Jackson Jambalaya

I understand The Stokes Twins are on suicide watch.

Not a badly managed company that's already been in bankruptcy once in the past 10 years. Nope. It's the unions.

Michelle Obama is smiling today.

Anybody thinking PERS????

Damn right it is the unions. Instead of keeping the jobs going and working to hang on for a better day they opt for a Kenyan standoff.

Layoffs are sweeping this country. The next four years will be a repeat, or worse, than FDR's second term.

A BILLION dollar claim by the union. WOW!

Some of those workers will be back at work soon as undoubtedly a number of those established Hostess product lines with well established brands will be sold. That market share still have value.

I remember a story my dad related to me a few years back, about 1996. It was heavy manufacturing industry and they were dealing with the local union in LA that represented the plant workers.

The plant was essentially a superfund and the Co. wanted to keep it open because it employed the entire town. The unions demanded increases across the board. There was a single concession that held up the agreement, upon that single issue the union convinced the workers to strike, despite the fact that a strike would shut down the plant permanently - agreement or not. The real screwy part of this, is that it wasn't about heady issues like pensions, it was pay increases or something similar, but in totality it would bring down the entire company. Suffice it to say the concern ran on razor thin margins.

Despite all this and final ditch efforts of flying into town and basically living there for over a month; they went on strike. Plant closed. Everyone lost their job. The town still suffers today. My dad was affected by this for years. He didn't understand why people couldn't compromise and would rather destroy the entire venture. Unions had a role in the past, they are too powerful today and are not fond of the capitalistic principles that govern our commerce.

I wouldn't be so sure, 9:02. I wouldn't be surprised to see production for the parceled lines moved to more sustainable locales. We've got a few places that could use a Twinkie plant.

Wasn't Union Pension/Health Care the reason GM had to go to the Government for a quickie bankruptcy? I'm not surprised to see the same thing here.

GM's wasn't a bankruptcy, it was a shotgun restructure where the Muslim POTUS redistributed the assets of the company to a handful of supporters and told a boatload of debt holders with legit claims to head off to Kenya.

Keep in mind the Teamsters saw the books and agreed to the cuts while warning the other union not to strike.

Now unions @ Walmart talk about strike on black Friday...

Back in the '80s a tire plant in bowling green Ky had a strike. They told the workers to go back to work or they would shut the plant down. They continued the strike so the plant closed. This is how you deal with unions. They dont want to work...close it. Do this enough times and there wont be any unions to worry about!

I got the last box of Ding Dong's at the Kroger in Ridgeland. I'm hid'n'em, so don't think about coming and looking...my aim is true.

Why did Tyrone and the Sheruff of Madison get mentioned in this thread? I can understand the Stokes suicide watch. There are six aisles of junk food at every Wal Mart. Ding Dongs won't be missed after the initial withdrawal pain subsides.

Mark my words, the MSM will use this against him in the future, but for now, it is kinda' funny.

Unions destroy an American Institution - Twinkies

Twinkies, Zingers, etc. will not be going away permanently.

While I agree that unions became corrupt and too powerful and often were not as locally focused as they should have been, let's not forget what things were like in this country before unions.
And, we shouldn't forget that we lost non-unionized manufacturing jobs to other countries, most notably textiles.

There is a rational middle between workers being given more than they are worth or have earned and owners being allowed to place workers in dangerous conditions for long hours at slave wages.

The auto bailout position taken by the right in an effort to bash Obama rather than focus on rational policy was a factor in losing Ohio. Those affected understood the facts, most important of which was that private money was not available so that restructuring could take place through normal bankruptcy. And, that restructuring with the existing management still in place had already proven a bad idea. There was memory loss,apparently, about having gone down that path once before.
That should have reminded everyone that greedy workers isn't the only reason companies fail. Sometimes, it's bad management.

Those affected understood the facts, most important of which was that private money was not available so that restructuring could take place through normal bankruptcy.

BS. You are completely ignorant.

Perhaps I'm being simple-minded (a charge often leveled at me, alas) but I fail to see how a company going out of business is a tragedy. Sometimes a business simply has a commercial "shelf-life", if you will---and past that "expiry date", is not viable or profitable. E.g.,the horse-and-buggy trade sorta dwindled fast after the automobile became popular. Didn't matter how nice the buggy-makers and stable owners were to the drivers/farriers/carriage-makers!

The Twinkie-makers, it seems to me, did the only thing they could honorably do. They could have beseeched Prez B.H. Obama for a "bailout", but instead, in effect, said, "We're broke, we can't afford to bow to the employees' demands, so we shall close our doors." That rings of pure common sense to me.

And those 18,000+ newly-unemployed workers surely are asking themselves now: "Which is better---diminished paychecks/benefits, or none at all?"

The stuff they made was unconscionably nasty anyway, so perhaps (another topic entirely) it's for the best, anyway.

9:41; Did you really intend to suggest that 'non union manufacturing jobs lost to other countries' is accurate? Unions have been a primary reason for manufacturing entities closing down and moving off shore for decades. There are two reasons to move off shore: The government and unions. If one don't getchu the other one will.

Ophelia that is a great poiint. Management fundamentally made a business decision, something unions have used for decadesto blackmail corporations since the overcoming of the Slaughterhouse employment practices.

Their time of usefulness has passed.

Those jobs might be moving to Mexico soon. Bimbo may get super bargain.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/17/15245611-mexican-company-bimbo-may-be-eyeing-twinkies#comments

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/18/1162786/-Inside-the-Hostess-Bankery#

Ill just leave this here...

To hell with Hostess. Little Debbie rules !

dailykos? why not link to the jfp dogsplainer?

So it's the union's fault, huh?

Hostess attempts to pay big bonuses to the same sorry bastards that ran the company into the ground to begin with (CNN Money):

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/19/news/companies/hostess-bankruptcy-bonuses/index.html

Said sorry bastards also granted themselves massive pay raises in the months preceding the bankruptcy (the CEO received a 300%pay raise). It was such blatant greed-driven pillaging that Hostess would not disclose the compensation changes to the bankruptcy creditors. The creditors found out by taking the deposition of a human resources officer at the company (Wall Street Journal):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577323993512506050.html

Yeah, poor, poor Hostess got killed by the evil greedy socialist union. It wasn't the union that ran Hostess into the ground and then robbed it blind.

In the face of this corruption, the workers were absolutely justified in refusing to make further concessions. Why in the world would the union agree to a substantial "across the board" pay cut, when these pieces of shit were doubling and tripling their pay?

"Hostess Brands Inc, its lenders and the unions representing its striking workers, agreed to start mediation hearings on Tuesday at the urging of a U.S. bankruptcy court judge.

A hearing on Monday during which the bankrupt maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread was set to ask for permission to liquidate was quickly adjourned until Wednesday after the judge urged the parties to mediate in private.

The mediation will begin on Tuesday."

Oh, you want to have a numbers fight? No problem:

this is from the WSJ

*Sales of $2.5 billion in 2011

*Lost $341 million in 2011

*Had a billion dollar pension liability from ONE union. There were many other pension funds as well. Total was $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

*$52 million workers comp claims in 2011

*Union agreements forbade company from cutting costs. Hostess and wonderbread could not be delivered on the same trucks for example. Another person had to move the product.

*372 collective barganing agreements meant 80 different pension and health care plans.

*Bakers took an 8% pay cut this year then got raises for the next three years. Union would get two board seats.

*Teamsters told the Bakers to take the cuts and not strike. Teamsters let the cat out of the bag as the Bakers Union lied to its workers: "BCTGM members were told there were better solutions than the final offer, although Judge Drain stated in his decision in bankruptcy court that no such solutions exist. Without complete information, BCTGM members voted by voice votes in union halls. The BCTGM reported that over 90 percent rejected the final offer and three of its units ratified the final offer."


I'm not defending the comp plans for Hostess. Far from it. However, you could have taken out all of the management salaries and it still wouldn't make up for a $300+ million dollar loss in one year, a $1 billion pension liability, 80 plans, and crazy work rules.

KF, I won't dispute your premise that foregoing management pillaging would not have saved the company, for it is correct. My contention simply is that management cannot reasonably expect workers to "take one for the team" when the fat bastards in the front office are doubling and tripling their salaries.

To make matters worse, While this pillaging was happening, management issued an ultimatum to the workers to take the pay cut and return to work "or else." The workers' response to this unabashed arrogance was predictable.

It was management greed and self-dealing that killed the deal. Management was corruptly rewarding the losers who ran the ship aground. I don't blame workers for not taking it on the chin, while management just got fatter.

The union was quite reasonable under the circumstances. In the old days this would have been handled with 5 gallons of gasoline and a book of matches.

'The union was quite reasonable'
Bullshit. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

Bullshit.

'The union was quite reasonable'
BULLSHIT.
You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

Union pension numbers---makes me sick. All those people out of a job, a huge American company gone, all because some piece of shit union.

4:58, by "reasonable" I meant that the union was reasonable as compared to the days when they would have used "summary remedies" to help Hostess facilitate
"liquidation" of its assets.

That being said, the workers' collective attitude was understandable when you consider that they were being asked to take it up the butt for the good of the company, while management was robbing the company blind doubling and tripling their own salaries.

Not to mention that offering the union 2 of 8 seats on the board of directors was a fraudulent and illusory "benefit."

Exactly how could a union official with a fiduciary duty to union members serve as a director of the company, when the position of director carries with it fiduciary duties to the company itself. In a dispute between the company and the union, where would the union official/company director's loyalties lie? He could not possibly fulfill his fiduciary duty to one, without breaching his fiduciary duty to the other. These two positions are irreconcilable with each other.

The management thieves knew this when they made the 2 director offer. They knew damn well that for all practical purposes having 2union officials on the board of directors was unworkable in the event of a conflict and provided no benefit whatsoever to the workers. This was nothing more than a public relations stunt to make it look like Hostess was bending over backwards to appease the union, when in fact the offer was a con job.

Sit back and watch as Hostess' carefully planned public relations ploy unravels. The funny thing is that it won't be the union that exposes and rips the management thieves. It is the Unsecured Creditors' Committee (other businesses) that is dismantling management's bullshit. The Committee's work thus far may have something to do with why Hostess has now agreed to mediate its dispute with the union in an effort to avoid liquidation.

In their arrogance, they likely thought they could steamroll the unsecured creditors just like they did the union. And it just ain't working out that way.

The Teamsters saw the books and said take the deal but what did they know?

8% pay cut. Let me see, at $15 an hour at 40 hours a week, that is $600 a week. 8% cut means a cut of $48 a week. Then the next three years they were getting raises.

Not to mention the stupid work rules where they couldn't consolidate drivers on the same routes because wonderbread and twinkies had to go on separate trucks. Probably needed a union electrical engineer just to change a light bulb.

I didn't say management bore no responsibility but the numbers are the numbers. $1 billion in one pension liability alone. Try administering 80 pension and health care plans.

Of course, that would require an attorney to understand numbers, something most of them can't do.

Then how come the union never asked for a 2004 exam?

You do know what that is, right?

I think the unsecured creditors committee did that, which is how some of the pillaging was discovered.