Every Saturday the Hostess delivery man gave my wife’s family’s kids the Hostess product of their choice. My wife always chose Hostess Cup Cakes. When she heard that the company was going out of business, she ran out and bought a box.
Interstate Bakeries told its striking union workers that it would close the company if it didn’t accept the contract terms offered.
I never could stand the mush white bread that used to be Wonder Bread’s only product. Give me more texture. Lately, however, my son likes this Wonder Bread for his peanut butter sandwiches. It has whole grain. It says sell by November 19, 2012.
The union apparently didn’t believe the ultimatum.
The company just announced it will seek to shut down operations.
Just what all striking union workers deserve.
No job.
Brilliant!
You’d rather NOT work, than TRY and work for a little less.
EVEN if they DID strike, and sooner than later the company agreed, you’d have to work a long time to make up the money you lost while on strike.
This is the kind of stupid that made Gov. Scott Walker of Wisc. do what he did, so that at least their economy can make an effort at being a success.
This could also be partly the fault of the company’s poor management, or products that time has past by, but this brain-dead union (and I AM a teamster) has fully screwed it’s members.
I bought some Hostess fruit pies.
I plan on selling them on ebay in 20 years and retiring!
I was recently visiting some friends down south.
They pointed out a trailer park and a business that closed a bit down the road.
It was an apple juice plant that got a contract with Gerber.
They hired more people to keep up with the demand.
The workers were able to move to a nice sub division nearby.
The union came in and pumped the workers up getting them to join up and they would make more money, more vacation and cadillac health care.
The plant owners could not stay afloat with all of those expenses.
Closed the plant.
eople lost their jobs and are back down the road in the trailer camp!!
Greed is a disease.
Watch. We will see a lot more of this. It simply does not pay to be a producer in America anymore.
Why give over 50% of your paycheck to the United States when you can go to, say, Costa Rica and pay about 22%?
We are being taxed into poverty.
Gosh Cal, you post a slighting remark about the company’s product and yet gleefully blame the union.
So making stuff people don’t buy any more isn’t an issue?
And the unions have taken three pay cuts (along with numerous benefit cuts) in three years.
I know that is the Republican answer to EVERYTHING- the guy making $20,000 a year in the bakery needs to sacrifice some more.
People wonder why the Republican party is all but dead- look at the “Wisdom” on display here and tremble.
(Oh and all these brands will be back- maybe in a couple weeks. The venture capital company that owns “Hostess” is already negotiating with new commercial bakers who will make these products.)
Labor did in Twinkies? Not so fast.
The Big Sugar Daddies (i.e., growers) may be the real Ding Dongs here.
Thanks to nearly eighty years of protectionist policies, we in the U.S. pay roughly twice the world price for sugar.
That’s in part why other confectioners (Life Savers, Brach’s, Fannie May) moved — and left thousands of Americans out of work.
Yup. Half price sugar in Canada and Mexico. Ain’t that sweet!
The Christian Science Monitor says: “…some economists suggest that Americans shift their blame from Big Labor to the role Congress might have played in writing the Twinkies’ obituary. …
“Since 1934, Congress has supported tariffs that benefit primarily a few handful of powerful Florida families…”
“One telling event: When Hostess had to cut costs to stay in business, it picked unions, not the sugar lobby, to fight.”
Read all about it: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/1116/Did-Congress-kill-the-Twinkie-The-tariff-tale-behind-the-Hostess-demise
Tonight one of the company spokesperson said (nightly news) that there is less demand for the products due to the EAT HEALTHY trends and that the INCREASED cost of healthcare made continued operations undoable.
The workers had given concessions but the killer was that they would not contribute more towards healthcare.
The news person added that any takeover company would pay less and provide fewer benefits if they actually rehired the workers.
All they want is the BRAND and there is currently excess capacity in bakeries.
Twinkie’s are sold off every shelf.
The brand is the value. Years ago Chrysler bought AMC/Jeep for one thing…JEEP.
The brand.
None of the employees in Kenosha kept
their jobs.
A blessing is disguise.
After, is there really any food in Hostess products.
I believe Hostess epitomizes the term “processed” and “chemically laden” things people put in their mouths.
Justin – Rayburn of Hostess says that neither the brand nor the recipes will be sold.
FYI- actually it has been reported in numerous places that Hostess will sell off the recipes and the brands-
http://www.politicususa.com/romney-vulture-capitalist-style-management-killed-hostess-unions.html
Of course- the CEO getting a 350% raise to over $2 million a year for a company that has been in bankruptcy twice. -Sure, that isn’t the reason.
They are being “restructured” via a Wal street Venture Capital- yeah- that isnt’ the reason-
Of course it is the unions- who by the way MET EVERY DEMAND including the healthcare concessions.
This is the new method of doing business- file for bankruptcy, get out from under the OBLIGATIONS they have to their workers and restructure, come back under new ownership and move along.
Perhaps- social security should do the same so many of the readers of this blog can understand what it is like to be at the end of their career and have what hey count on fall away.
Thank God.
The quintessential junk food is dead.
Hopefully a more enlightened group will take over and create products that appeal to more health-conscious consumers and save the 18,000 employees that depend on that decision.
As usual, Scott Summers has nailed the issue.
While the main topic of this article is the Hostess company, what I see as the morale of the story is that this compamy is only one small fish in a big ocean.
For sure there will be many more that suffer the same fate!
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International (BCTGM) at Hostess numbered 5,000 members who pulled in as much as $22 an hour plus medical benefits, got nine weeks of paid leave and a company pension.
Now, they got nothing! Good!
The other union, the teamsters, had 6700 members working at Hostess, and they agreed to the new terms. So, 5000 punks throw 6700 other union members and a few hundred non-union worker of work.
I wonder if big-time libs like LCTruth and Scott S know the baker’s union are 3 time losers at the extortion and thuggery game. Besides Hostess, there was Stella D’Oro in 2009 and American Crystal Sugar union members who have been locked out for the last year.
LCTruth calls it a blessing in disguise. Actually, I agree. Anything that hastens the demise of the unions and their thuggery is okay with me.
I can just bet that at bars where the two unions mingle, there are going home bloody and bruised bakers, at least I hope so. If any group that deserves being beaten up by other union members, it is the BCTGM.
Funny how Cal didn’t mention the CEO’s pay was tripled in the last year along with 9 other officers ?
So a failing company , Bankruptcy just 3 years ago, goes back into Bankruptcy and it is the workers fault ?
Owned by Hedge fund groups who always look to keep business open, tongue in cheek, cannot get the workers to take another huge hit, $110 million in concessions after last Bankruptcy, and it’s the workers fault again ? I think the Hedge fund groups were looking to liquidate it no matter what the unions did. If unions gave more back then less to liquidate.
Dem Machine says: “Funny how Cal didn’t mention the CEO’s pay was tripled in the last year along with 9 other officers ? ” So what?
Who called the strike?
BCTGM.
Not the CEO.
Who called the strike when they knew darn well Hostess would shut down? BCTGM. On Friday, bakery union boss Frank Hurt admitted that union leadership knew that Hostess could fold – and they went ahead anyway.
Dem Machine says: “So a failing company , Bankruptcy just 3 years ago, goes back into Bankruptcy and it is the workers fault ?” YES!!
The greed of 5000 baker’s union members destroyed the jobs of 18,000 workers, including 6700 teamster union members.
The Democrat supporting unions destroyed their own jobs, and I am howling in laughter at it, because parasites ALWAYS kill their host.
It seems that the baker’s union is best suited for costing bakers their jobs.
There is speculation that Twinkies will be made in Mexico now.
So, while families of 18,000 Hostess employees celebrate a grim Christmas; while they watch their homes go into foreclosure and their cars are repossessed, they can ‘celebrate’ that the product they once made here in America will be made in Mexico, by foreigners who are not BCTGM or Teamster members, instead.
The term Pyrrhic victory does not apply here, because the BCTGM won nothing.
They lost.
They lost for all 18000 Hostess employees, including 6700 teamsters (who were willing to change work rules and provide salary givebacks to keep their jobs). BCTGM fouled their own nest, and that of everybody else because they were stupid and greedy.
BCTGM are now 3 time losers in the game of brinksmanship: Stella D’Oro and American Crystal.
Even a flatworm is capable of learning.
But flatworms are more evolved than the “box of rocks” that make up BCTGM leadership.
The blame belongs squarely on the BCTGM leadership.
THEY called the strike, not the CEO nor the hedge funds.
If you are an out of work former Hostess employee, direct your anger at the BCTGM leadership – they ruined it for you.
Looking at the work rules in place at Hostess, arcane and out-of-date for modern production and distribution, it seems apparent the union cares more about member headcount than they do the welfare of their members.