Twilight for Twinkies? Hostess Workers Strike as Company Struggles

[torch621]

And let me add that I’ve had enough of this “unions-can-do-no-wrong-management-is-the-devil” attitude among union supporters, and questioning the Catholicism of those who criticize Big Labor. Every time I hear it I want to throw something.

 

[BroomWagon]

Big labor? What are you going on about?* I would take this moment to point out the Catholic Church supports the labor movement. So do I.*

The workers at hostess have given many concessions. only to see the money wasted.

ATB

Big Labor is great, look at Detroit and the auto industry. Oh wait.

 

[BroomWagon]

Big Labor Kills Jobs:

money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Hostess shut down.

 

[ChemicalBean]

Big Labor Kills Jobs:

money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Hostess shut down.

Wrong, sir. Dead wrong. Corporate Mismanagement Killed the Company. (And the jobs, and the twinkles.)

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.
Over the past 15 months, Hostess workers have seen the company unilaterally end contractually-obligated payments to their pension plan. Despite saving more than $160 million with this action, the company continues to fall deeper and deeper into debt. A mountain of debt and gross mismanagement by a string of failed CEO’s with no true experience in the wholesale baking business have left this company unable to compete or survive.

See:vendingmarketwatch.com/news/10829363/bctgm-union-responds-to-hostess-facility-closings

Hostess is trying desperately to distort the truth and evade responsibility for their failures by blaming this closing on a strike. After years of concessions from workers and restructuring, the fat-cat CEOs pocketed the gains rather than invest them in corporate recovery.

Awarding executives 300% pay raises while non-funding the pension plan since July 2011 is STEALING. And any 2-year old knows that STEALING is WRONG.

 

[SamH]

Kudo’s to the workers for taking a stand!

Yeah that was great - they took a stand and now they don’t have jobs and the company is going to be liquidated. My brother worked for them in the 1990s for 7 years as a supervisor. I remember riding with him when the Teamsters were striking and attacking trucks on the highway.

 

[garn9173]

Just another reason why I always have been and always will be anti-union.

nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/NATL-Twinkies-Maker-Hostess-Going-Out-of-Business-179643161.html

Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said.

“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”

 

[liturgyluver]

Wrong, sir. Dead wrong. Corporate Mismanagement Killed the Company. (And the jobs, and the twinkles.)

See:vendingmarketwatch.com/news/10829363/bctgm-union-responds-to-hostess-facility-closings

Hostess is trying desperately to distort the truth and evade responsibility for their failures by blaming this closing on a strike. After years of concessions from workers and restructuring, the fat-cat CEOs pocketed the gains rather than invest them in corporate recovery.

Awarding executives 300% pay raises while non-funding the pension plan since July 2011 is STEALING. And any 2-year old knows that STEALING is WRONG.

Thank you for providing some balance to the headlines. Shame on the company for reducing salaries to staff whilst simultaneously awarding senior managment massive pay rises. This sort of inequality flies in the face of Catholic teaching…and to add insut to injury they then tell lies about the circumstances. I hope the staff manage to secure jobs elsewhere soon. .

 

[ProVobis]

Big Labor, aka the foolish unions who only care about getting theirs at the expense of the company. Apparently, seeing that their members have jobs is less important than wages the company can no longer afford to give.

“Big Labor” takes risks in doing such deeds against private or publically-traded companies. They deserve whatever they get, good or bad. In a good way, they can save the company lots of Wage and Salary Administration costs and police themselves to better productivity.

OTOH “Big Labor” has no business in the government sector.

 

[stevegravy]

Maybe Obama and the Democrats can shame the Republicans into providing a snack food industry bailout to preserve good American jobs.

 

[Seeker1961]

Wrong, sir. Dead wrong. Corporate Mismanagement Killed the Company. (And the jobs, and the twinkles.)

See:vendingmarketwatch.com/news/10829363/bctgm-union-responds-to-hostess-facility-closings

Hostess is trying desperately to distort the truth and evade responsibility for their failures by blaming this closing on a strike. After years of concessions from workers and restructuring, the fat-cat CEOs pocketed the gains rather than invest them in corporate recovery.

Awarding executives 300% pay raises while non-funding the pension plan since July 2011 is STEALING. And any 2-year old knows that STEALING is WRONG.

This whole thing is a public relations move to get all of the consumers who grew up with a Twinkie in their lunch box to blame workers instead of the CEO’s who took, and took and took no matter what happened. 300 times what the worker makes??? Really??? You couldn’t take 200 times what the worker makes to save the company???

 

[BroomWagon]

Wrong, sir. Dead wrong. Corporate Mismanagement Killed the Company. (And the jobs, and the twinkles.)

See:vendingmarketwatch.com/news/10829363/bctgm-union-responds-to-hostess-facility-closings

Hostess is trying desperately to distort the truth and evade responsibility for their failures by blaming this closing on a strike. After years of concessions from workers and restructuring, the fat-cat CEOs pocketed the gains rather than invest them in corporate recovery.

Awarding executives 300% pay raises while non-funding the pension plan since July 2011 is STEALING. And any 2-year old knows that STEALING is WRONG.

Union Pension Plans.

A lot of working men don’t have pension plans, wonder how much those pension plans amount to.

This will take analysis.

Unions are rather elite too.

18,000 Employees, Pensions. That’s a lot of money too. Pass it off to the buyer.

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Wall Street Journal reports Hostess is calling it quits after 82 years. Could not work with the unions. Now there is a surprise …

 

[BroomWagon]

300% pay increase, not sure if that is a proven.

Striking workers at the Merita Bread Bakery in Orlando said Thursday that they were discouraged by a light turnout of union members but hopeful that Hostess Brands Inc. would follow through with a threat to sell off its bakery operations as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.

**“That would be the best thing for employees,” **said Ron Hopkins, vice president of the AFL-CIO’s Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 103 in Orlando.

"We’re not asking for a raise. We just want to maintain our pay and our pension. I make less now than when I started here," said Hopkins, a shipping clerk who has held many other positions in 26 years at the bakery.

orlandosentinel.com/business/os-merita-orlando-picketers-demands-20121115,0,3198771.story

 

[Trader]

300% pay increase, not sure if that is a proven.

orlandosentinel.com/business/os-merita-orlando-picketers-demands-20121115,0,3198771.story

With so many people quoting a 300% pay increase, does anyone know the actual details, or are you just being inflammatory? For instance, when Vikram Pandit was CEO at Citicorp, he had his pay reduced to $1 per year during the crisis. A 300% increase would have meant working for $4 per year after he turned the company around. Is that the kind of thing unions are protesting?

 

[BroomWagon]

With so many people quoting a 300% pay increase, does anyone know the actual details, or are you just being inflammatory? For instance, when Vikram Pandit was CEO at Citicorp, he had his pay reduced to $1 per year during the crisis. A 300% increase would have meant working for $4 per year after he turned the company around. Is that the kind of thing unions are protesting?

Dow Jones Bankruptcy Review apparently shows the salary was upped that amount in the past few months.

teamsters26.org/Flyers%20to%20Add/HOSTESS%20MANIPULATED%20PAY.pdf

It reads Executive Driscoll got an increase up to 2.550,000 from 750,000 dollars.

Sounds like this was during the lead up this year.

Sounds like the company may have been working with bankruptcy in the past as well.

So the article seems to say Driscoll left his post.

Why are these executives raising their salaries if they are in bankruptcy??

I guess the company is not being run well either, must be a lot here we don’t know.

 

[Cider]

So the Bakers union killed it for all the other workers. It’s really too bad that the company can’t just fire all the Bakers union members and hire people that actually want to work.

 

[BroomWagon]

So the Bakers union killed it for all the other workers. It’s really too bad that the company can’t just fire all the Bakers union members and hire people that actually want to work.

I found this article:

deseretnews.com/article/865566831/Hostess-strike-could-mean-loss-of-hundreds-of-jobs-in-Ogden.html

Not sure if it will effect these people but what is interesting here is the picture.

In our town, we actually have one of these types of little stores selling some goods for low prices.

The nearly 600 employees at the Hostess factory on 26th Street in Ogden are not on strike but have been told not to speak to the media. Several of them, however, did say that they are worried about the deadline and what’s going to happen if employees in other states don’t go back to work.

So 18,000 are out of work and would there be additional jobs at stake still? It sounds like it.

 

[SamH]

Striking workers at the Merita Bread Bakery in Orlando said Thursday that they were discouraged by a light turnout of union members but hopeful that Hostess Brands Inc. would follow through with a threat to sell off its bakery operations as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.

“That would be the best thing for employees,” said Ron Hopkins, vice president of the AFL-CIO’s Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 103 in Orlando.

It doesn’t appear that the union wanted to keep working.

 

[stinkcat_14]

So the Bakers union killed it for all the other workers. It’s really too bad that the company can’t just fire all the Bakers union members and hire people that actually want to work.

Someone will buy the Twinkees brand and that is exactly what someone will do.

 

[SamH]

Someone will buy the Twinkees brand and that is exactly what someone will do.

Agreed, but that doesn’t mean any of these people will have jobs. Most likely some private label brand will buy the name and produce product at their own plants.