Reuters reports this morning via the Chicago Tribune:
Hostess Brands Inc., the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.
Hostess said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities.
The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation of the company would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs.
Hostess gave striking workers until 4 p.m. Thursday to return to work to avoid this liquidation. The workers have indicated that they have already conceded enough during these bankruptcy proceedings and could not afford another 8 percent reduction in salaries. Now their salaries will be reduced 100 percent.
Peoria’s Hostess plant is located at 1511 W. Lincoln Ave. and and employs about 200 people, according to published reports.
So this means the Union won, right?
This was going to happen this is a poorly managed company. Ask a hostess driver what there management ratio is. I know at one time it was under 10 to 1. Now these poor people that this awful company has taking from and taken from are without jobs And i am without Orange cupcakes.
If this company was so obviously poorly managed, why did the workers continue to work there? Work is voluntary. Now, since they refused to make necessary sacrifices to allow the company to continue, they have put 18,000 out of work. The unselfish decision would have been to move on to another company and let the other thousands of employees continue on with a source of income.
What, nothing about the 80% raise those in upper management got? This place was going to close whether the union walked out or not. It made no difference. They have been trying to close the Peoria plant for years. This is a loss for livable union wage workers. We can’t have everyone making minimum wage and surviving in this country. There has to be a middle class with decent wages and corporate greed must be punished.
“Corporate greed must be punished” … how? With Union greed? Do you not see how everyone loses in this situation?
The attitude of needing to punish corporations is the crux of the issue. If you don’t feel that your company provides a “livable” wage, whatever that means, go work at a company that does provide you that wage. Why should your wants destroy the company that so many others union members voted to support?
The problem is that the unions solution to corporate greed is greed themselves. Until this class warfare and win at all costs mentality stops, nothing will get better.
Corporations need to take a step back and realize that having a quality worker at a decent wage that is happy is much better than having some guy pissed off about making minimum wage.
Unions need to realize that they are on the path to uselessness. Most unions are just as top heavy as corporations. It is a sad state of affairs for industrial work in this country on both sides.
Maybe Obama will bail them out. . .
Goverment owned twinkies with a shelf life of forever. Can’t bend a little NOW go draw unemployement I hope they get denide. Since they
caused the problem by NOT working.
jim is spot on. Bloody shame we don’t have leaders that try to bring people together. Instead we have the “Divider in Chief” and people like him who think that slicing and dicing the country is good politics.
Actually I rescind my original comment. The union was the greedy one here. The offer on the table was completely reasonable, allowed the average union worker to continue making 50-60k per year with better benefits than everyone this side of the government. Wow. What a shame that 18,000 people lost their job because of union greed.
This guy says they are sick of getting raped.
http://www.pjstar.com/video/x1978603041/Striking-union-workers-wait-for-word-from-Hostess
Intelligent fella.
Check out the raises management got this past July.
Too bad they didn’t work for the post office. Then they could have been a poorly run entity that, although bankrupt, goes into hock to the US Teasury (taxpayers!) to the tune of BILLIONS. Maybe one of those bright postal workers will exhibit their intelligence and show us how it’s done……after all, government debt isn’t a problem. As Chad says – in todays America – work is voluntary. ugh.
First, The Postal Service problems stem solely from the passing of the Postal Reform Act under Dubbya in 2006. Read up on it. The Postal Service if not for that act, would be making money and last year would have been $400 million in the black. Please know what you are talking about before you talk. Bush set the Postal Service up to be privatized and to rob the service of it’s funds to pay for his war. Postal Service doesn’t not rely on Tax dollars to survive until Republicans got their hooks into it.
This info isn’t hard to find. Google it. http://www.NALC.org/
Next, the Unions made big concessions in ’04 and took wage cuts and lost many health benefits. Management of the company gave themselves huge bonuses and then tell the union you have to take bigger cuts. Some here think that it is so easy to simply quit and take another job if you don’t like it yet these SAME people claim there are no jobs when bitching about Obama. These union workers knew this company was closing, strike or no strike. They knew the company was mis managed and the top execs were greedy. If they hadn’t walked, the company still would have closed. Not everyone can work and survive on minimum wages and this is yet the death of more of the middle class without which, this country needs to survive. Of course the loudest mouths here like “taxpayer” probably have a good job or collecting from the government the whole time they quarterback and bitch about other people’s jobs and how they simply could quit and find another.
BTW, the Postal Service is one of the best run government organizations we have and they provide decent jobs to over 300,000 employees who pay dearly into their retirements and many will never collect SS.
FACTS on Hostess:
2003 – Hostess begins closing production plants and other units.
2004- Hostess first enters bankrupt after failed restructuring. BCTGM union workers agree to wage and benefit concessions, saving the company $110 million. This money was NOT reinvested into the business. (Why? Where did it go?)
2009- Hostess emerges from bankruptcy controlled by a private equity firm and two hedge funds.Company’s debt continues to grow, sales decrease.
2011- Floundering company again demands concessions from BCTGM union workers. Workers refuse.
2012- Hostess files for bankruptcy for the second time, demands huge givebacks, stops paying pension obligations. Union files complaint with National Labor Relations Board. BCTGM Union workers stand up to Bain-style crony capitalism and strike. Hostess anounces liquidation.
Since 2004- Company has closed 21 plants, killed thousands of jobs, remains nonviable.
Since 2002- Hostess has had 6 CEOs, none turned the company around.
So….it’s the unions fault?? I think not. Of course the GOP will (and is) blaming the union but gee wiz golly, what else is new?
Hostess: It is likely that someone will buy the assets (plants, equipment, etc) of Hostess. They are in bankruptcy and are now in liquidation (vs reorganization). Why not the current employees?
Post Office: Below are comments from a posting on the nalc.org website.
Today’s report makes clear that the financial crisis at the Postal Service is largely political in nature—and that the Postal Service is actually returning to health in operational terms as the economy improves. The deficit from postal operations declined from $4.9 billion in 2011 to just $2.2 billion in 2012.
Only 16 percent of the overall losses actually had to do with mail delivery. The Postal Service reported 2012 operating revenues of $65.7 billion and operating expenses of $67.9 billion. (USPS gets its revenue by selling stamps and other products; it has received no taxpayer money for 30 years.)
Thank you anp for re posting that. Many won’t take the time to find out about something like the Postal Service’s problems which are political. Nothing more but then if all you watch is Fixx News, then all you see is one side and according to Fixx News record, they haven’t been right about hardly anything.
I would agree that some of the Postal Service’s problems are political but some are operational. From a political standpoint, a new bill should be presented and debated (I do find it interesting that the original bill passed the Senate in 2006 by unanimous consent which at that time would have included President Obama and Vice President Biden as Senators) that would change some of the reforms enacted. Maybe Congress should allow the Postmaster General to make the changes that he wants to make in the post office business model and see what happens?
“Hostess is dead, Al Qaida is alive.”
Emtronics,
The Postal Reform Act of 2006 was sponsored by TWO Republicans (Tom Davis and John McHugh) and TWO Democrats (Danny Davis and Henry Waxman). Senator Tom Carper of Delaware sponsored the bill in the Senate. Presidents will usually sign bi-partisan bills. Had John Kerry been president, he’d have signed it as well.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407
The real reason the Postal Service is in dire straits is the recession that started in 2008, and the continuing sluggish economy.
Mr Jordan, with all due respect, the recession was not really the problem with the PO as it would have made over $400 million in the last 4 years. The PO of course is not designed to make a profit but the excess goes back into infrastructure such as new vehicles and buildings. The raising gas prices is what was killing the bottom line and not the recession. For every penny that gas goes up, it cost the PO a million dollars a day more to operate. Republicans and Democrats did sponsor a Bill but it did not include the $5 Billion a year donation to CSRS or to FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System)that the Republicans put in in exchange for leaving 6 day delivery. That was all GOP and Bush needed that $5 billion to cover the Iraq war without inflating the national debt. The retirement system has enough money if not another dime was put in it to fund it 75 years right now. Bush signed the bill and I really doubt Kerry would have because Kerry wouldn’t have had to hide the national debt because he most likely would have been smart enough to not invade Iraq and therefore need the $5 billion. All companies must pre fund their retirement systems based on number of employees but no company in the world is require to over fund it the way the Postal Service has to, by law, to the tune of $5 billion a year. Congress owes the PO over $35 Billion dollars and if the service had it’s money, this would be a non issue. This is another cluster screw from the GOP policies to cover spending like a wild-man that Bush did. They will blame the economy because the GOP always blames everything else but their policies. Please look the facts up on the NALC.org site or Postal News site. If 6 day delivery goes, so goes the private express statues that protect the mails and everyone’s mailbox that guarantees no matter where you live in the US, you get mail delivery. This crap the GOP pulled was to A)fund their damn war and make the national debt look smaller than it really was, and B) to privatize and break up the PO. That simple.
Bin Laden is dead, Obama run the election by an overweening margin!!! We can survive without Twinkies. The brand will be sold and the plant will be reopened.
Emtronics,
Time to give up the Bush Derangement Syndrome. He’s no longer president.
“The brand will be sold and the plant will be reopened.”
The brand might be sold, but the Peoria plant may be left empty. I hope not.
I was going to bring up that the USPS is in trouble was because of having to fully fund their pension system now. $5 billion sounds about right, although I thought it was more. But Randall would know all the true facts, because he works for the USPS.
As far as Hostess, someone posted elsewhere that they also own the Butternut Bread product lines. Isn’t that line still profitable? Could someone else come in, and take over that line, if nothing else?
It’s all Bush’s fault!!!!! The union really showed them! Who cares. They will sign up for their 99 weeks of unemployment and cry about their self made predicament. I think I’ll go buy a Twinkie.
Well in this case IT IS Bush’s fault and the party. Tell that to many workers you might face the loss of jobs. Yes, I know you Rightie’s hate to hear that but the Postal Reform Act was passed in 2006 and signed by Bush. The retirement system is funded, without another dime being put in, for 75 years as of now. We should all never forget the illegal war (looking for WMDs that were never found) and the money it cost this nation not counting the thousands of American lives. Condi Rice sat in a room discussing the threat from Russia while terrorists drove 2 planes into the twin towers killing 3000 Americans. She had nothing to say and yet was promoted to Secretary of State but a bunch of dirty low down terrorists strike our consulate in Libya and kill 4 Americans and what does the Right do? They blame Obama and want a hed hunt but never say anything about the murders who got away. This is why the Right is so screwed up.
That illegal war in Iraq is why Bush needed that $5 billion a year so it would make the national debt not look as bad as it really was. Of course, when Obama took office, the war debt and the interest was added to the national debt and that is Obama’s fault? No, it is Bush’s . The worst President in the history of the United States.
The plant in Peoria won’t reopen. Sorry charlie.
Someone like bimbo (a non-US company) will come and buy a few of the brands. Another US company lost forever. Maybe Kelloggs will buy some too. But one thing is for sure, they aren’t going to go back to the plants that caused the company to fold. I believe one of the larger plants in the country in Seattle has developers drooling to tear down and build a high rise development.
And to the dummy in the pjstar video – don’t worry. If it was legitimate rape, the company has a way of shutting itself down to prevent union greed.
Union greed? Hardly. Mis managed by over 6 CEOs since 2002. Closed 21 plants in 2004. Tell me, how much money did the CEOs take? Talk about rape. The American worker was raped.
Mail a letter. Randall thinks the postal service is an efficient model, except for what Bush did. Why spend 45 cents for what can be done better, faster, and cheaper FOR FREE!?! A crowbar couldn’t pry his head out of his…..but hey, he fully funded his pension. Right. Read up on it Em. We got enough clueless City leaders.
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324735104578123312646698662.html
“The snack giant endured $52 million in workers’ comp claims in 2011, according to its bankruptcy filing this January. Hostess’s 372 collective-bargaining agreements required the company to maintain 80 different health and benefit plans, 40 pension plans and mandated a $31 million increase in wages and health care and other benefits for 2012.
Union work rules usually required cake and bread products to be delivered to a single retail location using two separate trucks. Drivers weren’t allowed to load their own vehicles, and the workers who loaded bread weren’t allowed to load cake. On most delivery routes, another “pull up” employee moved products from back rooms to shelves.”
So which side was being unreasonable???
No kidding. Email is faster than mailing a letter? Talk about head up your ass. I guess grandma likes an ecard over a handwritten one. Doesn’t matter because for 45 cents you can mail a letter to anywhere in the country. The mails are more than that but to a dumb thinking person, they only see what they want. BTWQ, explain how I didn’t fund my pension? Please. I have worked and payed over $90,000 into it. Yes, the Postal Service contributed as per their contract with the unions. The PO’s funds are paid up for the next 75 years. Yet Congress wants $5 billion a year payments? Read up on it. http://www.nalc.org Taxpayer, you’re just hateful towards me. Don’t let your ignorance get in the way of your eyesight. BTW, what do YOU do for a living?
AnneC: This is the reason Hostess went under. Please read and let me know what you think. : http://www.examiner.com/article/the-real-reasons-hostess-went-bankrupt
@ Emtronics: Sorry, couldn’t read it. The article was covered up by a pop-up ad for Carrie Underwood.
Re: Hostess: Do you believe it was a good businesss model to make EVERY delivery to EVERY outlet that sells their products in TWO SEPARATE gas-guzzling vehicles? With 6 different (well-paid) employees responsible for the loading/unloading and delivery?
I don’t know if that is truth or hype Anne. Do you for sure? I mean the teamsters aren’t saints but I have no idea what the rules were and IF this is truth, do you really think this brought down a multi-million dollar company? Or was it the fact the Kroger’s ding dongs sold for almost a buck less or the fact that mother’s are putting apples in their kids lunches instead of a Ho-Ho? I feel for the workers because they were in a rock and a hard place (I know a worker there) and the job wasn’t that easy. They felt they couldn’t work for less when this company had already closed 21 plants across the country and laid off thousands of workers and yet found the money for big upper management bonuses and raises. The only difference between this and other corporations that have screwed their workers is this one is simply going out of business where the others shipped the labor to China. I can’t imagine Twinkies made in China.
Also, sorry about the popup which I don’t seem to get when I click the link but here is the last paragraph which says it all: “Conclusion
It is easy to blame the death of Hostess on labor unions, but the reality is that the company was probably going down regardless. But take heart America, Hostess’ popular brands like Twinkie surely will be sold off as part of the bankruptcy. The Twinkie will still be on American store shelves in the future, just made by a better run company.”
I never said that was the ONLY reason they went out of business, but I do feel that such rules made it unnecessarily expensive for Hostess to deliver their products to the stores that sold them. And yes, I do trust the Wall Street Journal as the source of this information.
My guess is some other snack-food company will quickly snap up the recipes and/or the factory equipment. Maybe Kraft, or more likely McKee Foods, makers of Little Debbie snacks. However, it should be noted that all McKee bakeries are in right-to-work states.
Actually the bottom line is this. The economy is in the toilet. Dems keep wanting to blame Bush and ignore who’s been in charge for 4 years. then blame the Reps for being obstructive and ignore the Dem controlled Senate has done nothing. The fiscal cliff will be blamed on repubs and and the sheep keep buying into it. Look at Illinois and what one party rule has done to this date.
The union members had the opportunity to keep what would still be good paying jobs and still have benefits. They chose not to and are now unemployed. Blame who you want, but the choice was each individual worker who walked off their job as to what his/her future would be. The other casualities of the company had no choice. They went down with the ship still working and were laid off. Few want to take a pay cut, few want to lose benefits, but a decent income over no income is not a tough choice to make for you family. 18,000+ workers will be drawing out of a bankrupt system instead of contributing to it. We cannot afford to sustain this economy. Obama won with no plan except trying to make some pay even more in taxes than they are, rather than get more people paying taxes total by working. We cannot sustain that either….look at Illinois, so goes the country. right or wrong we simply cannot do it. An economic collapse will shut down the entitlement checks, you will have exhausted all the taxes you can from those who are still working, and we will fail as a nation. The work ethic continues to erode, entitlement gains momentum, Greece has been the world’s example. To say that the U.S. cannot fail the same way, is unmitigated arrogance.
The Postal Service does not contribute to your pension as per their contract with your union. This preceded the Postal Service as a quasi-government run entity and dates back to the congress run Post Office.
Geez. First of all, the economy is humming along just fine although maybe not as good as the good ol days. Be out and about lately? I went to Lowe’s yesterday and waited in line for 30 minutes to check out because the place was packed. So is the mall and try getting into a restaurant. Gas stations are busy and the only people I see sleeping on the sidewalks unbathed, are people waiting in line for the next Apple product.
East Peoria Costco had more people than the museum and is still packed. If the econmy is as bad as you say then show me where. As for it being in the dumps, well not so much now thanks to President Obama but whp put it there? Yep Bush did and we should never ever forget it.
As for the union members at Hostess. You don’t get it at all. Hostess just filed for bankruptcy again (the 2nd time). They are owned by 2 hedge funds and Hostess debt is in the millions. Their CEO took a 300% raise and their top management staff also took raises as high as 60%. Then they want to cut union benefits by wages at 8% and benefits at 32%. The company also failed to pay $160 million it owes the pensions of those hard working people. So, if the union people should have stayed, it wouldn’t have mattered. Hostess was and is doomed from the start and would have closed anyway strike or no strike. So even if the union workers quit, Hostess wasn’t going to hire cheap labor and go on. They are done. So there was no jobs at all so STOP saying union workers had an opportunity to keep their jobs, they didn’t.
Now, please stop watching Fox News and comparing our country and it’s Capitalism system to Greece. It shows your ignorance. The fact of the matter is simple here. Two things doomed Hostess. 1) Greed and mis management not union labor or teamsters and 2)the fact that in this capitalistic society, their product simply wasn’t selling. PERIOD!
1971 (or 72) The Postal Department became the Postal Service and the unions were recognized. The Postal Service does indeed contribute to my pension under laws of the Civil Service. Before the reorganization, postal workers qualified for food stamps because of their low pay. Just a fun fact.
Wow. Even the Chicago Tribune acknowledges that the strike was the “final blow” at Hostess: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-twinkie-1119-jm-20121119,0,5274920.story
“Even if those companies buy all the brands, however, many redundant factories and distribution networks will close. Most of the Hostess jobs still will be lost.”
Emtronics – anyone on these comments could write for the examiner. It is a joke of a website.
The writer has the facts wrong on multiple counts. The CEO did not get a pay raise to 2.25 million. If I had to guess where this falsehood came from it would be the union propaganda that doesn’t differentiate from salary, benefits, etc. In that case, these union guys were making 100k+.
I don’t blame the unions entirely, because management has made some poor decisions as well. But the issue is common sense. A job > No job. It is not like they were asking them to work for $8/hr. They were still getting paid in the low $20’s for a completely unskilled job.
Emtronics.
$47.1 million on food stamps. That’s a humming economy to you.
Obama phones for all!!!!! the blue mantra.
47.1 million on food stamps…no $ the dollar amount is $85 billion requested in the farm bill.
Emtronics needs to get a lot of his facts straight. The Post Office Dept. contributed to his retirement also. The same amount that the Postal Service contributes. The point is that it is not a negotiated benefit by any postal union.
I think it is. It is one of the reasons our unions are in arbitration right now. Percentage of healthcare and pensions percentages are on the table. If that isn’t union, I don’t know what is. They are right now presenting arguments on how much employees pay into retirement and healthcare. Understand that Reagan in 1982 ended CSRS and created FERS which every employee hired after that date had to pay into thier own retirement and pay social security. CSRS does not pay SS. There are two retirement systems and I am still, like many 1000s still working, are under CSRS. I know the PO contributes because I get a print out every 6 months on the annuity. The Postal Service is NOT a department. Not since 1971. Talk about facts straight. When the PO was a department, the cost of mailing was subsided by the taxpayers. That ended when it became the Postal Service which is why stamps went straight up.
Side note: Free cell phones program was extended by Bush and the cost to cover them comes from a charge on your phone bill if you have a landline phone. They are not Obama’s phones. It was a republican idea started by Reagan back when people could not afford a landline and carried over to cell phones which was extended by, again. BUSH.
As for foodstamps, the republicans make millions off of them since many own stocks and interest in grocery stores and the company that brokers the stamps for the government is run by a republican. They make millions off of poor people.
Oh and of course the link I provide is not worthy. Gee, that’s news. Hostess went broke because of mis management, and the fact that sales of their products went down. The union went on strike because the company wanted 8% cut in wages, 32% cut in benefits and $160 million wasn’t paid by the company into their pensions. Would you decry workers a pension after they paid into it and worked for it?
The CEO did get a fat raise and so did most of upper management. After the 1st bankruptcy, the company was supposed to funnel the new loans back into the company but didn’t. Instead they closed 21 plants and laid off thousands of workers. Why do you always blame the union and the workers? Do you expect everyone to work for minimum wage? If a company promised you something at employment, wouldn’t you want it in writing? Then when you get it, the company reneges. You aren’t supposed to be mad and just say OK pay whatever you want? Do any of you work this way?
I just found out that the CEO did not give himself a raise at Hostess. The Board of directors did. So, in GOP speak, the CEO did not give himself a raise.
Emtronics – the link isn’t valid because it is on a website that is a half a step above whatever Billy Dennis is calling his latest project this week. Now if it were from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. then lets talk.
No one is denying bad management here. The thing you are denying is that the union strike was ultimately the death blow to the company. It was. FACT.
Ok sorry about what you Percival as news or worth. To each their own. The strike wasn’t really the death blow IMO, because I believe if there wasn’t a strike, the plane would have closed on the first of the year. At least that is what I am hearing from a (now x) worker there. The end result is the same. Workers lost their jobs, before the holidays. It’s just tough all around for these guys and gals. BTW, I can’t trust MSNBC to much.
darn auto correct: should be plant, not plane.
Oh gosh, Percival?/ That should be perceive.