The real reasons Hostess went bankrupt

[bigscoop]

Seems to me Hostess was brought out of bankruptcy by a investment firm to try to turn it around, Now I'm sure they had put in some serious cash to do this. With a threat of a labor strike I'm sure they gave each other their investment plus interest in there raises. Usually company's like these are there to make profits. The days of working for Mom and Pops places who took care of their workers are gone. Well I guess the union can say "WE WON"

I guess I'm looking at in a different light. Seems to me, more and more often, the lines are being drawn in the sand between the middle class and the wealthy. The wealthy can't survive without the middle class. The middle class can't survive without the wealthy. Clearly both sides lost in this ordeal. The middle class feel it right away, the wealthy will start feeling it on down the road as their consumer base continues to dwindle. The country will start feeling it as both the wealthy and the middle class diminish.

 

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[Watchman]

 

[davest]

used to be the owners of a company had a stake in it, the city and country it was in and actually knew what they produced. Since globalization came to fore the money changers have taken sway. I think it works like this; borrow money to buy a company, pay new owners dividends (called dividend recapitalization), borrow more money against assets of corporation, pay new owners bonuses for being so smart. Shed employees, call for pay cuts for remaining employees, pay owners bonuses for meeting short term profitibility goals, underfund pension plan and push off on Pension Guarantee Fund (allows for taxpayer funding of obligation) pay owners bonuses cause it's August 11, Close plant, divy up what's left and look for another profitable business to harvest.
Tied in with another thread this could be the cause of civil unrest. But what would I know?

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Remember we are primarily a Treasure site, as per our rules please keep the politics out of the thread, if your post disappears it is because it violated one or more of our rules........

 

[Gold Maven]

Snack cakes are not a necessity, so when all your extra money goes for gasoline, you have to cut out the extras.

Look at all the restaurants that have shut down in the last few years, people don't have extra money to spend.

To get the economy started again, all we have to do is drop gas and diesel to $ 1.50 a gallon, and stand back.

perhaps Exxon could only post a $10 billion gain next quarter.

 

[Chadeaux]

Snack cakes are not a necessity, so when all your extra money goes for gasoline, you have to cut out the extras.

Look at all the restaurants that have shut down in the last few years, people don't have extra money to spend.

To get the economy started again, all we have to do is drop gas and diesel to $ 1.50 a gallon, and stand back.

perhaps Exxon could only post a $10 billion gain next quarter.

 

[Red James Cash]

To get the economy started again, all we have to do is drop gas and diesel to $ 1.50 a gallon, and stand back.

perhaps Exxon could only post a $10 billion gain next quarter.

What should really happen is that everybody should stop buying fuel all together for a day or two and show the companies what a little solidarity
can do, but we all know that isnt going to happen.Everybody is to self important to want to stick together and to busy thinking of themselves to learn how to stick together.Boycott the greedy S.O.B.s.

 

[jeff of pa]

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.

Interesting story written by a union supporter

Of course they were in trouble, but labor unions pushed them over the edge.
I doubt a strike would have ever happened if not pushed for by the union.

I'd say most of the workers probably would have taken cuts rather then loose their Jobs
if they had a choice, & without a Union their take home may have still been higher without having to support the union

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Having worked for a union for over 16 years I will say they have their good and bad points, and the good far outweighed the bad. ( haven't worked union for 30 years )

Unions did a lot for the American worker, with out them we would all still be working mandatory 60 hour work weeks, in unsafe conditions for low wages, no holidays and no insurance.

Bad points are some unions got greedy and did not always have their members best inteterest in mind.

 

[vor]

In defense of Ford, they have never taken one penny from a government bailout. Now Government Motors (GM) is another story.

Not to worry on the Ho Hos, Bimbo is poised to take over - and move the jobs to Mexico.
Next Twinkie Maker: Will A Mexican Billionaire Family Buy Hostess' Orphaned Brands? - Forbes

American greed - by both the unions and management. That's the problem when we don't have a free enterprise system.

No comment on the union biased article, too political.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

American greed - by both the unions and management. That's the problem when we don't have a free enterprise system.

NO...they lost their livelihoods...that's the free enterprise system at work....get too greedy, and you lose your customers...no customers.
no money...LOL People do a good job of sorting the bad companies from the good ones.
Jim

 

[jeff of pa]

latest

Hostess Brands Inc. and its second largest union will go into mediation
to try and resolve their differences, meaning the company won't go out of business just yet.
The news came Monday after Hostess moved to liquidate and sell off its assets
in bankruptcy court citing a crippling strike last week.
The bankruptcy judge hearing the case said Monday that the parties haven't
gone through the critical step of mediation and asked the lawyer for the Bakery,
Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union,
which has been on strike since Nov. 9, to ask his client,
who wasn't present, if the union would agree to participate.
The judge noted that the bakery union, which represents about 30 percent of Hostess workers,
went on strike after rejecting the company's latest contract offer, even though it never filed an objection to it.

Judge asks Hostess to mediate with union - Yahoo! Finance

 

[bigscoop]

Does this mean I'm stuck with the 462 boxes of Twinkies I haven't sold yet?

 

[vor]

NO...they lost their livelihoods...that's the free enterprise system at work....get too greedy, and you lose your customers...no customers.
no money...LOL People do a good job of sorting the bad companies from the good ones.
Jim

Not quite. In a free enterprise system a job would earn what management is willing to pay. If workers don't want to work for that, they can quit (or not apply). If there are no takers, the management would have to offer more for the same job.

Eventually an equilibrium will be met based on supply and demand for the position.

In its day, unions were required to keep employers from taking advantage of workers. In today's society, lawyers take care of that problem.

 

[Frankn]

Here's a fact I spotted on the news. There are 12 unions at Hostes, and only one settled, it was the teamsters union. Frank

 

[vor]

Why does Mexico get all the good bread?

First it was Mrs. Bairds bread and now it is Wonder bread. Carlos Slim is now poised to buy up the Wonder brand as Hostess now goes into liquidation.
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012...date-after-last-minute-talks-with-union-fail/

So now, 18,000 people go on the government unemployment, welfare and/or food stamp programs.

And are probably replace with 1,800 jobs in Mexico. Way to hold firm there union leaders. Are you really doing a service to your members and our country?

 

[bigscoop]

You know, in the past, on more then one occasion I've seen Union reps doing everything possible to convince employees to accept some losses and take deals, and yet the employees still voted against it. Union reps can only influence membership, they do not determine the outcome of membership voting. So to say that all union representation is bad isn't accurate. Clearly, at some point, it was the membership that said, "no"......not the Union Officials.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Nah, VOR....the customer is what determines the pay of everyone in the company. The free enterprise system should pit the company against the customer. In the case of Hostess, the battle became the union against the company...both of them forgot that the only way the company survives is to sell a product the customers want, at a price that's competitive with what others are selling the same product for. Basically they ran out of money because they were charging too much for what they were trying to sell. In the end it doesn't matter what management wants to pay. The free enterprise system determined that the pay, for both management and labor, was more then the market was willing to pay. Thus both management and labor are out of a job.
Of course the GOV will probably step in, making a mockery of the system, and bail out the union employees, and that will just waste a bunch of taxpayer dollars.
Jim

 

[Frankn]

Bigscoop, you are dreaming. I worked union for a couple of years. The vote is set long before the vote takes place. I was in the IBEW-- which no longer exists because it wouldn't vote the way National wanted. National came in dissolved the local and set up a new local. The word was the contractors gave National a good "REASON" to. Frank