schadenfreude wrote:
Going to start over over from square 1. It's not the workers that are gakky, it's the people in power be they CEOs, politicians, or union bosses. Power corrupts, and in the case of the twinkie the power was in the hands of the union bosses and CEOs. The union bosses couldn't budge on the issue because if a company can walk over it's employees in the way Hostess was proposing what's the point in having a union, paying union dues, and paying the salary of union bosses? The CEOs couldn't budge because even if upper management worked for free the company was too much into the red to recover. It wasn't even areal choice for upper management, it was a either file bankruptcy or fail to make payroll. The real question is why was the company so much in the red.

The easy answer is blame management for not selling health food, which I call BS on. Go to a Walmart in a red state and go whale watching, there is no shortage of demand for junk food and white bread. The problem was a generational pension problem. Production of breads cakes is more industrial manufacturing than baking now, and with robotics every year fewer employees are needed to create a greater amount of product . It doesn't matter if the factory is producing Twinkies or organic 11 whole grain bread,; what does matter is whatever a factory makes a competing company is going to make a similar product, and when it comes time for the consumer to choose between products price matters. End result=leanest running company has an edge. If it's a manufacturing job the company with the fewest # of pensions wins, and the one with the most loses. The baby boomers made corporations and government promise them pensions that gen X & gen Y cannot provide. For the last 50 years politicians, CEOs, and union bosses have taken a lazy shortcut by promising unsustainable pensions to keep workers content without having to responsibility pay them at the time they are working and continued to kick the can down the road until it's someone else's problem.

 d-usa wrote:


No, I do not see how I am a useless union member, corrupt and leaching of a system that apperantly solely exists because I want to screw over my employers and/or customers because you had a bad experience with the union. Or how my old union I was with during my ambulance days is evil and useless (even though it was formed because the paramedics didn't know if they would have drugs on the ambulance that day or gas in the fuel tank that they would have to fill up themselves).

So, seriously, if you want to continue to post that an entire portion of people are useless, corrupt, whatever, because you had some bad experiences with them then I know that I can ignore your posts on that subject. Especially considering that the whole electrical union story can be explained pretty easily.

Seriously.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Why don't you put more words in my mouth that I never said...

I never said the people are useless.

I never said you were a useless union member.

I did say unions are not efficient, and they promote a lazy working atmosphere.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Not all union workers are lazy, never said or implied all...

But some are because of the system, and that is something that makes unions useless.

If you can not fire someone who is working very little and getting full time pay for it, that is just insane.

I used to work for a shipping company, and I saw this stuff happen. The guy unloading the truck I was auditing was going at a good rate. the guy next to him was going about half as fast, and the trucks were both CDW (Computer parts) trucks, so all the merch was about the same size. The guy on the truck I was auditing slows down because the guy in the next truck was going slow.

 DeathReaper wrote:
I could list all of the cases I have personally seen, but that would take more time than I currently have.

I know what conditions were like pre-unions, I have done some research and found out what it used to be like, but in current days, with the media being what it is, unions are not needed.

Turning a crew away that could help restore power to customers, when the help is truly needed is inexcusable.

P.S. I still have a few boxes of Twinkies left if anyone is interested :-)

 DeathReaper wrote:
II know what conditions were like pre-unions, I have done some research and found out what it used to be like, but in current days, with the media being what it is, unions are not needed.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Turning a crew away that could help restore power to customers, when the help is truly needed is inexcusable.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
I could list all of the cases I have personally seen, but that would take more time than I currently have.

I know what conditions were like pre-unions, I have done some research and found out what it used to be like, but in current days, with the media being what it is, unions are not needed.

Turning a crew away that could help restore power to customers, when the help is truly needed is inexcusable.

P.S. I still have a few boxes of Twinkies left if anyone is interested :-)

Yeah, you are right the media always stands up for workers. Have you not been following the news? The first thing the Media did was throw the unions and workers under the bus! "Greedy unions cause the destruction of Hostess" was the main headline for days. Completely ignoring any of the facts of the situation, that the fall of hostess was caused my willful mismanagement. There was very little mention of the original concessions that the union agreed to years ago during the first bankruptcy only to see the company try to screw them again.

This is the same media, judicial and law enforcement system that has let the corporations completely rape the country for the last decade. Do you know how bad you have to screw people to actually do jail time for these crimes? Bernie Madoff! Just about anything less than Bernie Madoff and you get off with a slap on the wrist. Look up the SEC and see how often they hand out any real punishments. Corporations and people can basically outright steel billions of dollars and when they get caught the punishment is forfeiture of their license for 5 years!...Corporations have absolutely no fear of their workers, customers or the general pubilc, and they certainly don't have to fear the law....So yeah unions are needed.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Going to start over over from square 1. It's not the workers that are gakky, it's the people in power be they CEOs, politicians, or union bosses. Power corrupts, and in the case of the twinkie the power was in the hands of the union bosses and CEOs. The union bosses couldn't budge on the issue because if a company can walk over it's employees in the way Hostess was proposing what's the point in having a union, paying union dues, and paying the salary of union bosses? The CEOs couldn't budge because even if upper management worked for free the company was too much into the red to recover. It wasn't even areal choice for upper management, it was a either file bankruptcy or fail to make payroll. The real question is why was the company so much in the red.

The easy answer is blame management for not selling health food, which I call BS on. Go to a Walmart in a red state and go whale watching, there is no shortage of demand for junk food and white bread. The problem was a generational pension problem. Production of breads cakes is more industrial manufacturing than baking now, and with robotics every year fewer employees are needed to create a greater amount of product . It doesn't matter if the factory is producing Twinkies or organic 11 whole grain bread,; what does matter is whatever a factory makes a competing company is going to make a similar product, and when it comes time for the consumer to choose between products price matters. End result=leanest running company has an edge. If it's a manufacturing job the company with the fewest # of pensions wins, and the one with the most loses. The baby boomers made corporations and government promise them pensions that gen X & gen Y cannot provide. For the last 50 years politicians, CEOs, and union bosses have taken a lazy shortcut by promising unsustainable pensions to keep workers content without having to responsibility pay them at the time they are working and continued to kick the can down the road until it's someone else's problem.

I don't really agree with this. I think venture capitol bought hostess with the intention of breaking up Hostess in the first place. It very difficult for me to see how a company could be so poorly managed unintentionally.

The original concessions that the union agreed to were so that Hostess could reinvest in r&d and better production facilities. Promises that went unfulfilled. Combine that with hiring management that had little to no experience in the market and you have a recipe for disaster. There is more to this than poor management, it is blatant disregard for a brand that was a market leader.

Hostess tapped into pension funds to stay afloat

The Wall Street Journal reports Hostess used employee pension money to stay afloat as it sank deeper and deeper toward bankruptcy.

It isn't clear how much money was taken from those pension funds.

Monday is also the final day for bidders interested in taking over what's left of Hostess to step forward. Hostess says so far, 160 companies have expressed interest in its brands which include Wonder Bread and Twinkies.

Hostess closed last month. It had facilities across the country including a bakery in Oakland.

 Ouze wrote:
*A longer, more nuanced, and generally better article is here; but I'm using the short article because I know perfectly well no one's really going to read it afore they start going wharblgarbl unions.

 AustonT wrote:
What do you mean "finally admits" Hostess publically told all of the Multi employer pensions they were supposed to contribute to that they would stop in August of 2011. It was widely reported on by January 2012. And by the time this thread started was an indisputable fact. Where did you think that money was going? A piggybank? Of course they used OT for day to day operations. Just like they used the money saved from axing pensions and wages in 2009 to find operations and pay balance minimums to creditors. This is a non-story and ranks with, "parents stop paying allowance to keep house, children report allowance used to pay for food and mortgage".

 Ouze wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
What do you mean "finally admits" Hostess publically told all of the Multi employer pensions they were supposed to contribute to that they would stop in August of 2011. It was widely reported on by January 2012. And by the time this thread started was an indisputable fact. Where did you think that money was going? A piggybank? Of course they used OT for day to day operations. Just like they used the money saved from axing pensions and wages in 2009 to find operations and pay balance minimums to creditors. This is a non-story and ranks with, "parents stop paying allowance to keep house, children report allowance used to pay for food and mortgage".

I don't believe I've read the details previous to today. If you google "hostess pension", you'll see there are literally dozens of stories on this, none with a timestamp earlier than December 9th.

Hostess has not been paying future pension benefits since August, thereby breaking its union contracts.

Even with the pension expense savings, the company still needs more money within the next several weeks. And private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, which holds a controlling ownership in Hostess, will not reinvest capital unless it gets its union concessions, one source said.

Hostess (which reported a $341 million net loss in its last fiscal year) spends about $103 million a year contributing to multi-employer plans, and has been funding amounts well beyond the obligations stemming from its own workforce. That said, it hasn’t contributed to the plans since August, when it began running into larger financial difficulties.

The Irving, Texas-based baker intends to withdraw from pension plans

 Lone Cat wrote:
Ex Hostess Workers should stage any protess soon.
This is outrageous!

 Lone Cat wrote:
1. Hostess managers embezzled employee pension funds to fill their own pockets
2. Wallstreet

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Lone Cat wrote:
1. Hostess managers embezzled employee pension funds to fill their own pockets
2. Wallstreet

1. That's not what happened
2. What does the Stock Exchange/Investment bankers have to do with any of this besides not being willing to throw any more money into the gaping useless maw that /was/ Hostess?

 Easy E wrote:


So tell me what happened with number 1, because they used Pension Funds to stay a float, and then gave themselves bonuses. It kinda looks like Management took money from the pensions so they could artificially keep the place going to give themselves bonuses. Of course, I don;t know all that much about business so please enlighten me.

The maneuver probably doesn't violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn't come directly from employees, experts said.