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No more Twinkies, Snowballs, Ho-Hos or Ding Dongs

350X said:
Sad tp say that is very common, pension funds are the last to get paid after a company starts to fail, banks and everyone will get paid first, if there is any left, then a pension might get paid out on a small % of the original.

why you never do company run pension or stock retirement, any conflict of intrest, will mean you lose.

control your own money.

besides pensions, taxes and SS money often doesn't get paid either, but you just don't see a loss as the GOV doesn't make you pay for what they took from your check for that but never sent in.
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Most unions insist that pension funds are held by a third party (contract dictated), takes the threat of bankruptcy out of the equation.
 
Gmash said:
Not to mention the executives were giving themselves millions in bonuses while asking the workers to take another pay cut. Love how people say the union was making unreasonable demands without knowing the facts. As far as I can tell, they weren't making demands at all, they just decided they had taken enough crap.
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but that is true, even though the company made mega mistakes, its was the bakers union that shut the place down when everyone else took the deal.

If the Teamsters union said it was a good deal and they signed it... 2+2=4
 
I still say the owners were glad the union didn't take the deal. When have you ever heard of a company just shutting down like that? They were in bankruptcy, who knows if they would have made it out, the union was being a hassle, screw it. Shut the doors, sell off the brands in a bidding war, let the next guys be the ones to ship the jobs to China and stick our fingers in the unions eye on the way out as a bonus.
 
Honestly, I think there is plenty of blame to go around here. The company was horribly mismanaged from the top. I have a co-worker who says they were bought by Bain Financial who did the mismanagement, but I have yet to find anything online to confirm that so no clue there. They were definitely mismanaged. After putting themselves in a huge hole, the union went on strike and basically refused to make any concessions. When told that the company was going to go under the union thought they were bluffing and continued to hold out until it was too late.
 
They got no choice, you can't get management to stick around and help close a business with out a big pay check, as other wise they would quit and find a new job ASAP instead.
 
A.Nonymous said:
Honestly, I think there is plenty of blame to go around here. The company was horribly mismanaged from the top. I have a co-worker who says they were bought by Bain Financial who did the mismanagement, but I have yet to find anything online to confirm that so no clue there.
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Hostess was bought by a private equity firm but not Bain:

Enter the cast of moneymen. After five years -- unusually long for a reorganization -- the company became a private entity, having won concessions from the unions and new capital from investors. The deepest pocket: Ripplewood Holdings, a PE firm based in midtown Manhattan that reportedly once managed $4 billion in capital.

Ripplewood is run by Tim Collins, 55, who's been at the center of other famed PE transactions. Known as a brilliant capitalist-philanthropist-networker, he's an eclectic character: a Democrat in an industry of Republicans; an Adirondack enthusiast dreaded by pheasant and fish; a board member at the Yale divinity and business schools; and someone who took a year at 31 to work at a refugee camp in the Sudan. Ripplewood orchestrated the $1.1 billion turnaround in 2000 of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, which marked the first time that foreign interests controlled a Japanese bank. (Collins made the cover of Fortune Asia for it.) The bank was renamed Shinsei, and in 2004 it had a lucrative initial public stock offering. Far less fortunately, in 2007 Ripplewood acquired Reader's Digest -- and saw its $275 million investment vanish in Reader's Digest's bankruptcy filing in 2009. (Collins reportedly had visions of merging Reader's Digest with the magazine division of Time Warner (TWX), which owns Fortune.)

Ripplewood's foray into Hostess was partly enabled by Collins's connections in the Democratic Party. He wanted to explore deals with union-involved companies and sought the help of former congressman Gephardt, who in 2005 founded the Gephardt Group, an Atlanta consulting firm that provides "labor advisory services." In his 2004 presidential bid, Gephardt -- whose father was a Teamsters milk truck driver -- was endorsed by 21 of the largest U.S. labor unions; in 2003, Collins was one of 19 "founding members" of Gephardt's New York State leadership committee. (Today, Ripplewood and Hostess are listed online as major clients of Gephardt's consulting group, which is also an equity owner of Hostess.) Back when Hostess was coming out of the first bankruptcy, Gephardt's credibility with both Ripplewood and the Teamsters gave them each a little more room to break bread.
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Hostess is bankrupt again - Fortune Management
 
Kamau said:
Can't blame the union on this one. They took a reduction in pay the last go round. Gotta look at the CEO who just got a huge bonus, or the pay raises of the executives got.
It funny, when a product is doing well, the executives take all the credit. But when there are problems, blame the workers and the union.

Teamster Forever!
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If true, I agree.

It's just that the unions have screwed us in one way or another for so long, we jump to conclusions. When the head office learns one of their unions actually agreed to a pay cut, that official will know where Hoffa is buried.

Unions are great if you do not mind paying for a job.
 
saptech said:
Hostess Executive Bonuses: Twinkie-Maker To Seek Approval For $1.8 Million In Bonuses During Liquidation (UPDATE)
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And almost everyone here would take a raise or a big bonus. If they say they would not, they are liars.

They will accept a bonus and it were tens of thousands of dollars, they would be pleased and happy. Not saying you personally feel that way Saptech, but those that often complain about the goodies given to execs, would take the same deals and accept the same stuff from their company.

And no, I am not saying it is good that a large corporation fails while their execs are paid. There are provisions in the contracts a company signs that give executives certain things at the end. Things the typical Joe on the line is not made aware of by management.
 
Bob Maxey said:
And almost everyone here would take a raise or a big bonus. If they say they would not, they are liars.

They will accept a bonus and it were tens of thousands of dollars, they would be pleased and happy. Not saying you personally feel that way Saptech, but those that often complain about the goodies given to execs, would take the same deals and accept the same stuff from their company.

And no, I am not saying it is good that a large corporation fails while their execs are paid. There are provisions in the contracts a company signs that give executives certain things at the end. Things the typical Joe on the line is not made aware of by management.
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I understand what you're saying, but in cases like this, why would they be rewarded for failure!

So the company is going to reward those same executives who caused the company's failure...interesting???

But lower workers severence pay, usually what they get, will be much lower than those millions or hundred thousands, the execs will get!
 
This company not going bankrupt because the union is on strike. You can forget that. Bad management over the years!
 
saptech said:
This company not going bankrupt because the union is on strike. You can forget that. Bad management over the years!
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If the union didn't strike, the place would be open, wonder bread would be on the shelfs, people would still have jobs today and all their kids would get to have a happy christmas.

unions only care about how much they can take from your check, to spend to their own bennfit.
 
Kind of hard to make money without employees producing product. That's the whole point of a strike in the first place.
 
copestag said:
they are being rewarded for getting the union trash out
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Thank that union "trash" for all of the worker rights and protection we all enjoy today (overtime, workers comp, health insurance, safety rules, etc). Must suck to be so bitter all the time
 
So you guys are saying one union decides to strike and within two days, the company needs to file bankruptcy? Interesting!


http://www.examiner.com/article/the-real-reasons-hostess-went-bankrupt

The commonly sold story by many media outlets (i.e. Fox News) is that Hostess went bankrupt because of a greedy and stubborn union which increased the company's labor costs beyond all reason. However, a deeper investigation of the facts shows that Hostess failed for a variety of reasons, many of them unrelated to unions.

Many of the consumers rushing to buy Twinkies now have not bought Hostess products in many years, which tells you all you need to know about the company’s struggles.

Hostess mysteriously tripled the pay of their CEO just months before asking union members to take a pay cut to “save the company.” One could understand how union members found it hard to believe the company was strapped for cash after raising the CEO’s salary from approximately $750,000 to $2,555,000. Nine other executives at the company also received massive pay raises earlier this year, which now appear to be part of a “golden parachute” package.

It still sounds like bad management to me...
 
Its the unions fault for being greedy and wanting to retire someday. Lousy freeloaders. :rolleyes:
 
Kamau said:
I'd they hadn't gone on strike, that would have been accepting things as they were. At some point, you have to say "enough is enough". You get tired of working your ass off, watching a company grow & prosper, while you struggle to make ends meet, all the while watching the upper management executives get huge salaries & bonuses.
Tell those in those top offices to give back 8% of their wages, and see how they'll react. That's just American greed at its finest.
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Did you even read some of the union work rules? If someone needed to use a drill or other electric for maintenance, they had to send 2 people. The maintenance guy and AN ELECTRICIAN. Why'd they need the electrician? To PLUG IN THE DRILL!!!!

Oh, and they can't send the bread and the cakes on the same truck. They have to send on separate trucks. Two drivers, two trucks using fuel, most of the time they just caravan and get to the delivery points at the same time.

These union folks got what they deserve. Unemployment.
 
While I personally don't care about and won't miss Hostess products*, it bothers me that so many people are losing their jobs.

* I used to love Ding Dongs, Sno-Balls, and Twinkies. Then, for ethical reasons, I became vegetarian in 1988. Once we actually started READING ingredients labels, we found--to our dismay--that all our favorite Hostess products contained "animal and/or vegetable shortening." :( After a few years we stopped looking. I can honestly say that after 25 years, I'm over it! I don't care about those products and won't miss them. There are many perfectly good alternatives by mainstream companies that don't include the dreaded "animal and/or vegetable shortening" in their ingredients. :D
 
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