Maybe the government will take them over, they've got a great deal of experience with ding-dongs and ho ho's
"The point is the jobs they're offering us aren't worth saving," he said Friday. "It instantly casts me into poverty. I wouldn't be able to make my house payment. My take-home would be less than unemployment benefits. Being on unemployment while we search for a new job, that's a better choice than working these hours for poverty wages."
Typical, corporate greed strikes again.
There ya go. The baker's union would rather quit and take handouts than be 'forced into poverty'.
There ya go. The baker's union would rather quit and take handouts than be 'forced into poverty'.
There ya go. The baker's union would rather quit and take handouts than be 'forced into poverty'.
Unemployment is an insurance you pay into; not so sure you understand the concept of a handout....
I understand that. My point was that they'd rather suck employment while looking for another job, rather than helping keep 18000 people employed, still earning a paycheck, and then looking for another job.
The exact same argument could be made about management. Framing this as entirely on one side or the other is simply not true. It was a collective failing on both sides and it destroyed the company.I understand that. My point was that they'd rather suck employment while looking for another job, rather than helping keep 18000 people employed, still earning a paycheck, and then looking for another job.
Specifically, the goal is to maximize profit for shareholders. Bankruptcy typically doesn't maximize profit from a shareholder's perspective. If management had been able to run things more effectively, including reducing their own wages and increasing the wages of dissatisfied employees, the company might not have folded and the shareholders would have seen a greater return on their investment. Both sides were greedy, to be sure, but you can't excuse the actions of management; they had the power to make things better for their shareholders and they utterly failed in the name of pursuing profits for themselves.Corporate greed? HuffPo level idiocy; you do realize that the goal of all for-profit companies is to *GASP* generate and maximize profit?
Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake.
As if all this were not enough, Hostess Brands management gave themselves several raises, all the while complaining that the workers who actually produced the products that made the firm what money it did earn were grossly overpaid relative to the company’s increasingly dismal financial position.
In 2007 my company took an across-the-board 10% pay cut (except the lowest paid people got no cut and the highest paid took a bigger cut) just to avoid laying off anyone. These people are unwilling to accept an 8% pay cut to keep their own jobs and federal law prevents Hostess from replacing them with people happy to work for 8% less because they are unionized, so sympathy not found. Well, except for those few bakeries that continued working through the strike. Sucks that these people lost their jobs because of some other asshats playing Greece and demanding that someone find a way to pay them more money than the company can afford. And if you can't pay your bills with 92% of your pay, you damned sure can't pay them on unemployment.Yes, people act in their best interest. I'm sure you would take a huge paycut to "help" the company, right? Stupid premise is stupid.
I have a great business model: Lets make snack food, so long we can pay people below market wages it will totally make money!
LMAO!Save the Twinkies!
The White House asks for people to petition the White House to .........wtf? The White House is begging people to petition themselves?
FFS what a crock of shit. Save the Twinkie so some self righteous diet nazi can ban them.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/11/petition-wants-obama-to-save-twinkies-149789.html
Looks like today might be the end of Twinkies.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/14/news/companies/hostess-liquidation-thursday/index.html?iid=Popular
Maybe after the dust settles the Chinese will buy the rights to Twinkies and make them in China for sale in the US.
why the hell did the Bakers union make Hostess go bankrupt instead of conceeding some benefits/pay!?!
now ALL their members plus members in other Unions are OUT OF WORK!
WTFLogicNotFound!
why the hell did the Bakers union make Hostess go bankrupt instead of conceeding some benefits/pay!?!
now ALL their members plus members in other Unions are OUT OF WORK!
WTFLogicNotFound!
In 2007 my company took an across-the-board 10% pay cut (except the lowest paid people got no cut and the highest paid took a bigger cut) just to avoid laying off anyone. These people are unwilling to accept an 8% pay cut to keep their own jobs and federal law prevents Hostess from replacing them with people happy to work for 8% less because they are unionized, so sympathy not found. Well, except for those few bakeries that continued working through the strike. Sucks that these people lost their jobs because of some other asshats playing Greece and demanding that someone find a way to pay them more money than the company can afford. And if you can't pay your bills with 92% of your pay, you damned sure can't pay them on unemployment.
If the union believes the company can afford to pay these people their current wages, let the union buy the company. There's about to be a big sale . . .
On the bright side, the death of Hostess will hopefully mean stores replacing their products with the much superior Little Debbie products. Who here has eaten a Twinkie even within the last decade?
I really have my doubts that the labor Attys trying to negotiate it would act irrationally and against their self-interest (ie retaining jobs). I would guess it was the case that in order for the company to stay solvent, they would have to convince the employee to take below market wages... in which case it may be more beneficial to strike and essentially quit while being able to collect unemployment.
This line of reasoning is sound, until you consider that the pay for executives in the company had grown far faster than the pay for other employees. According to HuffPo, the president got a 300+% raise in salary this year to get around bankruptcy compensation rules, and over the last few years, top executives saw their salaries grow by 80%. It's easy to stomach an 8% salary decrease if your salary has nearly doubled over the last few years, but it's disingenuous at best to claim that it is in any way equitable when compared to a cut for lesser-paid employees who never got those raises. The actions of the union certainly helped make the situation worse, but let's not excuse the actions of the individuals at the top who had the benefit of giving themselves more money while decrying their greedy workforce. You want to talk about an entitlement mentality, what about the executives who feel they're entitled to millions in bonuses and raises while their company is struggling to stay afloat?In 2007 my company took an across-the-board 10% pay cut (except the lowest paid people got no cut and the highest paid took a bigger cut) just to avoid laying off anyone. These people are unwilling to accept an 8% pay cut to keep their own jobs and federal law prevents Hostess from replacing them with people happy to work for 8% less because they are unionized, so sympathy not found. Well, except for those few bakeries that continued working through the strike. Sucks that these people lost their jobs because of some other asshats playing Greece and demanding that someone find a way to pay them more money than the company can afford. And if you can't pay your bills with 92% of your pay, you damned sure can't pay them on unemployment.
If the union believes the company can afford to pay these people their current wages, let the union buy the company. There's about to be a big sale . . .
On the bright side, the death of Hostess will hopefully mean stores replacing their products with the much superior Little Debbie products. Who here has eaten a Twinkie even within the last decade?
We're getting our asses kicked by Japanese and Korean companies. Isn't it funny how those companies are able to make good, innovative products while paying their CEOs significantly less than the CEOs of American companies earn? How can they manage to entice top talent while paying so little? It boggles the mind!When CEOs in China make huge mistakes they get Executed. When they make mistakes over here they get golden parachutes.
CEOs get all the credit for when the company does well, but it seems that the "greedy" workers get all the blame for the fact that the company sold off all of its profitable assets and did nothing to change its declining business other than to continue to decrease salary and obligations to its workers while increasing their own pay.
We're getting our asses kicked by Japanese and Korean companies. Isn't it funny how those companies are able to make good, innovative products while paying their CEOs significantly less than the CEOs of American companies earn? How can they manage to entice top talent while paying so little? It boggles the mind!