Twinkie maker Hostess to wind down ops, lay off 18,500 workers, put brands up for sale
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Saturday, November 24, 2012 18:01
VIEWED: 12327
PAGE 3 of 9
I'm pretty sure the end of twinkies plays a prominent role in sparking up the zombie apocalypse.
This and that coal miner guy actually reminds me of Enron, only they're trying to use the economy as an excuse instead of openly just not caring about the workers.
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I say again; it's all too easy to blame the unions. I guess you missed "it had already planned to close plants even if the workers accepted the cuts and stayed at work.", and "Workers took concessions just a few years ago and this year the company has stopped making its contractually obligated contributions to their pensions" and "Six CEO’s in eight years, none of whom with any bread and cake baking industry experience".
In essence, you guys are saying they should work for less and less money while CEOs get raises, let the company renege on their contracts, until the company goes uner? They end up working for less than minimum wage until then? That's how the game is PLAYED...keep taking stuff away and workers will stick it out because they're afraid of losing ANY job, however bad. When it comes to Hostess, in the end it would go under anyway, given the demand for their product has been falling steadily and how badly managed the company had become.
Yeah, it's hard on everyone; hopefully the name will get bought up by someone who can actually make it PROFITABLE, tho' whether that will happen near enough for any of those to get a job is anyone's guess. But the reality is, it's not the workers' faults...they'd made concessions to get it out of bankruptcy already, had their pensions destroyed, and watched the company go downhill for...how long?
Given Hostess had already closed plants--having nothing to do with the union--that their profits had been going downhill steadily for lack of demand of their products, they'd apparently made no effort to produce more viable products, they cheated on the contracts they made with their employees while giving huge raises to the upper echelon, and kept making more and more demands from the workers, it's funny you blame the workers. No, not funny; despicable.
The game has always been played this way: give the workers less and less because they'll tolerate it just to have a job, ANY job. That's what unions are about and why they were created. If they hadn't been, everyone would be working seven days a week, twelve hours a day, without lunch or other breaks, for a pittance. It's too bad unions have become such a whipping boy that current generations forget how it was before they started.
NOT saying there aren't tons and tons of problems with unions these days--seems everything created to do good ends up doing harm. But the mentality of "take less and less, even if it means not making a living wage, just to have a job" and "blame the unions" is one which forgets the past, so left to its own devices, will repeat it.
Eta: Byte, Quote:
This and that coal miner guy actually reminds me of Enron, only they're trying to use the economy as an excuse instead of openly just not caring about the workers.
In a nutshell.
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Oh, Suzy Q! Don't Be A Ding Dong And Believe The Ho Hos!
As the gentle reader most likely knows by now, the executives of Hostess has decided that they sucked all the money they could out of the company and the workers and shut down all of their operations immediately.
Just like that, more than 18,000 were put out of work.
The failure of a CEO, Gregory F. Rayburn, immediately blamed the unions in his announcement of the shutdown.
The corporate media ran with it. Radio squawkers parroted this. The echo chamber mindlessly repeated it as gospel truth.
Of course it was easier for those without critical thinking skills to repeat the talking points that unions are bad instead of actually looking at the facts for themselves. That might lead to some inconvenient and uncomfortable truths.
Things like the unions were not the only problem, or even the primary one:
The company, founded in 1930, was fighting battles beyond labor costs. Competition is increasing in the snack space and Americans are increasingly conscious about healthy eating. Hostess also makes Dolly Madison, Drake’s and Nature’s Pride snacks.
Click to embiggen
Of course, while union members were being told - not even asked, but told - to make even greater concessions than they already had made, the executives were completely blameless. Well, not really:
Over the past eight years since the first Hostess bankruptcy, BCTGM members have watched as money from previous concessions that was supposed to go towards capital investment, product development, plant improvement and new equipment, was squandered in executive bonuses, payouts to Wall Street investors and payments to high-priced attorneys and consultants.
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.
Over the past 15 months, Hostess workers have seen the company unilaterally end contractually-obligated payments to their pension plan. Despite saving more than $160 million with this action, the company continues to fall deeper and deeper into debt. A mountain of debt and gross mismanagement by a string of failed CEO's with no true experience in the wholesale baking business have left this company unable to compete or survive.
The clearest story of the real course of events comes from who else but a worker that lived through this nightmare roller coaster:
The company of course used it's 'oops' letter to justify asking for concessions from the Union. We gave nothing and gained nothing that year after a 45 minute strike. The status quo continued and I proudly joined the middle class for the first time in my life. I made $14 an hour and had insurance. I even went on vacations for the first time. I had great pride in my job, and the products. We bought a new car for the first and only time in my life. In 2003 I transferred to the Lenexa, KS bakery.
In 2005 it was another contract year and this time there was no way out of concessions. The Union negotiated a deal that would save the company $150 million a year in labor. It was a tough internal battle to get people to vote for it. We turned it down twice. Finally the Union told us it was in our best interest and something had to give. So many of us, including myself, changed our votes and took the offer. Remember that next time you see CEO Rayburn on tv stating that we haven't sacrificed for this company. The company then emerged from bankruptcy. In 2005 before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. My pay changed dramatically but at least I was still contributing to my self-funded pension.
In July of 2011 we received a letter from the company. It said that the $3+ per hour that we as a Union contribute to the pension was going to beNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
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I don't know where he got the "Bush" thing tho'...who blamed Bush? C'mon, raise you hand(s), Rap says you blamed Bush so stand up and take your punishment like men!
Actually, as I said from the start, Niki, YOU blamed Bush, though w/ out actually saying him by name.
"... it's been going on all around us since America got driven into the ditch"
"The workers " are only suppose to take pay cuts for as long as they want to work there. If not, they're more than free to seek other employment. Like now, since they killed off the entire company. Bravo, " workers ". The jobs don't belong to the employees, they belong to the company. ( Or did ) If you're not keen with getting paid 30 to 40 K a year watching baked goods fly by you on a conveyor belt, then hey, maybe Hostess wasn't a job for you in the first place. But to completely put an entire company under, because you can't take a small pay cut ? Selfish + greedy.
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "
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But to completely put an entire company under, because you can't take a small pay cut ? Selfish + greedy.
We are in complete agreement. The CEO is selfish and greedy to put the company into liquidation because he refuses to take a small pay cut.
The workers will likely not be unemployed for long. The factories still exist, the product has a known and recognizable name, and the bakers know how to make it. New ownership will come along. CEOs and executives can be replaced as easily as workers, if not more so, since they have nothing to do with producing anything. They are the takers, not the makers.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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Lo and behold, a possible sale to a foreign company.
I'm sure this will come as a shock to absolutely nobody here except a few right-wingers.
Quote:
Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican company that is the world's largest bread baker, might hold the key to saving the Twinkie from extinction in a Hostess liquidation.
Though other companies have shown interest in buying some of Hostess' iconic brands, Bimbo might have the inside track, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
A $10 billion sales business, Bimbo has pushed its way into the baked-goods big leagues through smart acquisitions under the leadership of CEO Daniel Servitje Montull.
In 2010, Bimbo bought the North American fresh-baked unit of Sara Lee for $959 million, according to the Associated Press, and with it, well-known brands like Entenmann's and Thomas' English Muffins.
And this isn't the first time Bimbo has tried to save Twinkies. Bimbo in conjunction with a few others made a bid for the Twinkie-maker during its first bankruptcy 2007, but Bimbo ultimately backed out, according to Forbes.
Bimbo's access to cheap Mexican sugar might also give the company an upper hand. Hostess struggled with high sugar prices in the U.S., which were tied to trade tariffs, according to NBC News. Mexican sugar could help avoid those additional costs, but would also take production -- and manufacturing jobs -- south of the border.
Labor talks between Hostess and the unions that represent most of its 19,000 workers had gone on for months before the company's decision to liquidate Friday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/18/bimbo-twinkies-mexican-hostes
s-liquidation_n_2155070.html
So sell Hostess off to foreign competition, outsource production overseas, and blame it all on those pesky workers while you fuck them out of their jobs and pensions.
Truly a typical dick move by yet another bunch of greedy vulture capitalists.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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I'm not a fan of Hostess snacks, but I feel really bad about all those people losing their jobs. I'd prefer other American companies start manufacturing the stuff and hire the current workers to do it, don't want it being outsourced.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Originally posted by Kwicko:
What was this last/best/final offer? You'd never know by watching the main stream media tell the story. So here you go...
1) 8% hourly pay cut in year 1 with additional cuts totaling 27% over 5 years. Currently, I make $16.12 an hour at TOP rate of pay in the bakery. I would drop to $11.26 in 5 years.
2) They get to keep our $3+ an hour forever.
3) Doubling of weekly insurance premium.
4) Lowering of overall quality of insurance plan.
5) TOTAL withdrawal from ALL pensions. If you don't have it now then you never will.
Interesting to compare to this, which shows the salaries going down 8% for a year and then starting to go up again.
Quote:
The new contract cuts salaries across the company by 8% in the first year of the five-year agreement. Salaries then bump up 3% in the next three years and 1% in the final year.
Hostess has 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.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/14/news/companies/hostess-liquidation-thu
rsday/index.html
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Thanx for the more detailed explanation of what has happened/is happening/will happen, Mike.
Ignore Rap; that he interprets my statement as blaming Bush personally, not the banks, Wall Street, the housing crisis, two wars, illegal mortgages, etc., is an excellent reflection of his mentality and has nothing to do with me. He's not worth bothering with.
It's a shame that, when presented with the facts (if they even bothered to read them), our righties steadfastly continue to blame the unions and come up with mewling excuses for the inexcusable actions of the vulture capitalists who actually caused the problem. As the article said, far too many buy into the indoctrination and don't even really CARE about the true facts. Shame we've gotten to this point in our country.
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It is the fault of both parties. The pay increases the CEO's and top managment took are no where near the amount of money the company was losing. It was also not close to the cost of pentions and other benifits. Does that mean the CEO's are blameless, no.
Now however stupid the managment was in the past the reality of the situations was such that the Teamsters Union was very close to working out a deal with the company and accepting pay cuts. The Teamsters saw the writting on the wall and could do the math. The Bakers Union could not.
Now will those factories open back up? Maybe, but any buyers of the brands may very well just build new factories in Right to Work states so they don't have to deal with the Unions.
I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.
A warning to everyone, AURaptor is a known liar.
...and now a Fundie!
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=53359
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