Union Hacks kill Twinkies

Or illegals heaven knows we need more government leaches so the rich/elites can prosper at a higher rate next year.

 

Absolutely the blame must fall at the feet of management. Your product on the shelves is priced significantly higher than Little Debbie and generic products. Where is the value proposition to pay $1 or more premium for Hostess snacks vs Little Debbie? Where was the value to pay $1 more for Wonder or Merita bread?

The 18k workers who will lose their jobs also saw this every time they went to the grocery store? How were they addressing this other than to ask for more more more and drive costs up further?

The hacks turned down the 25% stake and should now be kicking themselves.

You can look at the past all that you want but the problems exist right now and must be addressed. So, to point to the 80's or 90's is moot because the issue is today.

The Wonder and Hostess brand may appear on the shelf again some day much like RCA, Emerson and others are on shelves. They just aren't the company behind them any longer, they are simply a name which another company purchased the rights to use because of brand recognition.

There are no trade secrets or specific skills possessed by the union hacks so their value, if any, is minimal.

They screwed themselves right smack dab at the start of another Obama recession and their outlook for employment is grim.

 

Most people do not do Atkins.
Most people eat hostess products.

I do not look around and see many people on low carb diets. I reject the rampant healthy eating efforts of Americans as the principal reason for their demise.


http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

 

Hmm... didn't an earlier poster say it's all about the "Brand Name"? Are you saying management wasn't pricing things according to what they could get by virtue of the value of their Brand?

In the first place, I've read other reports stateing that the unions are essentially expecting to get their jobs back, only under new management.

In the second place, they weren't asking for "more and more". They made lots of concessions, insolong as they got to keep the pension. In otherwords, less work, less money, fewer jobs, all in exchange for status-quo on the pension.

Not really. Now they're glad they didn't take the 25% stake. If they'd taken the 25% stake, it would have meant being responsible for 25% of the debt incured by management.

Hmm... okay... so what's changed since the 80's or 90's?

That's exactly what the union is expecting. They're hoping for a new owner free from unmanageable debt. To have a new owner unencumbered with debt, it means either a new owner rich enough to buy the company without borrowing, or it means the price of the company falls so low that a buyer doesn't have to borrow a lot of money to pick it up. Looks like the union is counting on the latter.

Other than the parts about making and packaging the food safely, and delivering it while still fresh?

You know Obama didn't start the recession, and their outlook for employment is they're looking forward to a new boss.

 

Well... those were stated as causes by management in the filings for bankruptcy.

It boiled down to management overextending on debt coupled with lower demand for the product, combined with the union willing to concede on everything except the pension.

Hmm... come to think of it... it's become fashionable to blame unions for everything, but seriously, when was the last time you heard about a corporate failure that was *not* related to unmanageable debt, and when was the last time you heard about that debt not being related to merger-mania aquisitions?

 

It certainly isn't on average management makes around 300 times more than the workers did then, and most of the working class today, have to make due with wages that do not even keep up with inflation much less the cost of actual living. Can't imagine why our economy is failing or more realistically is in the toilet?

 

Hey maybe you Liberals can talk the Federal Government into coming in, taking over Hostess and giving it to these Union guys?

What? The election is over and the Obama Administration is not interested in buying votes anymore?

Buy your Twinkies today!!!! They will be gone tomorrow.

Union Pensions for the loss!!!! Now get those Welfare Checks!!!! Enjoy the economy.

 

you really need to become educated in the USA markets. There are no trade secrets or specific skills possessed by the hacks

For the brand to exist it does not mean those same bakeries with the same hacks will remain. It simply means the rights to use the name will be sold.

The union members are sitting on false expectations if they think their jobs will return. In fact, right to work states will probably be where the brand is made again, if it is reborn.

You cannot launch a competitive company in the COMMODITY market with the baggage and cost over-runs a union brings with it.

In the midst of an Obama recession where take home pay has dropped, net worth has dropped, people will not pay $1 more for bread because union hacks made it.

People vote with their wallets; can you say Chevy VOLT

 

Translation- Management cannot continue to make unrealistically high salaries, bonuses, and benefits, and maximize the same unrealistic profit margins annually, by paying workers comparable pay to the profits their labor creates.

 

the proof is in the pudding.

Keep to your false beliefs as did all of the hacks who are now former employees of Hostess. I am still amazed that some people still hold onto falsehoods like is displayed within your posts.

 

It was based on a small handful of presumptions.

First, it was assumed that capitalists would re-invest their profits back into the economy from which they had made the profits. The re-investment would create jobs. The pundits back then weren't thinking about globalization.

Second, even when re-investing profits back into the economy from which the profits were made, it was possible for a few people to end up owning everything. Rockefeller, Carnegie and J.P. Morgan's individual fortunes were in the hundreds of billions in today's money... much more than Gates and Buffet combined... but they had Christian values, and did massive philanthropy on a scale you can't imagine, much of it towards educational infrastructure, thus setting the stage for generations of highly educated Americans to follow, enabling the US to become a leader in science and technology. A lot of what made capitalism palpable to Americans was a general social expectation of Christian behavior.

Third, in the 50's/60's, financial regulations were still operating according to a few restrictions put in place by FDR in terms of the type of investment-games banks could play with ordinary depositor's money. Pundits of capitalism in the 50's/60's never thought those regulations would be dropped, and so could not have forseen the effects of hedge-fund ponzi-like radical speculative finance that could run through a capitalist system like a bad case of lukemia.

So don't feel too bad. What was being said about capitalism in the 50's/60's wasn't terribly off the mark given the rules and circumstances of the time, but it makes no sense to excuse the abuses now on the basis of those old arguments.

 

Is it false to notice that today, upper-management pay themselves proportionaly much more than union-workers than they did 30 years ago, when everything was working just fine?

 

it makes for an interesting thread in another section. With flawed assumptions you have it will make for good banter back and forth

none of what you posted has any relevance to the issues faced by Hostess and how they were left with no option.

 

January 11 2012

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jan/11/twinkies-maker-hostess-seeks-bankruptcy-protection/

Pensions bankrupt them. Good lookin out.

 

I see where you want to go with this. Income ceilings. And who determine that, the govt?????????????/

please focus on the topic of the thread which are hacks who contributed to the ultimate demise of a company and 18k workers now unemployed

 

Classic definition of cutting your nose off to spite your face.

 

So this isn't just another case of really bad execs running a company into the ground, profiting and blaming their workers who just want decent wages and benefits?

Interesting because the Hostess Executive Board, just last July, decided to give their super duper performing execs HUGE raises ranging:

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

So yes, Hostess is just another victim of vulture capitalists who feel entitled to run a company into the ground for their own profit.

 

Read it again. I basically said that justifying/rationalizing the situation of Hostess in terms of 50's/60's ideas of capitalism don't apply, yet that is effectivly what all you anti-union hacks are trying to do.

 

I missed the part where management agreed to work for $13 an hour and give up their health care and turn their 401k's over to the company.

Perhaps you've a link to that?

 

Nope. Where I want to go with this is honesty. Let's hear management admit they took more out of the company coffers relative to unions now than they did 30 years ago when the company did not have a debt problem.

 

amazing isn't it, but republicans think those rich folks should be rewarded while their employee should just be happy they have a job


.

 

link?
Know what that doesn't equal? Over a billion in pensions they were strike forced into... and now this strike... at this time...

How can you blame mismanagement save for caving to union thugs who strike at sensitive times... BECAUSE they cannot afford to continue business and submit to union pressure. This time... it was just unsustainable. It was unsustainable if those listed all worked for free.

 

Not enough union votes and money?

 

many on that list had agreed to work for free

liberals will not post that but it's on several of the Hostess threads I started.

At the end of the day, 18k people are now unemployed because of greedy union hacks

 

If this stands, Hostess will likely be owned by someone new, their labor obligations vacated, and likely in a right-to-work state.

The Teamsters actually made a deal, it's the Baker's Union that threw the curve-ball and screwed this all up.