Unions Kill The Twinkie

[truelies]

owners and management killed this company. Ask me how i know. I worked for Interstate Brands for 8 years as a dough mixer for Wonderbread/Hostess. All you who besmirch the Union don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Glad that at least one other person here seems to grasp the idea that Liberty does not imply that Capital is ALWAYS the good guy and Labor the bad guy. Truth be known if the Company is loosing money the CEO needs to start with a 100% paycut for himself and upper management which is where the problem is. The bakers & trcuk drivers seem to have been doing their jobs competently.

 

[torchbearer]

Glad that at least one other person here seems to grasp the idea that Liberty does not imply that Capital is ALWAYS the good guy and Labor the bad guy. Truth be known if the Company is loosing money the CEO needs to start with a 100% paycut for himself and upper management which is where the problem is. The bakers & trcuk drivers seem to have been doing their jobs competently.

What chaps my ass are people who think they are entitled to a job and are entitled to a certain pay... and entitled to tell other people what to do what their property.
the union as it exist today is a force of aggression against property rights.

in a free society, voluntary unions with no powers beyond those of the individuals in it would exist.

if my employer didn't offer me what i wanted in pay, i wouldn't work for him. period. there's my collective bargain right there. one man picket line.
i survived on my own before him, I will survive without him.

 

[angelatc]

his comment was like a left hook to my jaw. And getting hit by someone i've never met says a lot about his character....and yours.

Lets see...whats the word?...oh yeah...collectivist.

A riot breaks out in South L.A. by mostly black people, destroying shit right?...sooo, in your mind ALL black people are destructive.

I've already posted his apology.

gtfo

Except, of course, the difference is - and this is important - that all unions are destructive to the companies they attach themselves to.

 

[JK/SEA]

Glad that at least one other person here seems to grasp the idea that Liberty does not imply that Capital is ALWAYS the good guy and Labor the bad guy. Truth be known if the Company is loosing money the CEO needs to start with a 100% paycut for himself and upper management which is where the problem is. The bakers & trcuk drivers seem to have been doing their jobs competently.

+rep

 

[JK/SEA]

Except, of course, the difference is - and this is important - that all unions are destructive to the companies they attach themselves to.

everyone's entitled to an opinion whether right or WRONG.

thanks for your mis-guided OPINION.

 

[angelatc]

Glad that at least one other person here seems to grasp the idea that Liberty does not imply that Capital is ALWAYS the good guy and Labor the bad guy. Truth be known if the Company is loosing money the CEO needs to start with a 100% paycut for himself and upper management which is where the problem is. The bakers & trcuk drivers seem to have been doing their jobs competently.

Nothing like a steaming pile of class warfare for breakfast, eh?

ON a per-person basis, their CEO made about 10% of the average for an American CEO. He was relatively new in the position, because the firm had run away from a few guys in the chair before him. The raise he gave himself was 1.8M, which equates to roughly $100 per employee. And the paycuts he was suggesting were across the board - executives included.

On the other hand, the pensions and benefits, which is what was on the table, equated to tens of millions of dollars every year. All the executives could have started working for free and the company would have died.

Remember, the deal included a 25% ownership stake, and two union seats on the board.

The company was bleeding cash. The fact that sales are down because the economy has changed since 2004 (when the last concessions were made) is a no-brainer. It's possible - maybe even probably - that the company would have died anyway, if the workers had truly been team players. But they wanted no responsibility for the company, only the rewards. So they put a bullet in the head of a cancer patient. And we the taxpayers are stuck funding their pensions, while the debt-holders will walk away with the assets, because the employees didn't own anything.

Brilliant fucking strategy. But it does explain why they are driving trucks instead of running companies. Their skillsets are different.

 

[JK/SEA]

What chaps my ass are people who think they are entitled to a job and are entitled to a certain pay... and entitled to tell other people what to do what their property.
the union as it exist today is a force of aggression against property rights.

in a free society, voluntary unions with no powers beyond those of the individuals in it would exist.

if my employer didn't offer me what i wanted in pay, i wouldn't work for him. period. there's my collective bargain right there. one man picket line.
i survived on my own before him, I will survive without him.

in my case, and most others i worked with at Interstate Brands,
never thought we were ENTITLED to work there. After you get hired, you are automatically put on 30 day probation where you can be 'let go' for no reason.

The company in my case 'voluntarily' agreed to a contractual plan that benefited everyone. The company could get quality workers, the workers were paid a competitive wage, everyone made money for as long as the mgmt. could sustain a long term agreement with sales contracts with company's like Burger King, COSTCO, selected grocery chains and kept the Thrift Stores shelves full with product. Simple right?....the one and only reason a company might close the doors is if they can figure out how to make a nickle on a closing, they will. In the case of Hostess, the property the plant sits on may be worth near 10 million...for an acre. You do the math.

 

[torchbearer]

in my case, and most others i worked with at Interstate Brands,
never thought we were ENTITLED to work there. After you get hired, you are automatically put on 30 day probation where you can be 'let go' for no reason.

The company in my case 'voluntarily' agreed to a contractual plan that benefited everyone. The company could get quality workers, the workers were paid a competitive wage, everyone made money for as long as the mgmt. could sustain a long term agreement with sales contracts with company's like Burger King, COSTCO, selected grocery chains and kept the Thrift Stores shelves full with product. Simple right?....the one and only reason a company might close the doors is if they can figure out how to make a nickle on a closing, they will. In the case of Hostess, the property the plant sits on may be worth near 10 million...for an acre. You do the math.

not sure what plant you are talking about... but the one in alexandria... they'd get about 5 million for the whole plant.... maybe.
though, they make mostly wonderbread here. it also fuels a flour production and distribution industry. along with all the support staff that goes along with servicing them. for some reason, this all works without unions. simple.

 

[AuH20]

Glad that at least one other person here seems to grasp the idea that Liberty does not imply that Capital is ALWAYS the good guy and Labor the bad guy. Truth be known if the Company is loosing money the CEO needs to start with a 100% paycut for himself and upper management which is where the problem is. The bakers & trcuk drivers seem to have been doing their jobs competently.

I don't think you read this. The unions were far from blameless:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-workers-and-management-both-caused-the-fall-of-hostess-2012-11

 

[JK/SEA]

I don't think you read this. The unions were far from blameless:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-workers-and-management-both-caused-the-fall-of-hostess-2012-11

lol...that article really says it all. Management fucks up so lets blame the Union....geez...ignorance must be worth a lot to the owners of this company...

 

[angelatc]

lol...that article really says it all. Management fucks up so lets blame the Union....geez...ignorance must be worth a lot to the owners of this company...

Nobody is blaming the union for management's failures. But I think that it's willfully obtuse to refuse to acknowledge that the union just shot themselves, as well as their coworkers, in the foot by turning down the deal that would have kept the doors open.

 

[Carson]

"Unions Kill The Twinkie"

It was the counterfeiting of the dollar that has killed every business model that has ever been conceived.

I mean give me a break. Don't you realize that forty years ago many were convinced that part of our wages should go into retirement funds. Now the retirement day arrives and everyone finds the they lied too. Talk about a robbery of epic proportions!

A lot of it went to minds that hate.

 

[angelatc]

lol...that article really says it all. Management fucks up so lets blame the Union....geez...ignorance must be worth a lot to the owners of this company...

Kaplan noted how that Hostess had ludicrous work rules based on labor contracts—including the requirement of separate drivers for deliveries of such goodies as Yankee Doodles and Nature's Pride Nutty Oat—which exacerbated their huge problem of high labor costs.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-...sed-the-fall-of-hostess-2012-11#ixzz2CUuXUkkc

That's the kind of crap that makes unions unable to compete with free labor markets. Not only is this ridiculous, it would take hours of negotiations and millions in legal fees to ever change what the company is "allowed" to put on their own damned trucks.

I said it before: Unions create malinvestment.

 

[AuH20]

That's the kind of crap that makes unions unable to compete with free labor markets. Not only is this ridiculous, it would take hours of negotiations and millions in legal fees to ever change what the company is "allowed" to put on their own damned trucks.

I said it before: Unions create malinvestment.

Bingo. Think about for a second. Employees demanding how product is delivered, regardless of cost impact??? This is still the USA, or so I'm told.

 

[kylejack]

That was the Teamsters, not the baker's union.

 

[AuH20]

That was the Teamsters, not the baker's union.

We know. The bakers probably had their own arcane rules in place as well.

 

[kylejack]

They went through a bankruptcy in 2004. This was a time for contemplation. Is the business model sustainable? What agreements do we need to make with our employees to ensure profitability and success? If no suitable business model can be developed, there's no point in continuing the company.

They cut a new deal with the baker's union. The employees agreed to take a pay cut. Yet still the company failed. It didn't fail because of the employees, but rather because their business model was flawed, and their sales forecasts were bogus.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

In the case of Hostess, the property the plant sits on may be worth near 10 million...for an acre. You do the math.

And the vultures smelled that miles away...debt killed the company.

The problem with public companies is that there is no "owner", just a collective of shareholders with relatively no voice. You have management, who may not care about the long term viability of the company. That leaves the company vulnerable to a variety of short term bad decisions. A competent owner could have probably solved all of the problems and kept the business running. Management and owners with no concern for keeping the business running will cut and run with a windfall payout when the opportunity presents itself. Taking on debt is a way to get a payout. Creditors selling off the assetts is another way to get a short term payout.

 

[CaseyJones]

he already apologized.

who me? no I did not

 

[AGRP]

Virtually no new products in decades!? No wonder.

Would that have something to do with the union?