Hostess, maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs, says closing business

Originally posted by darkhorserider

When Unions are involved, the company can no longer make critical and timely business decisions such as cutting work force, lowering wages, or adding extra shifts. Once a Union is involved, the company becomes lethargic and unreactive to market conditions, and locked into long-term agreements that hurt its competitiveness.

Sure, the company has some blame, but it is likely their hands were tied in many ways for decades before it came to this. It isn't an equal 50/50 split of fault, it is more like an 80/20 split with the Union taking the majority of the fault.

I have to disagree with you, but I still respect your opinion. I put much more blame on the company than on the union.

Without unions, workers would still be making $2/hour and not even be able to survive

Originally posted by tehdouglas

Oh it sounds like theyre gonna try to dump their load on some other guy some maybe you'll get your twinkies afterall, maybe with a new brandname.

edit on 16-11-2012 by tehdouglas because: (no reason given)

Wrong, there are already knock off twinkies. While the company may no longer exist, Hostess plans on holding auctions for its most iconic names, including Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos.. On the one hand, the names have decades of brand equity. But a competitor would have to ramp up production if it took on the Twinkies or Ding Dong brand and give up valuable shelf space already devoted to its own goods, Mr. Rayburn noted. online.wsj.com... Their is no knight in shining armor or bailout, no loads to be dumped, the unions got a twinkie in the face..

reply to post by gangdumstyle


I hope the folks who buy the name get the recipe too, the knockoffs just aren't the same at the "real thing"

reply to post by PurpleChiten

Without unions, workers would still be making $2/hour and not even be able to survive

That's not true. We have labor laws today that we didn't have at the turn of the 20th century. There is a Federal Minimum Wage, and mandatory overtime pay, and OSHA, and EEO laws. The Unions today are unnecessary. Workers in the US would not be facing the problems with "company stores" and extremely low pay and unsafe working conditions. There are already Federal Agencies to oversee all of that stuff. There is also the Social Security and Medicare taxes and laws, and there is now the Obamacare act. 401k plans are much more efficient than pension plans, and they don't leave a giant $2B liability for the company to account for.

The Unions need to become a relic of the past.

Originally posted by darkhorserider
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

Unions were important a century ago, but these days we have plenty of Labor Laws that make unions entirely obsolete. Nowadays a Union only serves to bilk the employee and employer for protections that are already guaranteed by law. They take money to ensure their own existence and influence politics, but they do nothing to help employee or employer. In fact, what Unions do is technically illegal, because they are charging people for something that is already guaranteed by law for free.
An HR department and a 401k plan does the same thing as a Union, but they do it for 20% of the cost and 1% of the legal headaches, and none of the backlash, negative PR, and political commentary.

Nice try. Doesn't work that way. You have a grievance and you sit it out while it works its way through the system...and when it does, little ol' you is up against a phalanx of company lawyers? Here's the scoop...NO company gets organised that doesn't richly deserve it. A collective agreement is a contract that BOTH sides negotiate and promise to abide by. Pension are funded by the employee and the employer...whose end is actually wages deferred ie"We won't pay you more now, but we'll pay you some later."

You notice how the fall of the middle class coincidences with those good jobs going overseas? THAT is how we got sold out. Now it's a pecking party out after the last man standing...those who still have the good union jobs that built the western post-war economy. Instead of going after unions, how about going after those Wall Street scum like...oh, I donno...Bain?...who make money off your economic demise?

They have you fighting amongst yourselves and ignoring the fact that they exist. How amusing. Stop thinking so small.

Originally posted by PurpleChiten

Originally posted by gangdumstyle
Too late now and it IS directly the unions fault...

BOTH sides take part in the negotionations. BOTH sides are at fault, not one over the others. The company wasn't getting what it wanted so it decided to take it's ball and go home. That's absolutely, positively, no better than what the union side may or may not be doing.

If they company hadn't allowed things to deteriorate to the point they did, the union would not have called for a strike to start with. It's not just unions and nothing else that are at play here, that's just what faux news wants people to believe about it.

The plant would not be closed today if the union workers would of worked. That by all means IS DIRECTLY the unions fault. Not to say they would not of closed up shop eventually unions or not, but why they closed NOW is DIRECTLY the unions fault, or better yet the striking workers fault.. The bakers union is not only at Hostess.

Greedy unions closed another business. 7500 union employees caused another 18300 employees to lose their jobs. Quite a humanitarian effort on their part wouldn't you say. Union workers strike harder than they work!

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Totally agree with going after the Bains and the huge stock traders and the huge banks. There is a major unfair business practice in making money off things like "microtrading" that the average person cannot take advantage of. There is also a huge unfair practice in making money off reserves that came from bailouts that came from taxpayer money! Paying banks interest on their reserves is counter-productive to an economic stimulus package. It is proof that the whole thing was a scam! No economist can be that stupid to believe that giving banks free money and then paying them interest to NOT loan it out, is going to stimulate the economy.

BUT, I still feel the unions are out-dated. There are whistle-blower laws, and there are Federal agencies that protect the workers. If you have a grievance with your employer, you don't have to face their team of lawyers, you can either file a complaint with the regulatory board, or you can get your own attorney and sue, and those lawsuits often wind up in nicely-sized settlement agreements, because fighting a lawsuit is more expensive than paying off the litigant.

Originally posted by sonnny1
18000 people losing their Jobs, right before Christmas. Looks like the Union didn't help the employees after all.

FYI The teamsters union was 100% behind the corporate plan, so not all unions caused this and are unreasonable. I also wonder why Little Debbie can sell basically identical snack cakes for half the money and still do ok. It goes much deeper than Unions in this case.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


I like your last sentence, it's so true. divide and conquer.

reply to post by darkhorserider


We have those laws BECAUSE of the Unions

ETA: as I said, I respect your opinion, but I do disagree with you

reply to post by sonnny1


That's what happens when employees go on strike and become greedy to make more money. These actions actually hurt good businesses.

I feel bad for Hostess, not the people. Good for the people who lost their jobs, they brought this onto themselves.

Unions can be good if you have the best people working for a business at a reasonable wage and benefits. Unions are bad when they want to squeeze more benefits and money out of a business that cannot afford to do so.

My opinion is that unions are bad for business, but good for employees who want job security.

Originally posted by PurpleChiten
reply to post by darkhorserider

 

We have those laws BECAUSE of the Unions

ETA: as I said, I respect your opinion, but I do disagree with you

edit on 16-11-2012 by PurpleChiten because: (no reason given)

Very true, and I'm not downplaying the importance of Unions during the building of this country, especially after the Industrial Revolution, and around the turn of the century. Unions played a very key and important role.

I just think they have outlived their usefulness in today's business environment, because we have created so many new taxes and regulatory agencies, that things are redundant, and redundancy is the killer of efficiency and profit.

We need to either get rid of the taxes and government oversight, or get rid of the unions. The businesses can't survive while serving both masters. That is why businesses are relocating overseas.

Originally posted by Skywatcher2011
reply to post by sonnny1

 

That's what happens when employees go on strike and become greedy to make more money. These actions actually hurt good businesses.

I feel bad for Hostess, not the people. Good for the people who lost their jobs, they brought this onto themselves.

Unions can be good if you have the best people working for a business at a reasonable wage and benefits. Unions are bad when they want to squeeze more benefits and money out of a business that cannot afford to do so.

My opinion is that unions are bad for business, but good for employees who want job security.

edit on 16-11-2012 by Skywatcher2011 because: (no reason given)

The Bakers union is responsible for this, the higher ups in the union, not the workers you will find in each plant... My brother would have been happy (not happy to lose money, but happy to keep his job) to take a pay cut if it meant keeping his employment at Hostess... Unfortunately, the stubborn higher ups within the union dug their heels in the ground and screwed over a lot of good people...

reply to post by sonnny1


So the company was in trouble.

The union went on strike.

The union CHOSE unemployment over concessions.

I'll miss the chocolate round cakes (ding-dongs at our house)

Originally posted by jhn7537
The Bakers union is responsible for this, the higher ups in the union, not the workers you will find in each plant... My brother would have been happy (not happy to lose money, but happy to keep his job) to take a pay cut if it meant keeping his employment at Hostess... Unfortunately, the stubborn higher ups within the union dug their heels in the ground and screwed over a lot of good people...

Those higher ups in the union should be hung upside down, naked in front of all union members, and beaten with a stick. These people operate out of a greed perspective and that is not respectable at all.

Like I said before, unions are good for job security for employees. But unions are bad if they (higher ups) demand too much compensation from an employer.

Why doesn't the CPUSA step in?
Why don't the emploees collectively buy the company?
Why doesn't the union take a loan to buy the company for the workers?

This is a glaring example of the lies we are fed daily. Workers/unions/communists don't want want to share the risks, they only want to share the profits.

Perhaps they will prove me wrong and step up to the plate. I'm not holding my breath.

Btw, not that Hostess is closing the Twinkies business...I wouldn't be surprised if a new one opened up somewhere else under a new name and a new country and imported back into NA.

Well I have to be brutally honest...

I'm no fan of the products

Ding Dongs, Twinkies or Weber Bread but all those people losing their jobs after the holidays just straight out sucks imho.

To take a 8% pay cut or not have job,seems simple take the 8%, but not so . Now they do not have jobs but still have the dues to pay.
Could this be the end of unions?
They do not have jobs and I do not have my favorite snack any more, whom to blame? Not the workers but the UNION.