoring it.
A Judge will decide, who gets what.. don’t hold your breath.
I am surprised that nobody has mentioned that the Hostess CEO got a 300 or so percent pay raise in the past year. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/16/1203151/why-unions-dont-shoulder-the-blame-for-hostesss-downfall/?mobile=wp. Now perhaps it wouldn’t have saved as much cash if the bosses worked for less given that there’s over 18000 workers and only a few executives, but just the same, if I worked for a company that asked me to take an 8 percent pay cut while greatly expanding executive pay, I’d say see ya later union or no union. Now maybe the CEO is more important to the company than any production hand, but there is a principle involved too and I say this as somebody who isn’t particularly fond of unions. Under that circumstance, I think for me it would be better to have no job. Despite all the hand wringing, there are other jobs out there.
The four top officers of the company worked for a $1 annual salary. They gave raises to others likely so they wouldn’t lose the people they needed. That’s the only reason to operate like they did.
It was a nice gesture, though as I said in the last go around a classic case of too little too late.
Maine’s striking Hostess workers says “company’s collapse a strong message of union resolve”
my comment is right in the title…how exactly is losing 18,500 jobs helping your cause?
The workers know that the company is toast. Why would anyone invest (their pensions) in a failing company that has demonstrated zero willingness to run a sustainable business?
Weather they go today or 3 months from now what’s the difference? The difference is holding onto their pensions and not throwing good money after bad.
i don’t trust my company’s 401k because I don’t trust the economy overall. Who would these days? I’m glad I have a job where we don’t have a union and we get paid decently for what we have to do. Who would join a union in the first place in the 21st century. Unions are a 19th-20th century concept where people believed they needed to be protected by the company’s higher ups and fight for benefits. Nowadays most jobs don’t come with any benefits at all and if there are any they aren’t very good to begin with. I’m very happy that at the very least my job has insurance, disability and decent pay for a job around where I live. But at the very least I would be willing to accept a job anywhere. Now 18,500 of your co-workers are going to be crowding the economic downfall so there will be fewer jobs for people to find. Thanks.
TWINKIES! YOURE FIRRRREEED!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3MJYF6S4zQ
Oh, how dumb can you all be? If you don’t need the jobs, perhaps someone else might like the opportunity at the lower rates. Wow, Trumpka, pay attention.
From what I have read only a small portion of the company was striking now they have put thousands out of work. Way to go unions. And they actually think they won
dummy’s bos minions nice work get fired before Christmas and your taxes are going up the first LMAO!! HAAAAAAA
Read this Media Matters account of the deal…then open your Hostess pie holes when they are full of facts………Rueters, Forbes, NYT,
http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/11/16/fox-ignores-hostess-array-of-troubles-to-scapeg/191440
Media matters is a propaganda machine for the administration. Lay off the koolaid and make Maine a right to work state! How many of those workers really wanted to strike, right before the holidays and with unemployment high? Where is the common sense? They were offered part ownership and other things in return for the givebacks, which by the way we ALL have to sacrifice now…remember???
Jeez Christine, I’m sorry I made a mistake confusing you for some one that could read. Your Phoxx Phables are nothing but propaganda for lemmings to the seas. BTW, am I to I suppose that Forbes and Reuters are also on the payroll? It seems that if it doesn’t jive with the “funded fox”, then it isn’t real to you. Get real! Head in the sand = crud in the ears…dig ’em out and listen to which way the wind blows.
Liberal media is crap..
Sorry, I thought you might have been able to read….my bad on the confusion. However, I guess the point was that four different reports (independent) rationalized the story. I guess because your one “reference” didn’t jive, it’s “crap”? You are nothing but lemmings to the seas. Again, I’m sorry I made a mistake regarding information other than your Phoxx Phables.
Just in case anyone is interested…..http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
What was the average wage there? $22 hr.? There is to much corporate greed today, but to keep your job have them open the books and prove their case. A fair wage for a fair days work. That’s what Mr. Mclintock would say and pay!!!
Yes, but G.W. wasn’t greedy. Had he been greedy, he would have used illegal immigrant labor instead of legal American workers.
Can’t run a business, so they scapegoat their workers. Real classy.
Lotta good your union is gonna be when the rents due Tallkin bout cuttin off your nose to spite your face
Quote; “In the meantime, what the Hostess story will hopefully teach the always
gullible public, is that nothing is ever black or white, and there are
numerous shades of gray in every story: even one in which an “evil” PE
firm is unable to come to resolution with labor unions, despite the man
in charge of it all being a prominent democrat.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
Congratulations, you stood up to what you considered an unfair job and destroyed it. Next time just quit If you want to ruin your kids Christmas, now you ruined it for everyone else too.
well maybe the unions will hire you…oh wait…hmmmm unions don’t create jobs they just suck off those who have an idea, create the product and risk all they have to open a business and make it successful…but I am sure you union idiots will get BIG bucks from unemployment and the fed government..but be assured your union is not going to help you…they are done with you because you don’t work any more…they will leave you fools behind and move on to another company ….
It’s kind of pathetic that this country can’t even bake and sell cakes without screwing it up.
So, they are striking against a company in liquidation? I am starting to see the intellect that led unions supported obama.
Just tell that to the workers who lost jobs while Union leaders still draw a paycheck? What dummies! Communist plans going forward workers loose AGAIN!
What is wrong with communism? Half of the industry in America has moved to communist China. These poor corporations were FORCED to embrace Communism, and their cheap labor, by those evil communist unions! lol. Don’t worry though, someone will come in and take over the Hostess brands. They will move to a “right to starve” state and cut the wages down to minimum wage. Then the tax payers can kick in the food stamps, heat assistance, and “free” health care down at the emergency room. Enjoy your Twinkies.
So the union will be paying them a wage ongoing until they find their next job, since they lost this one because of the union’s intractablility?
Uh. I guess that being proud of bringing down the company that hired you, which means you lose your job and cannot ever work there again, is winning? The Union has done a real snow job on that one. I can’t believe any worker actually bought that. Sounds like a really good argument for right to work.
This also sounds incredibly selfish. If you can’t have a raise at a company that is hurting financially, then out of spite bring down everyone and ruin everyone’s job, is ultimate greed.
Does the cliche “cutting off your nose to spite your face ring a bell?” They may be hoping for aid from our president. And he may be the one to give it. I do feel sorry for the families. It’s stressful not being able to meet bills. Jobs are scarce as hen’s teeth.
Feeling a bit blue…I’ve never eaten a Twinkie and now it might be too late. Good on you union workers – you can stand with pride in the unemployment line. Union workers should be forced to wear signs “I’m in a union because I am too dumb and too incompetent to hold a job on my own merits”. It’s no wonder why Obama won.
You should wear a sign that says ” we are in a race to the bottom, so let’s step on the gas.” Or, “minimum wage is not so minimum anymore”
Isn’t everyone who sells a product in a race to the bottom with their competitors? Isn’t that good? Why is it bad when the product is labor?
When the people at the top of the food chain and their political lap dogs dreamed up the plan to move their factories to communist China for fun and profit, they forgot to consider one important fact. Consumers and workers are one in the same. Does it make any difference how cheap something from China is if the American who would be buying it doesn’t have a job? Or a job where they make enough to have any to spend? That is why it is bad when the product is labor.
That is not a difference. When a store goes out of business because they don’t give as good value for their customer’s dollar as their competitors, those people loose their jobs too. They then find new ones where they’re more efficiently used. When American workers loose their jobs to low skilled Chinese workers, they are forced to become more productive than low skilled Chinese peasants. They then can benefit from lower cost Chinese goods. This is the process that makes everyone richer. It is the process that has lifted millions of people out of poverty over the last 200 years.
What is wrong with these fools? Because of these SOB’s no more twinkies!!
I have a whole box of them, Bought them today, I’ll start the bidding at $200.00 LOL!!! Twinkie junkies will be looking at the black market for their fix.
Smart.
That resolve will last just about as long as the strike fund does. Several other unions approved the move, realizing that without it their jobs were forfeit. The bakers’ union played a game of chicken and lost, not just for themselves but for 18000 people across the nation directly and thousands more via suppliers, truckers and other anciallary companies. Just as GM was destroyed because of union contracts. Had GM been allowed to go through bankruptcy, those contracts would have been realistically renegotiated. Now GM spends more making a Volt than they can sell it for and the full payback to taxpayers may never be realized. Obama and his minions do not understand that profits grow jobs and taxing profits destroy jobs. This is Obama’s policies come to fruition. I hope those other unions that tried to avoid this have fun explaining this to the bakers’ union.
unions are the problem…they do not care about the workers. the labor leader thugs are still collecting their paychecks, health insurance benefits, and having hefty contributions made to their retirement accounts.
I’m a union member and the corrupt, greedy bosses of this union did their members a great disservice by refusing to compromise with management. Taking an 8% paycut (most of which would have been given back by contracts end) is far better than being unemployed! The union bosses exercised sheer stupidity and the members acted like good little lemmings and went right over the cliff with them.
But don’t feel bad for the currupt union bosses. They’ll be just fine. Their pockets are lined with their members dues dollars. I hope these 6000 lemmings are happy, they cost another 12,500 workers their jobs, too. But who cares about them, they weren’t unio.
I guess I am all set I stocked up and they have a shelf live of over 1,000 years or in a republican world one sixth of the age of the earth. ROFLMGDAO!
But while headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.
At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Unionpointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:
What a bunch of idiots. Since they think it is so easy to own a business , pay imployees and give high pay and benefits, why don’t they take over the company since it is liquidating and see how easy it is to get blood out of a turnip. PEOPLE CAN NOT PRINT MONEY. Just because Obama does , doesn’t make it right. Where do these idiots think all this extra money is coming from? Why don’t they look and see how much Trumpka is suffering with all these strikes he’s pushing. What does he want a new summer house? They are stupid to pay these union idiots to strike them out of a job.
Sounds like what the Obama voters want for this country, shut ‘er down. Jerks.
Up is down in this article. This WEAKENS unions. The employees are going to be out of jobs, and the owners are just going to liquidate the company now and preserve their current cash on hand, and because Hostess has fairly robust assets that will go for a bit, likely recoup some or perhaps all of their investment. After it is all said and done, these brand names are going to reappear with new companies and with NO unionized workforce. The lesson is that it’s difficult to pull these kinds of stunts with private equity folks – they are numbers driven and drive a hardline.
The workers could have just quit if they didn’t want to take a pay cut from their bankrupt company, instead they wanted to ruin it. Call Obama on the Obama phone. He’ll seize the company and give it to the workers.
Just shows unions have outlived their usefulness… and doing more harm than good!
Anyone blame Moochelle for telling everyone not to eat snacks and helping to knock sales down and the gov for not allowing the sales of their products in vending machines?
You wanted higher pay, but now you have no job. How victorious for you. And you put thousands of other workers out too! Selfish ACT!
They didn’t want a PAY CUT is why they were striking, kindly try to keep up. I know it’s hard for Republicans with all them letters and punctuation but it is called reading and comprehension.
“At issue is a slate of concessions the company, best known for producing
Twinkies and Wonderbread, asked of its workers — reportedly an 8
percent pay cut and changes to their pensions agreements, among other
things.”
I guess that’s one way to look at it, but will they be so rah-rah union when the unemployment bennies run out? Sort of reminds me of the corny old saying “I cut off my nose to spite my face!” I’m old enough to still make the automatic connection between unions and organized crime. Hmm, AFL-CIO = NY Mob, UMW = Philly Mob, UAW = Detroit Mob. Unions went from being really good for the workers who battled Labor Barons and Boss Tweed, to ATMs for OC and extortion outfits — far as I can tell that latter part still holds true. Squeeze a struggling company until it dies and call it a victory.
The difference between a union worker and one with a brain. The union worker puts his company out of business because he/she thinks they have been wronged. A smart person would take the offer to keep a roof over their head and then find something that is more to their liking.
If one of the workers think they showed Hostess, then that worker isn’t smart enough to work for a real company. I applaud Hostess for trying to stay in business for the people they employed, but feel for the many who lost their jobs who didn’t want to.
I hope these people are not given unemployment. I refuse to pay for people who refuse to work.
And where is the Union now?,They certainly did you a big favor alright,now you have NO paycheck.
And now on the lighter side….Ever since the debut of the deep fried twinkie,I,m sure United Health Care loves this news.
As the union goons are celebrating in the White House. The employees are complaining about how much profit the company leaders are making, do they ever ask where their union dues are going? How many millions were spent on elections, not just presidential, but senatorial and congressional elections………millions and they begrudge the people that are supplying them a decent wage. Shame on them. Shame on striking teachers and civil workers. How much more do they want to squeeze out of the taxpayers. It’s sad to see this company go belly up, but it’s sadder that the workers fooled themselves as they listened to the Union bosses hyping up the strike, while they are all living fat off the hog on the backs of their sheep
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) has revealed that the bosses of the nation’s largest unions earn large six-figure salaries and generous benefits (which are of course paid for by dues-paying rank-and-file union members)
Yeah, you really showed an already-bankrupt company how it’s done! BTW, guess who still has jobs? YOUR UNION BOSSES! Duh!
Our score thus far:
Richard Trumka: a salary of $400,000+ a year, plus a huge pension for life
Hostess workers: Dick. Zip. Bupkis. Nada.
Much like “the operation was successful, but the patient died.”
Let’s see I’ve got my union card…and now I have my EBT card, too.
It’s probably just as well that the bakers’ union folks don’t switch jobs to pest control; they’d burn down their own houses to kill the ants.
Now they will go on high paid welfare. Most will probably expect to never work again.
Hopefully the trend continues. Underwater companies put out of business by unions will liquidate their IP, which will be bought by companies in right to work states, who will prosper. It’s a stark lesson in where to build a business in this day and age. Do it where people actually want to work for a living and both business and labor prosper. Heard of many Toyota plant workers moaning about how they’re out of work, lately?
Do you know why Toyota workers are not moaning? Do you know why Toyota is the number one car company in the world?
Because Toyota respects it’s workers and cultivates excellence. Toyota workers are part of the company’s culture just like BMW and other excellent companies.
Toyota has no union.
Toyota has no US unions, but all of it’s operations in Japan are union. I think the same is true for BMW . Union or nonunion it is still up to companies to professionally manage their workforce.
One of changes that Mac Arther insisted on for the rebuilding of Japan was the establishment of unions to give workers a voice and as a hedge against socialism.
Dumbest article EVAH
“They’re operating with the idea that you can always squeeze more —
squeeze more out of operations, squeeze more out of labor, squeeze more
out of distribution, just find any way to get more profit.”
– – – –
Hostess lost – what? – three hundred fifty million dollars last year? Over a hundred million the year before? They’ve under-financed their contractual pension obligations by over two billion dollars? If they’re just looking for any way to get “more” of that nasty, evil profit stuff, they’re making Wile E. Coyote look darned effective and professional.
Basically, the union told Hostess “y’all have been stupid and incompetent in your handling of this company, but we can be even more stupider than you!” I hope they derive lots of pride and self-respect out of their showing of power. Who needs food and fuel when you have union pride, anyway?
So now all of those union workers can look to The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation – the U.S. government’s vehicle for replacing comfortable (but insolvent) pensions with Social Security-sized retirement incomes – for their future.
Hope they have a lot of personal savings at this point. Or, failing that, I hope we as a society can get past that whole close-minded and unfair “catfood is disgusting and not meant for people” cultural bias.
Nobody in their right mind will hire any of these people.. Ever work a real world job with a former union worker.. eunuch
Minimum wage for all. Then reduce the minimum wage. We are in a race to the bottom these days. The sad part is that people like you think the answer is to step on the gas.
If someone applied to work for me with Hostess on their resume, depending on other factors it might be a deal killer.
Hope your pride for 18000 jobs lost keep you warm and fed. Looks like another18000 burdens on the government. Congratulations!
Not to make y’all feel bad or anything but, do ya’ll realize that the burden for the unemployment and welfare for all of youse guys is going to rest right on the shoulders of the working MIDDLE CLASS!!!
Im sure that all of us appreciate the extra burden. ASSHOLES
I have never met a union worker, who hired a union contractor to do work on their homes.. They all support wal-mart, the company who pushes/forces companies to move their plant overseas.. Seems like they are their own worst enemies..
Are these people out of their minds? What’s the point of destroying your employer and losing your job? I get negotiating hard and all, but this is crazy. I read where after the Teamsters settled, they tried to convince the Bakers that they had seen the company’s books and it really was so bad that the company would probably fold if the strike continued. The Teamsters!! So now they’re all out of work.
There’s no glory in being stupid. And costing a lot of other people their jobs, too.
Looks as though the union thugs are joining in on Comrade Urkel’s war with arithmetic. the likelihood of any of these trained monkeys finding new jobs which pay 92% of what Hostess was paying is ZRTO.
Next step–company liquidates, sells equipment, brands, formulas, etc., new plants open in Texas, a right to work state where people actually WORK. union thugs draw their unemployment, get bogus social security payments, live it up on food stamps and Medicaid, and the moochers grow!
You are right. They will move the manufacturing to a “right to starve” state, like Texas. Then they will pay minimum wage to any American workers, because they HAVE to. The illegals will make considerably less. They will hire mostly illegals.
unemployment is temporary, a company going out of business is permanent. I’ d like to hear from these sad examples of humanity in a few years just to see what they think. guaranteed they won’t be as arrogant
By george, we showed them. Now let’s go get our unemployment for two years.
Now you see why 4 of 5 jobs in the past four years have been created in right-to-work states. 80% of the jobs in states with 38% of the population. Hmm….
Yes, it is much easier to sneak in illegal immigrant workers in “right to work” states. They should call them “right to starve” states.
stupid is supposed to be painful, so you learn from your idiocy.
however, it appears that these union chumps are learning challenged.
they better hope Santa puts coal in their stockings this year, so they don’t freeze.
Unions are born stupid. No other term seems as apropos.
Are these the stupidest people in America?
I mean outside of the fools who voted democrat.
Unions have jumped the shark. They have to face the new reality about health and pension costs. Nobody has to like it but they do have to accept it.
The 5 stages of loss –
1st there is Denial – of reality,
and here we see it mixed with the 2nd, Anger…
with just a touch of Blame Shifting.
What did the workers win? Now they are out of a job.
They made this choice because they know they are already out of a job. They are simply deciding to go on their terms. Read the whole story. The company is toast. Only fools would give up their pensions to a company who has such a record of failure.
Giving up their existing pension was not an issue that led to the strike. You made that up. They were asking that they forgo contributions for a few years.
I think you need to read the whole story.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
Yeah, we’ll see how much resolve they have in 2 months, no job, little or no unemployment….tough talk…stupid results…stupider people…..
Yeah, tough talk, but, now they have no jobs…let’s see how together they are in 2 months, no jobs, I’ll guarantee the Union will forget you..or there will be no union…tough talk, stupid results, stupid people….from a former Union guy……you’ve been had and had good !!!
Go Unions! You have put another group of hardworking folks out of work. Some forever. Nice going. They will lose so much more by not working than they ever could by striking and forcing a shutdown. I suppose the union has collected all their irdues too.
Hold that thought for the day you come to work and find your job has been sold to the lowest bidder.
You are wasting your time trisailer. People like this will continue to bash unions and advocate for the top 1% until everyone in America is working for minimum wage. Then they will throw their support behind lowering the minimum wage.
So why is it good if the local hamburger joints have to compete to produce the best product at the lowest price, but it’s bad for a worker to have to compete to produce the best product at the lowest price? Why is it bad if a company has a monopoly and produces less product for a higher price than otherwise would occur, but it’s good for a union to have a monopoly and produce less product for a higher price than otherwise would occur? If we all have to play by the same rules, why is it good that our business law specifically exempts unions so it’s practices, which would otherwise be illegal, are allowed?
Good question, but nothing is that simple. Unions negotiate for workers, but the company signs the paychecks. Unions hardly have a monopoly especially these days.
In a perfect world there would be no need for unions because workers would be treated fairly.
One thing I’m certain of is that the best way to avoid unions is to do the job of professional management. I think a excellent manager can get employees to follow him anywhere.
Union or not the key to employee relations is professional management.
the fun thing the moonbats here won’t mention?
the hedge fund that forced this whole thing is owned by a big time Demonrat supporter… look up Ted Rollins & Ripplewood Holdings then see for yourself.
All that proves proves is that the Democrats are as much part of the Elite as the Republicans are.
This company was mismanaged in the face of declining sales for ywars and yet they gave the CEO a 300 percent raise last year. Union or no union, if my company gave me a pay cut white tripling the CEO’s pay in tough times, I’d be off to anither job pronto.
I can’t stand unions either, but the management of this company sucked.
Pyrrhus of Epirus declined comment.
Bravo!
Be careful, though. Few people outside the Anderson clan have the requisite education to know who he was.
Duhhhhh.,..all power to da grunts!!!
Do you think Ken Rumney knows he is out of a job? Do you think he realizes that an 8% cut in pay is actually better than 100% cut in pay? Do you think he knows we are in the middle of a deep, deep recession and he is unlikely to find another job anytime soon?
Boy, they really stuck it to the company didn’t they? They really showed them!
what a bunch of idiots. How could you be so stupid?
These people have decided to stand on principle. They gave the company concessions with a expectation that the company would lift a finger to make improvements on their end. They did not. Read a little more and you’ll find that the upper management of this company got huge bonus’ for playing games with the stock that had nothing to do with improving the companies operations.
They are standing on principle because the company now wants them to put up their pensions to support a company that has failed to demonstrate it’s ability to keeps it’s faith.
Standing on your principles is easier when you have nothing to lose. This company is going down they can’t do their end. It is a race to the bottom and it is pervasive in American corporations today.
The question you should be asking is how bad does a company have to screw it’s employees to even get to this place?
You’ll never be able to convince these scabs in here trisailer. Their minds are made up and can’t/won’t be changed.
Hostess is NOT a publicly traded company … so there is no stock manipulation. There can’t be.
FORWARD!!!
This is a well written article that gives voice to this important issue.
I worked in management my entire career, sometimes with union employees and sometimes nonunion. One of my first jobs, fresh out of the Army, was a union apprenticeship for veterans. It was there that I learned that unions can be a force for developing professionalism of workers at the same time giving them a voice in the operations of business. The rise of worker unions in the US is what created each and every improvement in the lives of working people.
I have worked under unions and I have managed union workers. The unions are not the problem. In Maine, we lost our most important industry; paper, not because of unions, but because of poor management. Maine paper went to Europe where union mills, because they were managed better, They still can import much of their pulp, make quality paper and sell it back to the US for less because the companies worked with their unions to develop statistical process control and other quality/production improvements. Those mills retained their depth of experienced workers and complemented their operating experience with science.
The bottom line is unions are simply contracts between companies and workers. If you make a contract with someone you should have a expectation that it will be respected. I always got 110% from my employees. We made huge gains in profits for the company because we worked together. Because we believed that the company was operating in good faith and making good business decisions, but they were not.
Today, some of my former employees are unemployed. What is a 50 year old paper maker going to do? The expertise he worked his whole life to develop is useless because greed sucked the life out of a perfectly good industry.
Some of you who diss on unions should read a little history about the labor movement and what jobs were like before it. Then read about the countries that worked with their unions in good faith to produce excellence that rewards everyone. It’s not just workers who are being hurt by greed it is our entire economic base. The levels of skill and productivity demanded to compete in the world are increasing while we are destroying the very mechanism of production.
Now. Shoot me in the other foot and we’ll stand up to big business. Yeah! we’ll shut her down and NOBODY will work. Yeah!
What a bunch of delta alphas. “Yeah, we sure showed them!”
A strong message of union resolve indeed. Much as a mass suicide sends a strong message of cult resolve.
The Republican vision of America is for all workers to shut up and accept whatever conditions corporations demand–or starve. It’s a vision of America as a 3rd world nation, with pay and working conditions to match, no pensions, and an ever-wealthier 1% that’s insulated from the results.
They hope to get there by demeaning unions, getting rid of unemployment compensation, and killing the ACA so people who get laid off have no health insurance.
The company was losing money. What should it do?
Companies don’t shut down if they are making money or even breaking even. They shut down if they lose so much money that the company cannot survive. What’s so hard to understand about that?
This isn’t politics, it’s economics. A company without a profit can do nothing for workers.
D
What it should do is evaluate WHY it’s losing money. Start with why is it rewarding executives for producing losses. This is a very common problem in America along with the lack of investment to support long term success.
The other way of looking at it is a company cannot profit without workers. It is the balance between the two that’s at issue here. This greed driven system is killing the golden goose which is the workers.
We are not losing our industries because workers are not giving it their all, we are losing it because managers are not managing. They are mining the value that was created by managers and workers who built this nation.
Thank God it was able to give a multi-million dollar severance (golden parachute) to its poor, suffering, CEO.
I don’t see any mention of that in the article, so I don’t know if it’s true. But even if it was, it doesn’t change the picture: There was not enough money to pay the workers.
In the current economy, with a lot of companies doing badly, I would certainly accept an 8% pay cut to keep my job if it was due to obvious, structural problems like this situation.
D
And just so you know, the CEO was a Democrat and his venture firm was founded in a spirit of cooperation with unions.
D
The union motto: “Full pay till the last day.” Union leadership should be celebrating their big victory. Unions always threaten to “put the company out of business” if their demands aren’t met, so isn’t the Hostess liquidation a total victory for the unions? Also, Democrats are big union supporters, so it’s a great victory as well for Obama
and the Democrat Party. They really stuck it to those evil CEO’s and Hostess
investors. Well, at least those 18,500 Hostess workers won’t have to work over
Christmas, although instead of a the traditional Christmas ham, they may have
to serve a Christmas hamburger.
You have it wrong, the union’s political power stems from corporate actions and negotiations. The article and reality is correct. You cannot expect the corporate world to continue on with maximizing profits at the benefit of it’s labor force. Whatever happened to the notion that a company’s biggest asset, is it’s employees? And democrats don’t necessarily support the unions, the unions support the party that advocates their interest, just as banker’s and insurer’s seek advocacy for their interest. And in business, wouldn’t you think that some of Hostess’s competition company’s are secretly saying….woo hoo! now we have a bigger market, to make ..more money!
Maximizing profits? they lost 350 million last year… if that is “maximizing” profits I’d hate to see what minimizing profits as you desire would appear… Would they lose 500 million next year, or 600 million if they took your advice?
How much money do they need to lose and pay extra to workers before you’re happy?
Here’s an ideas, why don’t you invest in a company that is working their best to lose money? I mean since you wouldn’t want them to maximize profits, put your retirement account in companies that do their best to lose millions every year… why not?
They made 2.5 billion last year. (CNN Money Watch, look it up)
I can go on and on regarding how many loaves of bread they made, how many Twinkees they made……They have asked their employees…TWICE to take pay, benefit, and pension cuts. This time, they were asking for an 8% cut in pay…….enough is enough. They, the employees, did what they could absolutely afford. When is it that the company executives take a hit?….They don’t! They file bankruptcy, restructure, re-arrange assets, cop the benefits of the sale and continue on living richly enough to invest in something else. The worker’s…are left wondering, “they all of a sudden forgot how to compete?” Amd why is it that a business corporation can have an “organization” designed to maximize it’s profits……yet it’s so evil for laborers to do the same? I’m not a big union man….I would rather represent myself…..but people other than corporations and government have a right to just say no.
I’m sure the thousands of now unemployed Hostess workers not in the bakers union really appreciate their resolve. Even the Teamsters, who thought management’s offer was good enough, are upset at these guys.
Timeline:
2004–Hostess workers give $110 million in concessions. This is NOT re-invested in the company.
2009–Hostess now controlled by private equity firm & 2 hedge funds. Sales keep dropping, debt rises.
2011–6th highly paid CEO since 2002 fails to turn company around despite closing 21 plants and killing thousands of jobs. Mismanaged Hostess demands more concessions, workers refuse.
2012–CEO Brian Driscoll gets a golden parachute worth over $3.5 million.
2012–Hostess stops paying pension obligations, demands even larger concessions. Union files complaint with National Labor Relations Board.
Lay off the facts Liz, it gives the wing nuts a headache. We are in a race to the bottom and they want to be free to step on the gas.
Yeah the Chinese get $14 a week and that is who we are competing with.
The proper response to that is to amend trade agreements to address wage disparity, not to reduce our standard of living to that of our competition.
The only ones who benefit from “free” trade are those at the top of the food chain. AKA the top 1%. The rest of us pay dearly. Nothing “free” about it. When two countries with entirely different standards of living go head to head, either someone’s standard is going down, or the other one’s is coming up. China has no interest in bringing their’s up, so guess which way our’s is going. Pretty pathetic that there are posters on here who feel this is a good thing.
The Minnesota Pineapple Growers Association agrees with you that free trade is bad. How can they compete with those warm places. Minnesotans deserve Minnesota pineapples because, well, just because.
If the workers at the Minnesota Pineapple Growers Association do not have a job, or one that pays a living wage, does it make any difference how cheap the imported pineapples are? My favorite story is the one about the president of GM and the president of the UAW standing on the catwalk watching the cars being made. The GM president said ” someday, all these workers we be replaced by robots.” The president of the UAW said ” Great, who then will buy the cars?” We can’t keep sending our jobs and our money to China, and then turn around and complain because no one has a job and no one has any money. It makes us look a little simple. Buy American, pay your FAIR share in taxes, and stay to hell out of WalMart while there is still one American left with a decent paying job. No matter how cheap those imported pineapples are, the American worker can’t afford them.
Is this an article, or a union press release?
This reminds me of the debate in the 80’s about the IP Jay strike. All you people who were cheering for IP then, for the same reasons, should look at the result. They busted the union, saved gazillions, but still went bust because the basic flaw was always management.
IP busted the union and destroyed itself in the process. Now it to is owned by some vulture capitalist and the paper industry in Maine is on the way out.
You people who cheered for the company stuck a knife in what was the perfect industry for Maine.
Long term the unions & foreign competition killed the paper industry in Maine.
$50k annual salary truck divers plus benefits were never sustainable
You are wrong. The Maine mills that declined did so because of quality issues. The market share that was lost went to the mills in Europe which are all unionized. I think that Hinkley, Madison and Bucksport are still doing well because they have good management and kept up with technology.
Considering that one accident could cost millions, I’d say $50K for a professional truck driver is a good deal.
Wow, they have so much resolve they’ll force 18,000 people to lose their jobs and put the entire company out of business instead of taking pay cuts to keep the company going.
It’s amazing how much “resolve” they have to be unemployed and force companies out of business.
But good for them, when you’re in a bad situation that you cannot continue, you don’t quit;’ you burn the entire f-ing thing down.
It’s like when your apartment heat goes out. You don’t move, you burn down the entire block and make hundreds of your neighbors homeless too… that’s the only decent thing to do.
Not happy with your job? Put the entire company out of business… screw your co-workers and put everyone on unemployment… for the good of… something.
Selfish narcissism is now the greatest good anyone can strive for… right union strikers?
“Wow, they have so much resolve they’ll force 18,000 people to lose their jobs and put the entire company out of business instead of taking pay cuts to keep the company going.”
So you are willing to earn less and less so that Wall Street can grab more and more.
A *smart* parasite knows not to kill its host… or Hostess, as the case may be.
They killed the goose that laid the golden sponge cakes. And now they’ll be looking for work.
Awesome!
Now they can go home to their hungry children, and let them know that they won’t need food, when there’s enough union resolve left to go around. Huzzah!
What a brave new America leftists are helping to create.
So 5000 workers kill 18,000 jobs. Even the Teamsters union ratified their contract with Hostess. Wonder how those now unemployed and angry Teamsters are going to look on the Bakers?
No, you have it wrong. 20 board members killed 18,000 jobs trying to grab a larger slice of the pie for themselves.
What are you talking about.
A strong message of union resolve that they don’t want jobs. Way to go idiots!
This is some Twilight Zone of liberal spin exercised by Seth and the unions… Hostess Shrugged
The reason it closed was a simple tale of greed. The company was purchased by a Wall Street Hedge firm specializing (Ronmey style) in buying solid corporations, looting the employees retirement, loading the company up with debt then declaring Chapter 11, therein providing a huge payout for owners. And folks, our LePage is for this. Watch out, these same people want to privatize your Social Security.
doesn’t the absense of union jobs diminish union influence?
Private union membership is down to 7% in America and falling. No coincidence the wages are in the toilet and those at the top of the food chain are watching their wealth explode in leaps and bounds.
Yes, they are as stupid as they seem.
morons for sure! Doubt their work was any good anyway being in Maine DUH!
It is sad to listen to all this condemnation of these PEOPLE. They are workers just like you.
After WW2 one of the most important structures in Germany and Japan was the establishment of workers unions. Marshall and Gen. MacArthur wisely saw that the greatest hedge against communism and socialism was giving workers some power over their destiny. Most people don’t know that there were huge numbers of American’s who supported socialism and communism before the war and those movements ended after unions gave workers the chance to take part in their destiny.
Workers unions are a hedge against socialism. People do not resort to extremism unless they are pushed to the limit. The rise of the tea party is a perfect example of how extremism can rise out of the failure of leadership. Succession is another.
Excellent post! Germany has one of the strongest economies in the world and they also have the strongest unions on the planet. They export more than they import and Germans buy German. Two lessons that we sorely need to pay attention to here in America. We currently are running a $560 billion trade deficit in this country and we buy anything BUT American. Germany doesn’t have as many billionaires per capita as we do though.
Alright !!! Big union workers belong at home and out of the workplace. Most of them are incompetant, lazy, leaches on the company they “work” for.
Union resolve= it’s our way or the highway, well hit the highway union boys and girls. Enjoy unemployment, idiots.
“I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
eating a Twinkie”
“Say’s I to Joe it’s ten years old”
“It tastes just fine to me,
it tastes just fine to me.”
What a shining example of newspeak. Bragging that putting over 18000 people out of work, many of whom weren’t even part of your particular union, is a positive example of what unions can do? George Orwell would be proud.
There is little to commend the actions taken by the union in this example. By and large, the majority of these “protected toadies”, who insisted that their jobs be eliminated ascribe to an attitude of selfishness that has little to do with sustaining an industry. Of course they have no compunction about joining the welfare rolls until the next scam arises. As for me, I say, let them eat cake!
I thought I was reading a story in the Onion.
The math skills and work ethic of organized labor on full display: Which is worse? A 27% pay cut or 100% pay cut.
Businesses are in business in order to make money. It’s a basic idea, I know, but one lost on so many people lately. When union intransigence or government regulations make doing business unprofitable, the business will shut its doors. That is not union bashing, nor is it political grandstanding. It’s just an obvious fact about business. It’s a shame when ideological purity blinds people to such a simple truth. A business doesn’t exist primarily as a check writer for union employees or as a provider of healthcare, though it may do both; it exists to generate income for those who own the business. It’s sad that such an obvious truth is lost on so many people.
When a company is going good the unions demand more and bleed them for everything they can get. When times are tough and the business is in trouble, the unions bleed them for everything they can get. Then when they get all there is and the company can’t keep pace with the bleeding, they blame management. If the company held the hard line during peak times the unions would scream they are being exploited. In the bad times they still scream they are being exploited. In this case the union sure showed their power, now their products will probably be picked up by other corporations and non-union workers will be making Twinkies. Oh well, they probably figured it was their time to get unemployment bennies for awhile and to get on the social program bandwagon. Too bad they took the rest of their fellow employees with them. Some stand they made. Talk about stupidity
This is a picture perfect example of how out of touch these die hard union members are. They are cheering and congratulating the efforts of their union, which just cost them their livelihood? It doesn’t take a genius to see how backwards this is. If I was a union member (which would never happen) I would be irate and furious that my job was now gone, never to be replaced. Yet, these people are saying how proud they are of their union??? How about we go back in six or nine months and interview the same people and see how proud they are when their homes are being foreclosed upon and they can hardly afford to put food on the table. I have a feeling they won’t have the same feeling. It’s easy to say your proud of your union when you still have some money in the bank and are up to date on your financial obligations.
I never understood the union mentality that largely exists in this state, why does someone working at a paper mill or factory think that they are worth $20 an hour or more to sit and push a button or watch a screen. In the “real” world these kind of jobs pay $10hr (if your lucky) but somehow in the “union” world they pay twice as much. Again, it doesn’t take a genius to see that this is not a sustainable model and will ultimately fail.
Unions were intended to protect workers in a time when we didn’t have thousands of regulations and laws covering these issues. Now the only things that unions do are strike, try to get an increase in pay and ultimately force the companies they work for to go out of business.
So ‘union resolve’ means that 18,000 getting a 100% pay cut is better than 6000 getting an 8% pay cut this year (and only 4% total after the next two promised raises). With math skills like that thank goodness we’ve listened to FDR and prevented public employees from unionizing – oh wait.
And the union leaders, all making comfortable six-figure wages with massive pensions, call this a win. A few more wins like this and there won’t be unions employed anywhere.
Strike….take the company down….claim victory….stand in line to collect your unemployment check.
I was tempted to feel sorry for the 18,000 workers who lost their job over the Hostess closing. But then I read articles like this, where the Unions are gleeful in that they “flexed their muscle,” and I have to just shake my head. Unions can’t go extinct quickly enough.
The reason for the bankruptcy filling was that the 97% of the debt was owed to the company’s retirement account! Yet the company had no problem increasing the CEO’s pay by 300% to over 2.2 MILLION DOLLARS per year plus 9 other senior management receiving HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in raises… Hostess management chose not to fund the retirement account and yet “people” blame the workers? Another little fact – Hostess is owned by a private equity firm – quite similar to how Bain Capital operates. Facts, just the facts.
Boys, the union sure showed them just how powerfull they can be. I am sure that in about 4 to 6 weeks the soon to be former employees will not be singing the high praise for their union leaders when they are scratching their heads wondering where they are going to find a job in this vibrant economy. Good luck.
Union Resolve,what idiots in sheep’s clothing
Good strong union resolve, I am sure they are proud of themselves = No Job.
“We are not going to let you get away with this”,hahaha…
Does logic have a place here? I look at it as 600 people just voted themselves out of a job. Brilliant move! The larger Union was smart enough to agree/negotiate. This what you voted for, 18,500 jobs yesterday gone from Hostess, almost 1200 jobs gone from the Stryker this am. Hold on, the next 4 years are going to be rough.
Unions demand a decent wage, but Hostess products are not healthy, and this along with a weak economy probably hurts the company. I haven’t bought these products at retail because of the price in over 20-years; I opt for “day-old” fire sale prices once or twice a year.
Economically speaking, jobs sent overseas actually makes those workers employees of US corporations. In China the production costs coupled with wages for workers is 5-10% of US workers when it all factored in – the corporations still earn the profits. Maybe Hostess could have kept the 6,000 union employees by replacing the non-union employees with production from overseas. This business model may not work for fresh products though, and maybe this particular Union made its point but is in the wrong industry – each industry and Union have different circumstances – I would never be proud of watching my company go into bankruptcy proceedings. Hostess just happens to be an industry where grain prices are up 60% in the past two years, gas and petro products are up 50% from four years ago, so raw materials for production have more than doubled.
This article makes me believe that this Union is somehow acting in the interests of the romantic notion of what Unions feel they are, rather than in their own interests. It is too bad this is playing out this way because the Union has made the choice for the more than 75% non-Union workers.
Non-Union built cars in the US cost on average $30 an hour less times 300 hours to produce, but the builders use the UNIONs production costs to keep their own profits high, rather than under sell the Big Three Auto makers; Education K-12 is failing and the Unions fight to prevent Change so many of us have lost Hope and their is no way Forward under this current presidential administration.
A successful parasite never kills its host organism. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You won NOTHING. I hope your spite keeps you warm.
So the union had a choice between agreeing to 92% of a pretty good living, or 100% of nothing for their members, and they chose 100% of nothing. And they are trying to tell us this is a good thing. No wonder unions are withering away.
My Dad was a shop steward for the UTU, the first word I learned was Scab, due to some strike activity at the time. An intelligent union is a working mans best friend. A stupid one is a working mans (soon to be unemployed man) worst nightmare.
What is this, the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad?
Those Brave 300 strikers who apparently were unwilling to hold a secret ballot vote bravely threw 18200 of their fellow workers over the cliff with themselves in the worst economy in my half a century lifetime.
After which the assets of the company will be sold and bought by people under no obligation to hire union workers.
They’ll show em eh?
Unions are breaking themselves up…… geniuses……Twinkies will be back but they will be made by non-union employees and I will buy them just to send a message! Way to go unions 18,500 jobs gone back to those of us who want a job and do not feel entitled.
Sorry if I fail to take an adult who eats twinkies seriously. Assuming you are over 12.
The funny thing is that Hostess/IBC officials are blaming the bakery union workers for their closing. You see, if the bakery workers had agreed to work for $6/hour, then Hostess could have stayed in business. The truth is that IBC was withholding pension contributions from EMPLOYEE CHECKS and using that money to pay other bills. It wasn’t IBC’s money, it was part of the workers’ salaries that was stolen. That was the crux of the matter. I suppose if IBC’s creditors had all called their loans then it would have been the creditors’ fault that IBC failed. Typical Vulture Capitalists at work. Rape, pillage, and plunder and then blame the victims.
You will never get the nuts that post anti-union spanm to agree with anything tat favors workers, That is whyRomney lost, and this former Republican, now Inedpendent voted agaionst him.
I remember when Nissen was an independent, Wonder belonged to a long-dead entity called “Continental Bakeries” and all Hostess did was make disgusting chemical-filed sugar puffs.
Frankly I’m tired of watching the workers of this Nation get table scraps while people like Romney make billions buying companies, firing the workers, and selling the parts.
Chinese workers make on average $14 a week. Our capitalist bosses say we have to learn how to compete with them. I say whre are the $14 a month rentals? where is the $14 a month heating bill? and where is the $14 a month food bill? Tha means I have$14 for eveything else. The boss better drop by to pick me up on my way to work, or I probably can’t affrd to get there.
this company run by dems. you cant blame thr rebubs this time.
Idiots,All a bunch of Now out of work Idiots. That Hillard fellow has no clue but most Tenured teachers never have had.
Hmmm. Good choice. 0% income vs 92% income. Idiots.
Unions are a thing of the past, akin to civil rights, equal rights and war bonds. We are no longer bigots, women are an equal part of society and the wars are funded by tax payers. The original thought behind a union was to ensure wages and safety were considered. We now have OSHA, Dept of Labor and a bunch of other agencies to protect workers. They all cant co-exist and drag down corporations. Too many groups taking too many slices of the pie (or Twinkies in this case).
Actually, we’ll be lucky if all the corporations don’t shut down… right after all the small businesses are squashed by big government regulations, taxes, and unreasonable demands.. What will the brave unions be doing then?
Yup! You have showed them alright! If you start a business we will strike and shut you down,so why bother…..
ok, bite the hand that feeds you. how was that a plan??
Sorry to say, but those union workers are just plain STUPID ! They thought 8% pay cut and perhaps pension freeze (like everyone else) was unacceptable. So now they got 100% pay cut and pension freeze.
Class warfare at it’s best. When people realize that they need each other to survive and that compromise is always the best solution, that’s when we’ll have real winners. If the unions think they won, they are mistaken. Nobody won this. Being out of a job in an economy like this is not winning.
The US consumer won this. Twinkies will be back and made by people who want to work and don’t act entitled. Bet they will taste the same or better!
No, wheresmymule, the whole world won. Hostess was using more resources than the value of their product. Whatever capital remaining can now be taken somewhere else where maybe the world’s wealth can be increased instead of decreased.
what a quandary for the White House…..Michelle against twinkie production and Barrack for twinkie production….
Read it and weep union hosers. Always a rat in they haystack.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/hostess-liquidation-curious-cast-characters-twinkie-tumbles
Oh my, the Union lovers wont like this post….
More “resolve” like this and they’ll all be unemployed. I don’t suppose the union mentality can quite grasp the irony and childishness of their “resolve.”
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/6565/unionq.gif
The Hostess Company didn’t build that business, but the union sure destroyed it.
Boy, liberals are stupid
Keeping these jobs, under any condition or any employer demands, just to stay employed, is like saying it’s better to stay in an abusive relationship/marriage just to be in a relationship/marriage, than leaving……………………………
Then leave, don’t kill your spouse.
Such incredible foolishness. So many Americans have been duped into thinking that businesses do not need to make a profit in order to stay in business. Odd though that these workers and American liberals themselves will not work for nothing but they think others who are wealthier than they are would be willing to do so. How in the world can people be so foolish and vote for a candidate that intends to kill them. Just amazing.
let the Union Scum tell the banks why they can’t pay their Mortgage…I’m sure they will understand…Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha …ignorant terds…let them eat cake…oh there isn’t any…
You kill the company and that’s good? 18k people are out of jobs and that’s good? That’s why I left the United Brotherhood of Carpenter’s and Joiners…because unions destroy businesses.
Dont see too many of the Union lovers coming to the aid of these people..Tails between legs …..What a shame..
Keep reading scab. We are here.
You are there with a box of tissues because Unions are dying off……
You don’t have to be crazy to be a liberal, just dishonest. Go Galt, and Cloward-Piven this crap right into the ground. Then sit back and watch the blue cities eat each other when the food doesn’t magically appear on the shelves.
People forget that the first democratic right – is the right to vote with your wallet, the second is voting with your feet, the third (and should be least significant) is voting at the ballot box. A regulation is a pre-made purchasing decision. A public employee is a (ghost) employee on every private payroll. (We’d like to believe both are chosen wisely – but we’re often disappointed especially after the crisis that created the opportunity for government interference fades).
Why should unions (or bankers) be able to demand – and succeed in nationalizing their businesses – and discard our votes without care? Hostess (largely now in the control of well heeled DNC contributors) was doomed when it agreed to pay more compensation than their market could bear. May it rest in peace. Soon to be joined by the postal service. And the nationalized car companies. And their resources redeployed to something more worthy of our wallets. Vice being a deadweight burden on all of us.
Yes, a strong resilience of UNION STUPIDITY! Are the union’s MAFIA bosses going to be unemployed too?
Enjoy unemployment. Im guessing the union will provide layoff benefits but you deserve none. The correct response would have been to vote with your feet and find another job. But capitalist responses to oppression are not understood by the great union unwashed.
Hostess was in Chapter 11 proceedings because it had been loaded with debt from successive leveraged buyouts. Hostess Brands has been a zombie company using a business model that consists of profiting from bailing on any financial obligations it can convince a bankruptcy judge to go along with for nearly two decades. The American economy is better off as a whole for not having to keep this obesity inducing corporate vampire on financial life support. Unions are being scapegoated for refusing to bend over and grab their heels while thanking Wall Street for letting a few crumbs come their way.
In the headline we could just take out the word resolve and replace it with IGNORANCE!
Union leaders said it was a moral victory in the late 70s, when International Harvester shut down in response to their strike.
Union bosses maximize the profits to union bosses.
I am very sad for all the workers, especially those in Maine, who will suffer this set back but I also hope Maine and America are through with Hostess Twinkies and Wonderbread and all that represents about the quality and kind of food we want all people to have access to.
Part of rebuilding Maine’s economy has to also be re envisioning what kind of products we want to produce, what we are uniquely able to produce because of our natural advantages and how we build those opportunities where worker equity , worker ownership replaces the old model of labor management opposition..
So if worker ownership is the answer, why have the unions, with their billions of dollars of pension funds, not gone into owning companies?
William..the whole culture of unions is very different from the culture of employee owned companies and the kinds of decisions those companies make are very different. In Maine Cianbro is the largest example of a employee owned company. Nationally employee owned companies are turning up as top performers across all sectors.
The entire decision making process is different ..a cianbro it seems from their website and newsletter that they choose what projects to go after not just for maximum profit but to keep heir work close to he and to create long term industry positions which secure that. It’s the complete opposite of Bain Capital ownership and a very different partnership . Workers are directors. ( many employee owned companies also have cahretres thatkeep payscales top to bottom on a continuum so there is no ginat void between “the workers” pay scales and those of top management.
Well the evil democrat elite…… Hostess was run by Ripplewood. Ripplewood was run by Tim Collins…….follow the twinkie trail (no not the twinkie defense in the Milk murder);
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/timothy-collins.asp?cycle=12
Economic illiteracy is rampant in this country from the president on down. Our educational institutions have failed us in this regard. The union here really thought there was some sort of money fairy who would intervene and give them their heart’s desire if they just held firm. They thought the investors who saved Hostess from bankruptcy by infusing huge sums of cash were the bad guys or the enemy. It takes a very poor grasp of reality to do what they did and the talk about how they showed “the man” is just rationalization of the fact that they were used as tools by the unions and were too ignorant to act in their own best interests. This is a very hard lesson for them and the people patting them on the back just make it that much harder for them to learn it.
Someday people will look back on the Obama years as a time when the country went completely mad. Countries don’t survive socialism and the sense of self-entitlement that it engenders. Even the early Greek democracies died when the people figured out they could vote themselves whatever they wished. But then we don’t teach history anymore either.
Unfortunately, we won’t be looking back on the obama years, we’re living them for another four long, grusome years.
The man you named yourself after, the distinguished Mr. Franklin had an understanding of both the economy and history,as did the other founders of our Republic.
I get a kick out of Christian values leaders some of these CEOs are and their supporters too, the CEO from the lenders/Banks, because it’s legal, they extrapolate it as Moral too to pay less than living wages, bankrupt companies by saturating them in debt, taking the cash and closing it down, leaving communities to pick up the tab of their greed…………..
ya they really did win. thegovernment will hand out unemployment checks for the next 3 to 5 years. so all these workers will collect and not have to get up and go to work every day win win
I don’t believe that checks will go out for anywhere near that long. In Maine I understand it’s now up to 46 weeks. http://www.maine.gov/labor/unemployment/faqs.html
give obama a chance, he just gettin started
The surgery was successful too bad the patient died. So Stupid
Yeah, the union was strong. And now you don’t have a job anymore. I don’t see how that’s a win for the worker. Someone will eventually buy Hostess’ name, but who’s to say they’re going to hire these people who apparently will strike at any time?
Just asking.
So investors tried to save a bankrupt company and all those jobs. Unions wanted investors to actually lose money and turn the company into a welfare system. Losing your job in this environment and in a state that has always had little prospects? Yeah – this is really a lesson to the ‘Man’. That will teach him. Idiots.
Sounds more like wanting to make lemon aid out of lemons. They thought they would bluff the company, but got their lunch handed to them instead. So stupid to go on strike at this time, lol, didn’t the dummies realize that the company was already in bankruptcy?
I can’t be reading this article right. Are they really saying that the union had a victory here. The only thing that was won, unemployment right before the holidays.
You non-union folks just don’t get it and that is ok, but will just ONE of you answer me this? What wage would you propose to pay those workers, and I want your answer to be specific, in dollars and cents. Do ANY of you believe Hostess would not come back in a year or two and want more concessions? At what wage would YOU refuse to work? ANY non-union guys want to answer these questions? My guess is you will refuse to. Why is that? Let’s see some brave non-union folks be specific.
1) I’m not privy to Hostess’s books, so my answer would have to be to propose what Hostess actually proposed.
2) I’m not a baker, so my personal wage desires aren’t relevant.
3) The fact that the Teamsters, who were privy to Hostess’s books and who are no one’s idea of pushovers, asked the Bakers’ union to take the deal on the table, would tend to indicate that the Bakers’ union should have taken the deal. Wouldn’t it? Are you brave enough to answer that?
Nice deflection and non-answer. Let’s say you are the boss and had all the answers. What would you pay? Since your wages aren’t relevant is it safe to assume you would work for minimum wages….or less? No, I wouldn’t have taken the deal either. At some point one has to say “no.” Now, back to my questions. Are you going to answer them or will you deflect once again.
If union workers are willing to take a complete loss of jobs over a pay cut while keeping jobs then yes, dumb and dumber. Mob mentality. I do not know how much employees are paid so cannot answer that question but a fair wage would be anything at or above the minimum wage. By the way, your guess is wrong. I would keep working. Some money is better than no money.
Minimum wage is a fair wage??? Is that you Mitt? I’m glad you are not my boss. I do like the other part of your answer…”above the minimum” wage, but someone who thinks minimum wages is acceptable in today’s society has a lot to learn. Do you work for minimum wage?
Actually I am rather old so I do not have a lot to learn. I am not saying minimum wage is acceptable but I have worked 2 jobs when in need. Stop whining. I do not work for minimum wage but would rather than have no job. I have just taken a nearly 50% pay cut just to keep working. I will better myself in the future if the opportunity arises. But for now I like to eat and pay my bills.
You’ve got to be really stupid to willingly join a union. And even more stupid to vote yourself out of a job. Unionism = communism.
Good thing there’s no shortage of jobs in Biddeford!
What a bunch of nonsense. This is akin to saying the crew of the plane did an admirable job right up until the point when it steered the plane into the ground.
such a shame that the union bosses did not lose their jobs, the evils that they go on about were put intoplace by the dems and the SEC when the government started telling companies how they could pay the officers, and allowing things like tieing bonuses to stock price, you need to really see that this is all because of big government, the second part is that this is the second time that Hostess has filed for Bankruptcy protection, you would think that any one witha brain would NOT pull out and strike when the company financials looked as bad as they are, just goes to show you that the union bosses do not care one iota for the rank and file
But while headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.
At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Unionpointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Certainly, the company agreed to an out-sized pension debt, but the decision to pay executives more while scorning employee c
You mean the Unions weren’t the only ones squeezing the company? Shock!
This is similar to the big strike at IP in Jay back in 87. Boy the Union really showed them. I’ve got friends and family that lost their jobs standing with their Union Bretheren. Let’s face it, a job is a job in this economy. People stupid enough to walk away from them, get what they asked for. With the devastation that Global Climate Change is unleashing on our food crops, it only makes sense that companies and employees in the food industry, will need to make concessions in order to remain solvent. I understand what an important part Unions have played in our history. Issues like equal pay, worker safety, child labor laws, etc…; but they are now past the point of relevance in our country. I’m a bleeding heart liberal, but I stand with the teapublicans on this one. Organized labor is a has been, that should be excised from modern day America. All of this commraderie and crap will fizzle and evaporate, about the time your cupboards are bare and your oil tanks empty. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Wow. They aren’t very bright in Maine, are they?
What about the cuts they took in 08 ?
Well, if they didn’t think about trying for other employment at that time, they’re not that bright. I wouldn’t work in a place that was constantly taking away…
No they are not. I lost my job making $16.00 per hour in May. I now have a job paying 9.25 but I am working. I would rather take a pay cut then have no job at all. I don’t think these strikers are highly skilled or highly educated so good luck with your job search.
I am sorry you lost your other job. Kudos to you for finding another. I went back to college at “middle age” to be able to get a decent job. Thankfully my previous job afford me to be able to save a few bucks for that college. Had to move out of state to get work though.
So, instead of an 8% pay cut, they take a 100% pay cut. Then brag about it!?
What about the cuts they took in 08 ?
a fat lot the union did for those workers…at least before the union called a strike there was still a company and jobs now the union has put them out of busines…and with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner….I would think even a low paying job is better than nothing at this time of year…not so sure that was a good thing….
Go Unions !!! Teach that mean’ole company !!! Jobs are plentiful !!! You can take your confectionery, milling and tobacco rolling expertise anywhere and land a job !!! Heck, I’m looking for a tobacco roller now !!! Come on down !!!
The headline should say: Union Resolve causes 18,000 workers to lose their jobs.
Speaks volumes about unions doesn’t it?!!
It seems the Union won the battle but lost the war…….
It is quite clear that the company is stealing the money and hiding it in the executives pockets along with the Hedge Funds who own Hostess. Let’s do the math. 18,000 employees. The average yearly cost per employee with benefits is $50,000. I am high balling it just to see. That comes out to about 1 billion a year in wages and benefits. That leaves the company with 1.5 billion dollars! Their expenses are not more than 1.5 billion dollars! They are fabricating the books and the executives are pocketing serious money. In the hundreds of millions! Let the company burn! Period! Greg Rayburn is a liquidation specialist. They hired him a couple of months ago to liquidate the company. Don’t get it twisted.
Salary Increases at Hostess.
Some creditors question Hostess pay raises approved in late July.
Brian Driscoll, CEO, around $750,000 to $2,550,000.
Gary Wandschneider, EVP, $500,000 to $900,000.
John Stewart, EVP, $400,000 to $700,000.
David Loeser, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Kent Magill, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
Richard Seban, EVP, $375,000 to $656,256.
John Akeson, SVP, $300,000 to $480,000.
Steven Birgfeld, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Martha Ross, SVP, $240,000 to $360,000.
Rob Kissick, SVP, $182,000 to $273,008.
This is Bain capitalism at its worst……..a company using bankruptcy as a bargaining chip……..it failed so they are liquidating a profitable company…..
These figures are no longer accurate. The top 4 plus CEO Driscoll receive $1 annually. You are misleading your fellow posters.
Hmmmm, not that I don’t trust Wikipedia, but that site is ever changing by who knows who, but supposedly those $1 salaries were only good until the end of the year, then back to normal. Dricoll isn’t even there anymore?
If it was so profitable, some other greedy capitalist would have paid more than it’s liquidation value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike
Labor Day
In an effort to conciliate organized labor after the strike, President Grover Cleveland and Congress designated Labor Day as a federal holiday in 1894. Legislation for the holiday was pushed through Congress six days after the strike ended. Samuel Gompers, who had sided with the federal government in its effort to end the strike by the American Railway Union, spoke out in favor of the holiday.[23][24]
So the Union Bosses decided the Hostess Workers were Expendable?
Half a League Half a League Half a League onward
All in the Valley of Strikes
Rode the 11,000
Forward the Twinkie Brigade
Theirs not to Reason Why
Their but to do and be Unemployed
They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney we’d see unfair labor practices which will result in plant closings and job losses and THEY WERE RIGHT!
So now you all don’t have jobs, nor benefits, nor anymore contributions to your pensions. Whoo wee! You really showed them!! Seems to me the workers are the big losers. Note that the union employees DO still have jobs. Doubt they care about the Hostess workers. Also seems to me they used those thousands of now jobless individuals to keep their union alive via press about this situation.
But union officials and line workers said union workers had already agreed to a series of concessions over the years and the company had failed to invest in brand marketing and modernization of plants and trucks and had focused instead on enriching owners such as private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital.
Congratulations to those who sent a “strong message of union resolve.” Now you, and others who needed the work (apparently YOU did not need the work) are out of a job. The dramatic irony here is that much of the Hostess plant’s remaining stock of product will likely be sold out by Marden’s, Governor LePage’s former employer. Hopefully, the former Hostess employees will find work soon. Perhaps Marden’s has some openings. Marden’s and other “liquidation centers” seem to be the only growth industry here in Maine. Welcome to Maine, the way life should be. We are “Open for Business.” Right.
Nothing here has been proven, except 18000 people will be laid off, and the company
will close. To me this doesn’t seem worth it. Where will all of these people find another job? I do wish them good luck.
Unions. Corrupt, crooked,nasty, shameless and above all, stupid. Way to go, lemmings! You sure did show Hostess who is the bull of the woods. didn’t ya?
Okay – the unions made a point – but they put themselves out of a job. This type of thought process is mind-boggling. Hostess will probably re-surface in the South eventually which are right to work states.
I wouldn’t mind paying an extra $.10 for my bread if that would help them pay a living wage. What’s the big deal?
What were their wages? I’m asking sincerely, because that seems to be the only pertinent piece of info that hasn’t been reported yet. Maybe they were already making a “living wage.” Maybe they were already making much more than a “living wage.” By the way, how do you define “living wage” because without such a definition, it’s nothing more than a buzzword.
so it was just fine for the company to steal from the workers pension plan? let’s face it. the republican idea of full employment is everyone working for minimum wage with no rights. if they had their way they’d bring back the company store and pay the workers with script. I can just see Mitt and his buddies behind the counter, “baked beans, 10.00 a can. buy them here or your fired.”
I’m certain that the CEO of Hostess shouted out an unambiguous statement…”If you continue to strike, we will be forced to close the doors Permanently” Now, 18,500 pink slips later, are all the laid off the workers scratching their heads wondering what happened, or just the ones that continued to dance to the drums of the union bosses.
Strong union? No company? These workers got what they deserved – no jobs. They should not be entitled to unemployment, either.
Just how many ways can you spell the word STUPID. These union workers once again cut off their noses to spite their STUPID faces. There is no other explanation other than they are intentionally destroying our economy and the jobs of the members of the unions. Incredible, nauseating STUPIDITY
So the commentariat has hijacked this story and made it all about the unions, those evil unions… Hostess is folding because it sells a product that as more people become aware of how highly processed foods contribute to their health problems they stop buying those products. They don’t want to put that stuff in their children’s bodies, or their own. They vote with their dollars and the vote is not going to junk food. Hostess hasn’t grown or adjusted with people’s awareness of what is healthy and what is not, and is going the way of the dodo.
The costs to our society of eating an unhealthy diet full of empty calories and highly processed ingredients far out-strips the cost of providing a living wage and healthy foods, but the American way is to blame the unions, blame the greedy workers. Providing a living wage might mean, oh no, god forbid!, the private equity firms will have to take a haircut… their profits, horror of horrors, might suffer… Ah, American capitalism in all its glory…
Walmart will fight unionization while telling its low income workers which govt assistance programs are available to supplement their crappy wages… YOU supplement Walmart’s success and low income workforce with your tax dollars… And many of you will complain that govt assistance programs even exist at all, in effect arguing that low income workers should just suck it up and live with it… If one of the richest corporations on the planet simply paid a living wage, the economy would benefit from people having money to spend, being less dependent of assistance, better able to contribute revenue to govt in the form of taxes so our infrastructure would be better, our police, firefighters, and teachers would be better at what they do…
Listening to the Unions reasoning here is enough to make any hard working and common sense person realize just how insane the union mantra has become. The benefits the union brought to the working class can’t be argued but they happened a long time ago and in another era. Today’s unions are more destructive and controlled
by left-wing radicals. I suspect what will happen here is that the company will
liquidate and someone will come along and buy them out along with their brand
name and hire non-union, which will make the company financially viable again.
I would hope that this would be an econ 101 lesson for the unions but they are
too entrenched in their class warfare mentality to learn much of anything.
BS. This isn’t about the unions. This is about private equity and the failure of a company to adjust to people not wanting to eat or buy junk food. Blame the unions if you like, but Hostess and a host of other junk food manufacturers have been losing market share for a long time now. Our society has suffered in terms of health and cost because of products void of nutritional value from the empty calories of highly processed foods. And the ONLY class warfare that is going on is that of the 1% against the 99% as profits, income, opportunity, share of wealth and assets have ALL been flowing UPWARDS for the past 30 years. What the bottom of the income distribution scale has gotten is flat or falling wages and the lion’s share of debt. Econ 101, indeed…
Congratulations! The union striked your way right out of a job! Now you can get your free obamaphone! Yay!
reaganphone… it was one of the gipper’s programs
That was a program for the poor to dial 911 in an emergency only! A far cry from what obama and the democrats have morphed it into today! You know that! Still…the UNION closed 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores and left 18,500 workers without a job! This is why unions need to be dissolved!
But …hey…obama got re-elected…just what democrats wanted! So…TIME TO EAT YOUR PEAS!
Not because of the union. Because of really bad products. And the phones come with many restrictions, they aren’t smart phones.
The lies continue without skipping a beat……..
So the commentariat has hijacked this story and made it all about the
unions, those evil unions… Hostess is folding because it sells a
product that as more people become aware of how highly processed foods
contribute to their health problems they stop buying those products.
They don’t want to put that stuff in their children’s bodies, or their
own. They vote with their dollars and the vote is not going to junk
food. Hostess hasn’t grown or adjusted with people’s awareness of what
is healthy and what is not, and is going the way of the dodo.
The costs to our society of eating an unhealthy diet full of empty
calories and highly processed ingredients far out-strips the cost of
providing a living wage and healthy foods, but the American way is to
blame the unions, blame the greedy workers. Providing a living wage
might mean, oh no, god forbid!, the private equity firms will have to
take a haircut… their profits, horror of horrors, might suffer… Ah,
American capitalism in all its glory…
Walmart will fight unionization while telling its low income workers
which govt assistance programs are available to supplement their crappy
wages… YOU supplement Walmart’s success and low income workforce with
your tax dollars… And many of you will complain that govt assistance
programs even exist at all, in effect arguing that low income workers
should just take their non-living wage and live with it…
If one of the richest corporations on the planet simply paid a living wage, the economy would benefit from people having money to spend, being less dependent of assistance, better able to contribute revenue to govt in the form of
taxes so our infrastructure would be better, our police, firefighters,
and teachers would be better at what they do…
You and your selfish union just helped destroy a company that provided people with a living and you’re PROUD of that? I hope no one hires you ever again. You don’t deserve a good job.
It’s funny to see this incident called Bain capitalism when the private equity company in question is run by a major democratic donor who had Dick Gephardt’s help getting his hands on the company.
It would seem that if the current cost structure was viable, the unions and their rich backers e.g. Soros, Streisand, Silicon Valley billionaires, Buffett could purchase the company and run it at a profit. Since they don’t, what does that tell you.
Congratulations! You “won”. I and hope you continue to win many many MANY more such victories going forward, until you’re all out of a job. Happy Thanksgiving you unemployed dopes!!!
What a ripe, royal bunch of nitwits these people are. They have effectively cut off their noses to spite their faces. The union bosses are the only people to benefit by this move. Good Lord, people, look at the economy- you have taken complete leave of your senses to think that companies are going to be able to operate in the current business climate. The unions have sold their rank-and-file down the river and it is unfortunate, indeed, that they’ve convinced these folks that this stupid stike is going to end well. Barack Obama has so demonized companies all across this nation that it should come as no surprise to anyone to see them close rather than try to operate in such a hostile business environment. Way to go unions- you really showed Hostess!
The people on the top of the unions are some of the same investors who closed down the plants. The whole thing will be bought for pennies on the dollar by the same people under a different company, and yes the Unions will be invested in it, as they are now except for one thing, They will be a non union company.. So the union elite sold their people down the drain as to get rid of union debt. WOW!!! Nice bunch you pay your dues to
Unions have been “losing power for years” because they kill every industry they infect, and now that they have infected government they are killing government, bankrupting localities and states across the country. Labor unions should be ILLEGAL, just as every other form of collusion between sellers of a good or service has long been illegal.
BS. If business paid living wages and treated workers as a matter of moral responsibility there would be no need for unions. They haven’t and they don’t in all cases so unions exist, in spite of all efforts to destroy them. Collusion between sellers of a good or service… do you mean, like fixing of the LIBOR rates…? That type of criminal thing? Unions don’t operate with that sort of collusion… they collectively bargain with management to assure some semblance of fairness in a given workplace or industry.
What is a “living wage” exactly? It’s your job to make yourself more valuable to a company. You aren’t worth anything just for walking in the place. The free market controls how much you get paid. If they are forced to pay people more than they are worth, they stop hiring those people for more than they are worth and instead spend it on automation or on fewer yet higher quality workers.
sdemetri: price fixing is when sellers of a good get together and fix the price. That’s exactly what unions do. They’re allowed to do it because they exempted from laws which criminalize price fixing.
And sd, do you act with a moral responsibility to the businesses you patronize. When you find a better product or one at a better price, do you stick with the old one because you have moral responsibility? I doubt it.
Loyalty to a brand is a “moral responsibility?” I don’t think so. I WILL buy locally and pay a bit more rather than buy from a large conglomerate when I have the chance. Your opinion that unions engage in criminal price fixing is what it is, I suppose. The National Labor Relations Board I guess in that formulation is also a criminal enterprise?
Collective bargaining has helped protect workers’ rights against unscrupulous business management, which increasingly has come under the thumb of their private equity managers and THEIR profit motives. The inequality that exists in this country has come about through predatory business practices demanded by the profit takers looking for “efficiency” in their investments. Cold, cruel, bloodless, soulless, heartless market efficiency. If that is the world you want to live in, as it is for many, it just might take a violent revolution to overthrow such a system.
It certainly won’t end well even absent an organized effort:
“This year has witnessed a global wave of social and political turmoil and instability, with masses of people pouring into the real and virtual streets: the Arab Spring; riots in London; Israel’s middle-class protests against high housing prices and an inflationary squeeze on living standards; protesting Chilean students; the destruction in Germany of the expensive cars of
“fat cats”; India’s movement against corruption; mounting unhappiness with corruption and inequality in China; and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York and across the United States.
While these protests have no unified theme, they express in different ways the serious concerns of the world’s working and middle classes about their prospects in the face of the growing concentration of power among economic, financial, and political elites. The causes of their concern are clear enough: high unemployment and underemployment in advanced and emerging economies; inadequate skills and education for young people and workers to compete in a globalized world; resentment against corruption, including legalized forms like lobbying; and a sharp rise in income and wealth inequality in advanced and fast-growing emerging-market economies.”
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-instability-of-inequality#z4c1Rlv76iJLEUZS.99
Is this that “personal responsibility thing we always hear about? This business was already struggling and now that’s it’s really done for, they’re going to blame their workers? What cowards.
In a diet – conscious society, Twinkies was doomed. Nonetheless, the company was still producing baked goods and hoping their workers would ignore the increases in gas , food, and mortgage rates, whilst helping to keep company profits rolling in.
It’s a typical corporate myopic reaction. Just simply blame those who want a slightly bigger slice of the cake. The company ignores the pleas of those who have dedicated their lives in helping a company produce a highly marketable and profitable product.
For 81 years, these workers have given their all to this company. All of their God-given talents were applied dutifully and daily in helping the owners bask in wealth. The workers forsook all other jobs dedicating their lives to this company.
The union was their only bridge between management and their wage packets..
Management abandoned ship.
.
This is a win for the unions, it really is. they aren’t responsible for the workers pensions..
I notice that many posters are decrying greed. Please tell us the measure of economic activity you use to indicate when greed is being encountered? Or is greed just when someone else doesn’t give you what you want? (Politics on a three year old’s level of sophistication). Or is it, like the messiah’s constant “fair share” of taxes the rich don’t pay, a meaningless phrase used to put politics on the emotional, rather than intellectual, level.
Better report on NPR. the teamsters union also involved–looked at the books and were comfortable w/ the offer. some of those guys were making 90 K or 60 K. They felt the company would go down and in one case anyway, would rather be making $42K than zero.
>>> is a warning sign for corporate investors seeking to squeeze more profits out of the working class.
18,000 union workers headed for welfare. Yeah, you really showed them.
“The working class”? Everybody works. Some are &^%$ing retards and all they can do is drive a forklift. Others are smart and can allocate capital and resources in a way forklift guy could never imagine, even if he’d paid attention in algebra class.
But forklift guy’s “work” doesn’t hold a candle to the work done by someone smart.
Hard work, smart. All that is associated with success, but doesn’t guarantee it. Success in business is producing a product and using less resources than the value of the product you produce. It doesn’t matter if you do it by hard work, smarts or luck. And it shouldn’t. The world gets rich (and allows the union whiners on this site to complain about a standard of living most of the world only dreams about) because of an economy based on profit, not on people.
Union demand more unsustainable pay and benefits that force thier employer to close down … and um… see that as a win … Guess they really like that Obama phone and food stamp program
and the massive pay raises that the CEO’s and executives got while preparing for bankruptcy had nothing to do with it…..
The parasites do eventually kill their Host(ess).
So now we pay for their unemployment because their greed got them unemployed. Hope your union pays your heating bills this winter. Most Mainers are struggling to put food on the table, gas in their vehicles and oil to heat their homes, but you union members have the gall to demand more while we all do with less. Happy Holidays and stay warm,
Ssince when do striking workers get unemployment? They quit employment by going on strike. happy holidays unemployed gounion idiots.
They strike and strike till there jobs are gone now they go on the welfare role. The union seems to be doing these folks a great service.
The tax payers are forced to subsidize the job killers.
Yeah, your decision to cause 18,500 layoffs due to your greed is a real victory for unions. A few more like this and we’ll see a national right to work law.
OK so putting yourself out of a job is the new definition of “Success”…yeah boy you sure showed them…wouldn’t take an 8% pay cut so now you have a 100% pay cut.
18,500 Americans are out of a job because 5000 Union idiots thought they would call the company’s bluff. I hope those 5000 people lose their homes, their marriages fall apart and they end up committing suicide.
These people are now where they deserve to be. Unemployed.
Alternate headline, “Striking Hostess Workers Declare Victory, Prepare Resumes.”
Anyone who thinks unions are declining in power need look no further than the state of California where union power is on the rise. California is a model for how unions can ensure a power base through penetrating the offices and hallways of state and local governments and unionizing everyone right under the noses of the taxpayer. It is a brilliant strategy and even helped re-elect Jerry Brown to a third term even though the state constitution only allows two terms. The result? Higher taxes for all, higher unemployment, higher energy prices for all, higher inflation (to cover the lavish taxpayer-funded pension and healthcare benefits). And those are the good points. The bad? Worst business climate for private sector job growth and can lead to municipal bankruptcy as has been the case in Stockton and San Bernadino. Go unions!
BS. Show me how unions create higher inflation “to cover lavish taxpayer funded pension and healthcare benefits…” or higher energy prices… Show me how nationally unions are on the rise and causing any of the problems you list… Some empirical data would go a long way to validating your comment.
Any reasonable person knows that increased labor costs lead to inflation as businesses simply pass on cost increases to consumers. In the area of unionized government workers, increased labor costs require raising taxes or increasing the money supply which is itself inflationary. If you require empirical data to substantiate, may I introduce you to an amazing web search tool called Google. Have at it. Her’s one fro the NY Fed: http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci3-11.pdf
Snark unnecessary. I asked for data and you gave me a link. Thanks. I DO require people to substantiate their comments here when its appropriate. What you haven’t provided is proof unions are on the rise in California or nationwide. I’m not a union man so I don’t have a dog in the hunt, so to speak. Union membership is down, way down nationally so your original comment is not one a reasonable person should easily accept as fact. Decisions by management in Hostess’s case made for lousy products that people increasingly don’t want to buy recognizing highly processed, empty calorie junk food is not only bad for you but doesn’t taste very good. The market has been deciding Hostess products aren’t worth buying, and it seems a calcified management hasn’t made the adjustments necessary to gain back market share with good products. Decisions by the private equity firm which owns Hostess to take from ALL Hostess workers, not just union ones, to finance their own unjustified, exorbitant salaries and bonuses, the company be damned, says more about vulture capitalists than it does about collective bargaining. Increased labor costs as a line item often suffers well before upper management salaries, also a line item.
No sir. The devil is in the details. Union membership is definitely down in the private sector but up in the public sector. Even the TSA recently ‘voted’ to unionize, so look for the costs to be borne by air travelers. We all suffer.
“We all suffer.” But who wins…? How and where those costs get distributed is a business decision in the private sector. How it plays out in the public sector is probably a kettle of fish worthy of a great deal of study. I will grant you that much.
Petter Mullen is describing the difference between accumulating money and accumulating wealth. Which aren’t the same. If you just say “ok workers, here is five more dollars” then the worker says “Yay!” but the workers wealth didn’t increase at all if the cost of everything goes up five dollars as a result. You can’t artificially increase the worth of a unit of work. You can increase the dollar amount it represents.
Yes, look at California, broke, gas prices through the roof….Bunch of fruit cakes…LOL
Not so sure about the fruit cakes but spot on your first two points.
“It’s my nature,” said the scorpion to the frog.
Simple solution, the workers can stop working so hard. Or working at all. Don’t worry, the private sector is doing just fine.
Great now they have no job
Wonder how they’d feel if they had no unemployment benefits…a “stupidity test” should be a requirement to receive an unemployment check.
Speaking of stupidity checks, how about this- in previous posts you bragged you left a “million-dollar-a-year” job in California just so you could move to the Bible Belt, where you now make just $60,000 a year so you can rub elbows with rubes and bigots. You’re also a political genius, claiming that Romney would win the election and Obama would get just 45% of the vote. When it comes to stupidity, there aren’t many who can top you- how do you post if you have to wear a dribble cup around your neck?
“Speaking of stupidity”…and then stupidity speaks.
“…just so you rub elbows with rubes and bigots…” could there be a better example of Lib bigotry, hatred and narrow-mindedness?
Here is a short (7 minute) video of a “Judge Judy” highlight that features not one, but two, Obama voters in the dock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wIlNq5_iI.
The video does a perfect job of the “typical American family” you Libs want to propagate — the subliminal goal of “The Age of Obama.” Irresponsible, on the dole, and screwing the taxpayers one small stipend at a time.
It is interesting to watch how you have managed to trash the McClatchydc message board. It’s down to the three stooges — you (stinky), the fishwife (gmartini) and surley (nursing home resident and blogger-wannabe) — and just a couple reasonable folks for you to make fun of and pick on. You stooges are cloyingly stupid, juvenile, and mean-spirited. You, stinky, have no excuse because, unlike the fishwife and shirley, you have a low triple-digit IQ.
Great to hear from you…I thought maybe you had given up stalking me, but I should have known a cowardly puke like you rarely changes their spots.
I find it extremely humorous that the Teamsters crossed the picket line of the Bakers union! That’s real solidarity for you.
No matter the spin, a union forced management to play it final trump card. causing the loss of over 18,000 jobs.
Please enjoy your sense of vindication as you stand in the unemployment line this holiday season. The only one who won’t be there is the business manager of the Bakers union.
I think it’s ridiculous that people are blaming the union on this, and believing Hostess’s claims as well – Hostess was owned by a hedge fund. Another hedge fund is currently looking into buying it. – Hostess filed for bankruptcy two other times – and just earlier this year, while preparing for bankruptcy Hostess gave raises to the CEO’s – huge raises. a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
Unions are for Unions, not for the workers…..A fact of life.
so your good with CEO’s taking these crazy obscene raises, while filing for bankruptcy, and then actually asking the employees who make nothing compared to their salaries to take a pay cut?
And they have no job any more…HMMMMMM…
I think the company did have serious problems. I think Unions are pretty vile too. If they knew what it takes to run a business ‘properly’ then they need to shut up and do it rather than leeching off other businesses. But the CEO’s probably saw the writing on the wall for Hostess and milked it on the way out.
“There’s a philosophical victory. But in an economic sense, you’re walking a fine line,,,”
Seems the same could be said about our recent election.
Morons.
Yea, Hostess was taught a lesson………..18,000 jobs lost, way to go unions.
It is mind-blowing to read the statements by the union members. Somehow, they believe that forcing their employer out of business is a victory for the union? with that kind of thinking, we are really doomed in this country.
We are doomed as a country if the private equity vultures and hedge fund leeches continue to demand slave wages of American workers so they can finance their greed. Inequality is at levels not seen since the late 20’s. Being unaware or immune to the effects of that state is what will crash this country.
Further proof that the Union leadership cares more about their power than they care about their members and their families. This isn’t good news for unions, rather, it its great news for Right-to-Work states. RTW states can use this as an case example to entice corporations to move even more of their business to RTW states.
So, the investors are not entitled to a return on their investment? Union rules that make the business inefficient/more costly/non-competititive? Who wins in that regard?
I wonder if the union members who now no longer have a job will feel that they “won” in a few months when economic reality sets in.
Investors, especially those whose investments are tied up in mutual funds, as are mine, often dont have visibility to the management of what they are investing in. Sure they want a return, but many people also want a stable economy. They not only want their friends and neighbors to be financially stable, but need a stable economy so govt can collect revenues and keep roads and infrastructure reasonably well maintained, police and fire fighters available, schools open, libraries and public utilities operating, weather satellites flying, air traffic controlled and safe… all of the things that make their own lives relatively stable. When vultures swoop in and disrupt this social fabric, most investors are not even aware. Sure they want a return, but if they knew the true cost, what do you think their desires might be? Some will say, who cares, but not all. Blame the unions for high costs… But the demands that were being made by the vulture capitalists are blind to all but their profit. That is the economic reality we all live with, and quite frankly, the union in this case ought to be thanked for taking a stand against this latest manifestation of abject greed.
Here is your sign Union Wienies…..Bunch of Schmucks, big time….
The union wanted it’s cake and eat it too and when 18,500 employees with only a third who are card carrying members decided to let the doors close..well…ask the 2/3 who would like to still have their job, if even at a slightly lower rate, feel about it.
So, the unions think this helps them take a step forward? Winning! NOT!!!
“Unions have been losing power for years,” said Ken Rumney, a striking worker outside of the Hostess plant in Biddeford on Friday.
Excuse me for asking, but how does this strengthen the Unions? If none of us has a job, how does that make the union stronger?
And excuse me for noticing, but isn’t the job of the union to make us stronger, not vice versa?
As I understand it, Hostess was not profitable, so in this case, saying those evil corporatists just want to squeeze more profits just doesn’t fly. They were trying to create a sustainable company that could keep going.
As for the workers needing unions to keep jobs they are locked into ecause of a lack of transferable skills, how about the union workers making stupid rules like one truck can only deliver the wonder bread, and another can only deliver the twinkles and the driver can’t load his own truck, and at the store the right union person has to unload each truck, etc. The unions also required Hostess to maintain 80 insurance plans and 20 pension plans, etc. Maybe if the union spent more time making the business more efficient instead of a make work, bloated effort, the employees could have had a more secure future?
The Teamsters saw the book and took the cuts. So even the teamsters could see the writing on the wall. Yet the Baker’s Union wouldn’t listen to either the Teamsters or Hostess. When all the companies are destroyed, I guess the unions have nothing left to do but destroy each other.
The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of
America:
•America is capitalist and greedy – yet half of the population is subsidized.
•Half of the population is subsidized – yet they think they are victims.
•They think they are victims – yet their representatives run the government.
•Their representatives run the government – yet the poor keep getting poorer.
•The poor keep getting poorer – yet they have things that people in other countries only dream
about.
•They have things that people in other countries only dream about – yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
Awesome commeny
Well said
And the most ironic part is that most of the people with your political views live in red states that slurp up more tax dollars than they give back — while the blue states subsidized them.
Excellent!
1. Put company out of business
2. ???
3. Profit!
This is tantamount to the Thanksgiving turkey being inspired by the resolve of the knife that slit it’s throat.
When even the Teamsters agree that concessions are necessary, you don’t have much of an argument that the company is being greedy. The actions of the bakers union is deplorable, and I don’t feel sorry for any member of that union who will now be jobless with a pay rate of $0.00 per hour.
Without corporate America there would be no unions since there would be no jobs. Unions were needed during the industrial age but now, for the most part, they are as bad as you paint the corporations.
Without workers there would be no…
Now Hostess will be bought up by Bimbo and if they’re smart they’ll not allow a union in.
Sorry bubba, they don’t to “not allow” a Union in. If the employees vote for a Union they can whine and cry, and then deal with it.
THIS is the reason that Hostess collapsed. It was a long time coming and it’s not because of the unions. Get the facts: http://i48.tinypic.com/qpgz93.jpg
With “strong” unions like this, who needs corporate raiders?
Simply put, killing the goose that laid the golden egg. They can scream all they want but if the owners say they are closing the doors, the doors close. Know your limits and the limits of the company you work for! The economy of the entire world is on the skids. We are in deep trouble and few of us notice or want to believe that things are getting worse. Not only that, but after years of being preached to a lot of people don’t even eat the junk food these union fools baked.
“Unfortunately in the corporate world, it’s a race to the bottom, it’s about maximizing profits for those at the top,”
Uh. Ding-a-ling. The company is closed now. There are no more profits for anyone. Not at the top, middle or bottom. Jeesh. These people are thick in the head.
dont worry former workers obama is president now! you will get yours!
Duhhhhh,…..all power to da grunts!
Also http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/03/09/hostess-ceo-out-a-month-after-lucrative-payday-was-sought/ and http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Hostess-Brands-Reviews-E329177.htm
Trying to coast off the backs of your workers (who already made concessions, giving up their pensions) while paying yourself millions, is corporate vulturism. They care nothing about the workers and everything about themselves and what they could leech out of it, before the collapse of the brand and company…which they (the management) let happen.
Great comment.
Get the Facts (it was a long time coming): http://i48.tinypic.com/qpgz93.jpg
Peretic Victory…look it up.
Phyrrhic Victory
Wow, talk about shooting yourself in both feet. How totally stupid, ignorant and just plain dumb. These folks must be so proud of themselves, with their message of resolve; driving them right out of business. Perhaps, someday I’ll understand this twisted logic. Well, perhaps not. Stand united you morons.
2003 – Hostess begins closing production plants and other units.
2004 – Hostess first enters bankruptcy after a failed restructuring. Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) workers agree tow age and benefit concessions, saving the company a reported $110 million – money NOT reinvested in the business.
2009 – Hostess emerges from bankruptcy, controlled by a private equity firm and two hedge funds. Company’s debt continues to grow, sales decrease.
2011 – Floundering, company again demands concessions from BCTGM workers. Workers refuse.
2012 – Hostess files for bankruptcy a second time, demands huge givebacks, stops paying pension obligations. Union files complaints with National Labor Relations Board. BCTGM workers stand up to Bain-style capitalism and strike. Hostess announces liquidation.
Since 2004 – Company has closed 21 plants, killed thousands of jobs, and remained nonviable.
Since 2002 – Hostess has had six CEOs; none turned the company around.
That is because they were paying themselves huge amounts. Example:
From March 2012: Rayburn came to Hostess with a long history of restructuring, having been CRO for WorldCom, as well as a top executive at several other bankruptcies including Indianapolis Downs and New York City Off Track Betting Association. Rayburn was hired as CRO to report Driscoll, a move the company at the time said would help Driscoll in managing the company’s Chapter 11 process. Friday, Driscoll is out, resigning effective immediately. […] This all comes about after Hostess at the beginning of February sought court permission to pay Driscoll $1.5 million salary plus cash incentives and a “long-term incentive compensation award of up to” $2 million. At that time, Hostess had labeled Driscoll an “architect” of its restructuring. The Teamsters Union fought the move, saying its members had made sacrifices for the bankruptcy, that appeared to not be replicated by the company. Apparently, the company instead found a better architect.
You can look up Hostess Brand Reviews on any search engine to see for yourselves what the workers thought.
These are facts. This was corporate vulturism. Look up the salaries of the CEOs and you will see that the CEOs gave themselves exorbitant payraises for essentially doing nothing to put into or invest in the company’s continued future, so that a struggling company where they wouldn’t even put in money for pensions any longer, were having to make that money just to pay THEM.
Blaming it on the unions is ridiculous, since they were but one nail in the coffin. The CEOs pounded the rest of the nails in, as did changes in the American eating habits and carb cutting diets.
Your analysis falls short on a crucial fact: the private equity firm that bought the controlling interest in Hostess and “saved” it in its previous bankruptcy is owned by a pro-union progressive Democrat whose aim is to save union-involved firms that are struggling, and keeping them as union shops. His motivation was to show that it was possible to turn a profit while respecting the unionized work force.
Does this sound like vulture capitalism to you?
The two hedge fund lenders stayed with the investment through the previous bankruptcy, when they could have recouped their cash or even come out ahead, effectively giving the PE firm a fair chance to turn the company around.
Do they sound like vultures?
No. NARRATIVEFAIL
Do these facts jive with your depiction of the firm’s management?
The $110 million in labor savings was not sufficient to give the firm a positive income statement. The unfunded pension liability could not be fixed under the status quo. Even if management worked for pennies, the effect on the bottom line would be less than insignificant.
You make some good points, but I’m not sure that Tim Collins of Ripplewood (the pro union progressive democrat) was any white knight. He got 2/3rds of the equity in the deal and Gephardt’s son got a piece of the action as a $100K “independent director”
The definition of vulture capitalism is loading a company with debt $860 million in this case and no doubt fees paid up front. The last $75 million at 15% DIP financing. Driscoll came in long enough to triple his salary to $2.2 million for 9 months work and give 35-75% pay raises to executives.
Meanwhile business cost issues were not addressed and the company didn’t even try to negotiate some important work efficiency improvements in the last contract or this.
The concessions from the unions would have amounted to another $100 million and that wouldn’t have saved them either. What I see is vultures picking the bones clean with no plan to restructure the company that could have been presented to employees. Certainly the history was not a confidence builder.
I’m no expert, but it sure looks like a classic case of vulture capitalism to me. Even the Teamsters were looking for a $100 million stake for $25 million.
I’m guessing that the whole thing is enough to make employees heads spin. They have to decide who to trust and not agree to expose their pensions to any more risk.
The company did $2.5 billion last year and has a good brand. Somebody will buy it and without all the debt can probably make a go at it.
Exactly. It’s deadbeats who can’t run a company and then try and shift the blame to their workers for it. Pathetic cowards.
The job of unions is to kill companies? That’s a great comfort to workers who no longer have jobs.
Problem with this article is they make it sound like Hostess just filed bankruptcy, when in fact they filed back in january. They have tried to negotiate since with no resolve so they decided to liquidate. Responsible journalists would correct this at once.
I’m sure the other 13,000 people not in this union and now without a job right at the holiday season will be sure to send a Thank You card to these dolts.
Much more aptly headlined at The Rumford Meteor with: “Labor Leaders Say The Destruction Of Hostess Shows Union Resolve. Union Officials Drawing Up Plans To Attack Moscow In The Winter Next”
I pity those poor fools that now will have nothing.
“Biddeford Mayor Alan Casavant said, “philosophically, I think the union wins” in the Hostess standoff.” Thus says a moronic loser.
I’m hoping that those employees who voted against the contract have trouble finding new work. Hopefully they will have low unemployment income. Maybe then they will realize that right now it’s just good to have a job. If the unions keep this up maybe they will elimiinate themselves. No job, no dues to pay to the union. No dues, no union. We need to eliminate public employee unions. The private sector unions can do like the bakers did to Hostess and kill themselves.
I have to applaud the workers’ dedication to the union and to their dedication to the rights of all workers at large. While corporations try to continually strip pennies from the purses of their employees, they reward themselves, despite their company’s failures, with salaries and benefits befitting royalty. I’ll gladly forego a Twinkie for justice.
be proud of your union
in your living rooms.
Very simple, you killed your golden goose. The condition of the economy today and the union had the nads to strike?????? BRILLIANT, go join the people from California, the State is destroyed and they are still spending.
Do you live in Maine? Are you here just to post about the union and what happened here? Sounds like an invasion of people from away here today.
I live in Maine, and I think the unions were plumb foolish on this issue. Better a job with less pay and benefits, than NO JOB at all.
Really??!! You are out of a job! How can that be a good thing?!
Oh! I forgot, when you quit a job you’ll see many many sunsets before you get an unemployment check.
Some of these folks probably won’t be eligible, because the truth is, they quit, they didn’t get laid off or fired.
Now now everyone…these were highly trained twinkie plastic bag wrappers and Wonder Bread twisty tie doo-dad thingee after spinning the loaf around three or four times professionals. Come to think of it, they should have been paid a lot, who could do that day in and day out without going nuts?
People that work for Walmart are planning walkouts on blackfriday is that the unions fault too?
“Striking Hostess Workers”? They are unemployed also now marked as “the unemployable ones” trying to believe they “won” something. Hope they find enough free range tree bark to boil for their families survival this winter.
So much negativity here. Let’s look at the bright side of all this: namely, that vile allegedly edible products like Twinkies and Hostess cupcakes will no longer be made. Only cardiac surgeons and, of course, the creeps who run the company will see anything bad in this.
Twinkies, Ding Dongs and all the rest of that crap are fine in moderation. One cannot live on Kashi, tofu and egg whites alone. Well okay, one can but life isn’t as fun or enjoyable. I see nothing to celebrate about Hostess going out of business. Actually though, I think these products will be back soon just being made by other companies once Hostess sells the rights.
Let’s see, lose 10% of your pay and continue to work, or lose 100% of your pay and not have a job!
Hostess may comeback, but not in Maine! And it will not have a union that refuses to try to keep the business running! Happy holiday
more children for Obama’s welfare flock, ….ask and ye shall recieve!
Other than ignorance, what makes you believe these people will end up on welfare. You obviously missed the message of the last election, that talk such as that is what lost the election for the GOP
obviously you have never heard of SARCASM! However, in a time when the economy is in the toilet, and healthy is the buzz word in diet, and you produce fatass, creme filled cake, your probably not sitting in the best seat to push for more, especially when most of your members have no appreciable market skills. I know this as true because I worked there for 8 years….ps. I voted outside the 2 big parties as I see them both as archaic failures!
hows that union treating you now?
I have spent more time on this thread than I should have!
However, in reading so many posts I am encouraged that so many posters see the lack of logic and futility in the union positions that (essentially) gave the guillotine to 18000 members! With a few who attempt to promote the “loser” mentality of the union!
Maybe there is still hope for the USA – but we need to first get rid of one (and his herd) whose “contract” the electorate just renewed last week!
6 CEOs in 10 years and it’s the fault of the unions and workers that they can’t run a company?
This is not the fault of the unions as those who are condemning them here would lead you to believe.
It’s the lousy products and how bad they are for the health. Their time has come and gone. It’s not because of unions.
The products brought this company down, over priced bad for the health products.
Healthier diets and more competition required Hostess to shrink. But the unions wouldn’t let them. They wanted to pretend they didn’t need to abide by the new reality and thus blew up the whole thing.
Agreed. The really sad part is that many of the 18,500 people being put out of work (along with all the suppliers, vendors and service people who supplied the facilities) aren’t even union members. A really sad day, particularly for the 500+ Maine employees losing their jobs.
Question of the day : Now what are those folks gonna do for a job now ? Picket line aint going to pat their rent……oh wait….thats done too
It’s interesting to read the comments bashing the unions are coming from people that aren’t living here in Maine.
Most are not from Maine just putting their two cents in here.
LMAO
Your own DISQUS page says you live in upstate New York. Care to explain yourself? Let us know when YOU move to Maine, pal.
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Jude O’Connor
UpState NY
DOB 4/11/38, USN, retired Boilermaker.
I am in Maine ‘bub’ and as a guest I have no Disqus profile or page. Lived here all my life, I’ve never lived anywhere else.
Unions don’t only exist in Maine. There is nothing special about Maine’s unions. Nothing special at all.
I know that but this is about a workplace here in Maine and those who are the most vocal in bashing unions are from away. It’s obvious. Hostess went this way due to poor business practices, lack of demand for their products and dismal management not because of the union.
I think they all had a hand in it. The Teamsters were even crossing the picket lines of the Baker’s union.
Actually I think the unions are spreading misleading stories. I had some sympathy about the CEO’s tripling their salary. But it seems that was the previous management and the new CEO was working for $1.
“In March 2012, Brian Driscoll resigned from his position as CEO. Gregory Rayburn, who had been hired and named Chief Restructuring Officer only nine days earlier, assumed the leadership position. Fortune reported that unions within the organization had been unhappy with Driscoll’s proposed compensation package of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and a $1.95 million “long term compensation” package. Additionally, the court had discovered that Hostess executives had received raises of up to 80% the year prior. In an effort to restore relations, Rayburn cut the salaries of the four top Hostess executives to $1, to be restored on January 1 the following year.” -Wikipedia: Hostess_Brands
Your own DISQUS page says you live in upstate New York. Care to explain yourself?
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Jude O’Connor
UpState NY
DOB 4/11/38, USN, retired Boilermaker.
There will be 18,000 workers unemployed and ” Maine striking workers say company’s collapse a strong message of union resolve”? Are you serious?? I think bargaining with the company and 18,000 employed workers is a great deal wiser.
You sure showed them.
Once again the unions strike their way out of a job from greed ….good for hostess! I hope you unemployed are happy now…merry xmas dont worry u have a Santa in the white house who gives all you non-workers wellfare seekers everything
knuckleheads
I used to belong to a Union, which I always thought was a good deal. But, nowadays Unions are putting people out of work. Would we be better off without them? It depends on what product you are manufacturing.
Nice SPIN Union Goons, I’m SURE that will make your Christmas without a job so much warmer.
Sad
the union bosses got out of this one cheap.
How ridiculous. Really.
ebay twinkies
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twinkies-4-boxes-of-10-/230882781902?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c1afaace
Their “Philosophical” victory sounds more like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
“Inspiration” isn’t going to keep you warm when you’re standing in the welfare line this winter. Have fun.
There will be more Twinkies, but now they’ll be made in Iowa or Texas. This is the free market.
I can’t wait until the same thing happens to the UAW, when GM collapses again after President Obama is no longer there to cheat their creditors for them.
Like their creditors aren’t cheating the whole world in the first place!
18,500 people decided it would be better to starve than have to change to chicken from roast beef. It seems that many of them also believe they could run the company. It would be laughable if their decision would not be so damaging to their families.
From the WIKIPedia – Pyrrhic victory: “… Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit.”
Unfortunately we have had only 1 generation to benefit from the assumption that a large portion of the American population can have higher than average wages, free or nearly free health benefits and a generous pension when you retire. My grandparents didn’t have it and my generation will not have it. One generation enjoyed what the unions promised, but it is near to impossible for any company to live up to those expectations for the long term. After my husband lost his union job at a local paper mill, there was a sad realization that no one in this area could or would pay the wages he had become accustomed to. Free or cheap healthcare and other cushy benefits are not the reality of most working class Americans. I do not see the Union as the winner here. Those union workers are going to hit a brick wall of reality, just before Christmas. Compromising with the company will seem like a really good idea come next year.
The teamster were willing to negotiate with the company in order to save their jobs.
But the bakers union would rather have workers unemployed and families struggling rather then give the company any concestions.
so you loose 8 dollars per 100 now you can figure on living on the max for unemployment of 356 dollars.
While the union can say “we showed them” the workers are the ones loosing everything in this economy.
Eight years of complete mismanagement. Managers with no knowledge of baking but a fine expertise in looting companies. If you don’t like incompetence, then blame the management who has asked for and received several give backs from their employees, pocketed the cash and then said “not enough”. If you don’t like greed, or lack of training, or an unwillingness to work then blame the management that had no idea how to run a company, and no concern.
“The union’s willingness to go down with the sinking ship — and in some cases take credit for sinking it — in the Hostess case may prove to corporate investors that the working class must be reckoned with, said University of Southern Maine economist and labor relations expert Michael Hillard.”
This isn’t union resolve, this is union idiocy. Business will learn a lesson from this, but not the one these union hacks want. The lesson learned will be that it is impossible to work with unins, and you should make sure you never have them. And if I was a business, I would never hire any of these unionized employees that went down with Hostess, since they have proven themselves stupid enough to destroy my company as well.
Looks the union is willing to sacrifice all these good people for their cause, keeping the union viable and relevant, and still collecting dues to pay the union officers their salaries. I’ve seen many union strikes and sadly, nothing ever changes much, except the unemployment lines get longer. The only result of this strike and the business failure, IMHO, will be the strengthening of resolve by corporations to keep the unions out, at any cost. I feel compassion for the strikers. They are being used by the union and so many will suffer this winter. And unfortunately, the only Twinkies we’ll get in the future will likely come from China.
The union could not save their jobs. The only thing the union could do is organize a strike, insuring that the workers LOSE their jobs. And the members pay dues for this “service”? Sad. And uncalled for. Shame.
Romney’s gone, but vulture capitalism lives on. Hostess Brands, the company that makes Twinkies, Ding Dongs and other desserts, filed for court permission to go out of business —blaming a worker strike for the shutdown. The Wall Street hedge fund managers who run the company have squeezed every cent out of Hostess for eight years. And they’ve put their friends with no experience in the baking industry in high-level management positions What’s happening here is a classic Bain Capital-style assault—blame the little guy to cover the greedy corporate policies that are gutting the middle class. It’s not just happening to the workers who make the great products Americans love. What’s happening at Hostess is happening to workers all over this country. It’s wrong. And it has to stop. Crony capitalism and poor management drove Hostess into the ground, not the workers who are now paying the price. In this struggling economy, the greedy corporate executives are willing to let 18,000 people lose their jobs—just so they can pad their pockets. Hostess’ executives are now blaming workers who’ve offered their company multiple concessions and want it to succeed. This is what’s wrecking our country. Workers have borne the brunt of bad decision-making by executives who didn’t know anything about the baking business. And they’re the ones getting fired? These brave workers need to know we stand with them—and we’ll stand with everyone who will take a stand against the corporate race-to-the-bottom. Hostess workers are being scapegoated because they are standing up to corporate greed. Hostess’ executives are now blaming workers for poor decisions they made that drove Hostess into the ground.What’s happening here is a classic Wall Street tactic—blame the little guy so that they can cover their greedy corporate policies that are gutting the middle class. Sign this pledge to stand with Hostess workers and against the tide of corporate greed wrecking our economy. http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=5109
Done.
This is not as black and white as some of these people think. Here’s a link to a more detailed article and read the comments following to hear the voice of employees before you judge.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
Mckee Foods Corp, Hostess’ chief rival and owner of Little Debbie, is currently thriving, they pay well, and offer health care, as well as a credit union to their workers, all while pricing their product lower. A company can take care of their employees and still be successful.
Hostess business model was a big part of the problem.
Business model ? How about the unhealthy food they pushed on the fat public ?
I fail to see how they push anything on anyone. Even my 9 year old knows eating unhealthy pre packaged food will wreak havoc on her body. If you choose to consume those types of food on a daily basis you have knowone to blame but yourself for your expanding waistline.
Are they sill honking their dumb horns in BiddO ?
Perhaps the union should refocus its efforts and work on job preservation instead of job elimination. I fail to see how the Union thinks they have “won”.
Tastycakes are better anyway.
I think all union company’s should shut down for a year and restart non-union look what has happened to the auto industry, how many people can afford to buy a New Car today? I Can’t.
That is a meaningless comment. You make a nonsense statement, toss in the word union, point to the huge recovery of the auto industry and whine because you don’t have a good enough job to buy a car.
Employers have been trying to kill unions for years just so you couldn’t afford a car. If it was Union labor then we would all be buying cars from China built with slave labor, like the Iphone.
The union bosses may think they have won, but it is still the workers who suffer…… Great job union; you’ve suceeded in shutting down another business; you sure showed those greedy Corporate bastards, didn’t you…………….
At this point there are over 1000 comments, many of them posted by (presumed) working class or middle class people.
Their theme is that they are willing to do whatever a boss asks them to do, accept whatever pay cut is required, try to survive without health insurance or a pension, and despise any American workers who might join forces to advocate for themselves… because the commenters’ allegiance is to the 1%, and they will advocate for the 1% and against fellow workers, no matter how much they themselves and their families will suffer if America gets turned into a 3rd world country.
The race to the bottom, personified in the comments of right-wingers.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Go back to the 60’s and read analysis and predictions. There was talk of a 4 day work week and extended vacation time.
Most of these people commenting have not seen the devastation that a single CEO can cause and still get paid his million dollar salary. A good example is this Brian Driscoll who after tripling his salary to $2.2 million left Hostess and two months later went to Diamond Foods where the CEO and CFO were recently fired for “accounting irregularities.” Is this another story of failure?
Diamond got a cash infusion of $225 million @ 12% APR from Oaktree Capital Management LP who may end up with 16% of the company.
I think that a lot of the commenter’s think that just because a guy wears a expensive suit he’s competent and that is becoming less and less the case.
Those evil “vulture” capitalists should have invested their money elsewhere back in 2004, rather than ensuring with-years of continued employment to the Hostess labor force.
Yessah Mistah we sure showed them boys – Oh wait a minute :(
BDN, What the hell is your problem? Do you spread this swill intentionally? Did Rupert Murdoch buy BDN? Why did you neglect to mention the FACTS:
BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
This is a vividly clear example corporate greed, the 1% sticking it to the working class and blaming the unions and the BDN is either ignorant, incompetent, or complicit I cant tell which one.
Is this an Onion article? If not, this is so sad and bass ackwards.
Exactly what I was going to say. There is so much weapons-grade stupid in this piece that it would have been impossible to just make up quotes to caricature the union goons more effectively. These folks are retarded…make that unemployed and retarded. They are rah rah’ing putting themselves out of work and threatening other companies with more of the same. I’d say that their PR director needs some time off for introspection and a frontal lobotomy.
It would appear to be clear where the Hostess Company’s priorities are…
BCTGM union members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/16/1203151/why-unions-dont-shoulder-the-blame-for-hostesss-downfall/
So unions are interested in destroying workers’ jobs… Why? Don’t they get paid from workers’ dues? I think they do. You can’t see things from a worker’s point of view… “how dare we” suggest capitalists try to screw workers, haha right.