The Hostess-Twinkie who did what to kill it/them thread

[occupied]

Seriously? They were making $100k?

I doubt it, but that's besides the point, whatever they were making last year is what they should be making this year, when large segments of the American workforce must take pay cuts just to keep profit margins where the owners can continue to increase their takehome well in excess of the rates of inflation we enter a spiral that will kill our prosperity faster than anything the government can accomplish in the worker hating conservative's worst nightmares.

LOL

Out of control operating costs are 'besides the point. '

Perhaps you missed the numerous articles detailing how these Bain type outfits operate, these people are not in the business of preserving any jobs, any benefit or anything that makes the greater economy stronger, they are in it to suck as much profit from a deal as possible, period. There is allegedly no such thing as a person making too much money when they are sitting around a conference table, the CEO of this company that failed made more in a year than most of us see in a lifetime, nothing wrong with that in your book I guess, but it's just terrible that a regular worker make a decent salary.

 

[AmyNation]

You certainly are right about globalization. That is indeed where the problem lies. But the problem would not exist were it not for repeal of what had been a substantial exit tax and product import tariffs imposed on any American business which chose to move its operations overseas. And we have Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush to thank for that. They gradually and quietly removed all administrative impediments put in place to discourage American businesses from turning their backs on the Nation that gave birth to them and nourished their growth. And with few exceptions our Congress signed off on all of it.

Please.

Hostess went down because their nimble non-union competitors ate their lunch.

The company has been struggling for awhile, so unions arent the sole cause of their demise. However, the bakers union made the decision to strike, even though they knew it would result in losing their jobs, as well as everyone else's job.

FYI, the bakers union is not the only union hostess employees have, the teamsters union choose not to strike, and was very outspoken and angry at the other union for doing so.

The workers get no severance pay, and no reimbursement for unused vacation. The strikers can't even collect unemployment.

 

[Votto]

The real truth is, unions, the Democrat Party and Obama are to blame for the demise of Hostess. This was a well planned effort to destroy Hostess and force them out of business. Well, guess what, a so called group "We The People" is petitioning Barack HUSSEIN Obama to NATIONALIZE Hostess. Yes, "We The People", a White House organization. So, drive Hostess out of business, then save it by nationalizing, then sell it to the unions. Communism at its best. Lenin and Stalin would be very proud of today's Democrat Party.

what? shut up you twit.

Anyways i dont have an opinion on this really. Both camps are blaming the other side and the real losers are the people who will be out of a job. Sadly i see the rest of you are just playing along instead of demanding some sort of compromise and jobs saved before the holidays.

Here is your chance to sign the petition.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/nationalize-twinkie-industry/cJz0ngJR

Won't you sign and help nationalize the twinkie industry? They need 25,000 votes but only have 1,813 so far.

 

[Votto]

I doubt it, but that's besides the point, whatever they were making last year is what they should be making this year, when large segments of the American workforce must take pay cuts just to keep profit margins where the owners can continue to increase their takehome well in excess of the rates of inflation we enter a spiral that will kill our prosperity faster than anything the government can accomplish in the worker hating conservative's worst nightmares.

LOL

Out of control operating costs are 'besides the point. '

Perhaps you missed the numerous articles detailing how these Bain type outfits operate, these people are not in the business of preserving any jobs, any benefit or anything that makes the greater economy stronger, they are in it to suck as much profit from a deal as possible, period. There is allegedly no such thing as a person making too much money when they are sitting around a conference table, the CEO of this company that failed made more in a year than most of us see in a lifetime, nothing wrong with that in your book I guess, but it's just terrible that a regular worker make a decent salary.

To be honest I don't know anything about the people who ran the company but neither do you. Perhaps they were just weary of fighting the unions and government obstacles to keep the company afloat and just decided to cash it all in and retire. Currently there are no laws about doing this that I know of, but I'm sure there will be some in the near future.

 

[Chris]

A company that makes junk food goes out of business.

Good for America.

 

[SniperFire]

I doubt it, but that's besides the point, whatever they were making last year is what they should be making this year, when large segments of the American workforce must take pay cuts just to keep profit margins where the owners can continue to increase their takehome well in excess of the rates of inflation we enter a spiral that will kill our prosperity faster than anything the government can accomplish in the worker hating conservative's worst nightmares.

LOL

Out of control operating costs are 'besides the point. '

Perhaps you missed the numerous articles detailing how these Bain type outfits operate, these people are not in the business of preserving any jobs, any benefit or anything that makes the greater economy stronger, they are in it to suck as much profit from a deal as possible, period. There is allegedly no such thing as a person making too much money when they are sitting around a conference table, the CEO of this company that failed made more in a year than most of us see in a lifetime, nothing wrong with that in your book I guess, but it's just terrible that a regular worker make a decent salary.

No businesses are in business to preserve jobs, retard.

Hostess was struggling to emerge from their 5 year bankruptcy, told their employees that if they went on strike and halted production, then they would have no choice but to close the business.

The stupid fucking employees went on strike.

 

[SniperFire]

LOL

Out of control operating costs are 'besides the point. '

Perhaps you missed the numerous articles detailing how these Bain type outfits operate, these people are not in the business of preserving any jobs, any benefit or anything that makes the greater economy stronger, they are in it to suck as much profit from a deal as possible, period. There is allegedly no such thing as a person making too much money when they are sitting around a conference table, the CEO of this company that failed made more in a year than most of us see in a lifetime, nothing wrong with that in your book I guess, but it's just terrible that a regular worker make a decent salary.

To be honest I don't know anything about the people who ran the company but neither do you. Perhaps they were just weary of fighting the unions and government obstacles to keep the company afloat and just decided to cash it all in and retire. Currently there are no laws about doing this that I know of, but I'm sure there will be some in the near future.

It was a loooong struggle. They stayed in bankruptcy for 5 years from 04-09. Emerged as a private company but looks as if they just could not turn it around. :

Hostess Brands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SniperFire]

A company that makes junk food goes out of business.

Good for America.

Those 18K people who just lost jobs probably don't agree with you.

 

[Political Junky]

I wonder just how many years of wage gains and basic labor rights we are going to have to go back before the plutocrats are satisfied? They cannot possibly be aiming for parity with China or Mexico but the more I see stuff like this the more it seems likely. How the hell do they expect people to afford their products when 20 years of stagnant wages are just not good enough, now we have to give them back more and massive tax cuts to boot.

Cry us a river.

Nobody can afford to pay a bread truck driver $100K.

Seriously? They were making $100k?

No doubt some cons will believe that.

 

[American_Jihad]

Please.

Hostess went down because their nimble non-union competitors ate their lunch.

The company has been struggling for awhile, so unions arent the sole cause of their demise. However, the bakers union made the decision to strike, even though they knew it would result in losing their jobs, as well as everyone else's job.

FYI, the bakers union is not the only union hostess employees have, the teamsters union choose not to strike, and was very outspoken and angry at the other union for doing so.

The workers get no severance pay, and no reimbursement for unused vacation. The strikers can't even collect unemployment.

Maybe the union bosses and employees should see it they can buy the company out and run it themselves, but wait that won't work because the first thing they'll do to cut cost is to throw the unions out...

 

[Plasmaball]

The real truth is, unions, the Democrat Party and Obama are to blame for the demise of Hostess. This was a well planned effort to destroy Hostess and force them out of business. Well, guess what, a so called group "We The People" is petitioning Barack HUSSEIN Obama to NATIONALIZE Hostess. Yes, "We The People", a White House organization. So, drive Hostess out of business, then save it by nationalizing, then sell it to the unions. Communism at its best. Lenin and Stalin would be very proud of today's Democrat Party.

what? shut up you twit.

Anyways i dont have an opinion on this really. Both camps are blaming the other side and the real losers are the people who will be out of a job. Sadly i see the rest of you are just playing along instead of demanding some sort of compromise and jobs saved before the holidays.

Liquidation is the ultimate 'compromise' for the business owner.

You must mean the business should consider just keeping the doors open and losing money just to be nice guys.

Are you fucking stupid or something sniper? Did i state thats what i wanted to see happen? No, no i fucking didnt. So do me a favor, shut the fuck up and go play your stupid games someplace else. You are play political football with peoples jobs, just like the owner and the unions are doing. Both are wrong, and both are right in certain areas. The loser is the worker who gets laid off, who is working pay check to pay check.

Next time you choose to post, dont bother. I don't need to read your waste of bandwidth. This is why we have abortion rights, so people like you are never created in the first place.

 

[Againsheila]

I just can't wrap my head around workers who would rather put their employer and by extension, themselves, out of business, rather than work for less.

Baffling.

When a union does that it's because their leadership knows giving in will be the beginning of an incremental diminution of everything the union had fought for and achieved over the years. It's a matter of dying slowly on their knees or quickly on their feet. With very few exceptions union leaders are neither stupid nor suicidal. They carefully research a corporation's status before engaging in a hostile standoff.

One of the few times the leadership of a significant union took a foolish and unnecessary risk was when the Air Traffic Controllers Union mistakenly believed because Ronald Reagan was once a union president (the Screen Actors' Guild) he would be sympathetic to their very legitimate grievances. That was an understandable misjudgement of a man whose success in life was predicated on deception. He was the archetypal phony and he screwed a lot more than that union.

Hostess Blames Union For Bankruptcy After Tripling CEO's Pay | ThinkProgress

BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.

I think they deserved to close and I think the extra pay for the CEOs and top executives should be divided up and given to the workers. It's not the union that drove Hostess out of business it's the capitalist looters that did that.

 

[Cowman]

Twinkies have a very short shelf life... UNLIKE OBAMA! 4 more years bitch! BAM!

 

[CrotchetyGeezer]

Twinkies have a very short shelf life... UNLIKE OBAMA! 4 more years bitch! BAM!

Don't count on it...bitch! Things are starting to look pretty hairy for ol' Oblama with this Benghazi thing. LOL! Don't worry though, I'm sure they'll let you visit him in prison. They might even let you have conjugal visits. BAM!

 

[Politico]

Yay! Twinkie thread 100!!!!

Obama doesn't have shit to do with Hostess. Fail..........

 

[Dick Tuck]

Union workers lost their jobs over a two percent cut in their pensions? FUCKING BRILLIANT.

What a fucking liar you are.

Hostess Brands closing for good due to bakers strike - Nov. 16, 2012

The new contract cut salaries across the company by 8% in the first year of the five-year agreement. Salaries were then scheduled to bump up 3% in the next three years and 1% in the final year.

Hostess also reduced its pension obligations and its contribution to the employees' health care plan. In exchange, the company offered concessions, including a 25% equity stake for workers and the inclusion of two union representatives on an eight-member board of directors.

 

[Dick Tuck]

Don't worry, Twinkies will survive - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blog Term Sheet

FORTUNE -- Twinkies are going to be around for a long time to come. And not just because they're the foodstuff of choice for the zombie apocalypse.

...

The truth is that the Twinkies brand still has value, and will be acquired. Same for Ding Dongs. And (probably) Wonder Bread. America may be undergoing major demographic shifts, but empty calories cut across age, gender and ethnicity. If the next generation's Twinkies don't have "Hostess" stamped on them, so be it. I'm not even certain the ironic heart carries much weight in our post-Saturday morning cartoon world.

The most likely endgame here is that another bakery snaps up Twinkies, and separates it from the Hostess snack brands (which include Drake's Cakes). There also is a small chance that private equity tries to buy the whole thing, now that it would be free of existing pension liabilities.

 

[editec]

Twinkies are just another victim of the CREATIVE CAPITALISM.

They cannot compete in the marketplace ergo they deserve to shut down.


Oh you say its because they have to pay for health care just like EVERY OTHER COMPANY?

So then you admit that they cannot compete with their competition that has exactly the same HC payments?

So TWINKIES is a LOSER company according to Libertarian thinking.

TWINKIES is being destroyed by the market forces, not by ObamaCAre.

 

[WillowTree]

The unions just voted themselves out of 18,000 jobs. I'm laughing.

 

[USNavyVet]

Twinkies are just another victim of the CREATIVE CAPITALISM.

They cannot compete in the marketplace ergo they deserve to shut down.


Oh you say its because they have to pay for health care just like EVERY OTHER COMPANY?

So then you admit that they cannot compete with their competition that has exactly the same HC payments?

So TWINKIES is a LOSER company according to Libertarian thinking.

TWINKIES is being destroyed by the market forces, not by ObamaCAre.

Twinkies were actually destroyed by the unions.