Don't Support Union Busting Hostess Twinkees !

[BrownBrokeDown]

So I am supposed to boycott a product because the workers, by their own choice, voted themselves out of a job? They were told if you don't accept these terms we are going out of business, they did not accept the terms and they did just that. They were warned beforehand, it was no surprise that hostess was in dire financial straights, but they voted themselves out of a job anyway. Exactly how is that the company's fault again?

Do you even know what really happened. If all your going off of is "they voted themselves out of a job" you should do some research. Here I'll help you out. This is the top 1% hostess management and the union talking over the last 5 yrs or so.

Hostess: I'm sorry but we're going bankrupt. Can you take you take a paycut.
Union: Um, ok. We don't want to go out of business.
Hostess talking amongst themselves: Awesome. We can give ourselves a raise now.
Hostess: I'm sorry, we still losing money. Another paycut?
Union: I guess...if needed.
Hostess talking amongst themselves: You gotta be kidding. Let's give ourselves a bonus in celebration.
Hostess: How about another paycut? Bankruptcy and all that, you know.
Union: friend!@# you. You take the d!@# paycut. We not sacrificing anymore while you just give yourselves more money.

 

[stink219]

Hostess: Ok we will close shop and everyone will be out of work.

 

[AZBrown]

Ask the flight controllers.

Amen

Hostess: Ok we will close shop and everyone will be out of work.

That's horse drizzle.....
And it's the crap that they use to scare every voting member.
"They" won't be out of work. They've probably already moved onto destroying the next company.
I've lived that whole pantload of lies by YRC before I finally had the sense to get out. (Any older feeder driver should know what I refer to)
What's a guy supposed to do? Vote himself into poverty and accept every concession with a jar of Vaseline?
Then he's doing no better than the "Bimbo" he's working along side of.

 

[Coldworld]

That's one of many things that are wrong with this country. I bought a T-shirt ,cotton from USA assembled in Malaysia then sent back to the USA to be sold. WTF!!!

American Apparel..made in the USA t-shirts, hoodies, shoes, underwear..etc..in downtown Los Angeles...they have thousands of american workers and they are doing great as a producer of american made clothing..they even have their own stores in some of the hippest places around the globe. Most companies could make things here if they wanted and still make a good profit..they choose not to...

 

[stink219]

That's horse drizzle.....
And it's the crap that they use to scare every voting member.
"They" won't be out of work.

They are out of work. What are you talking about?

 

[Catatonic]

Do you even know what really happened. If all your going off of is "they voted themselves out of a job" you should do some research. Here I'll help you out. This is the top 1% hostess management and the union talking over the last 5 yrs or so.

Hostess: I'm sorry but we're going bankrupt. Can you take you take a paycut.
Union: Um, ok. We don't want to go out of business.
Hostess talking amongst themselves: Awesome. We can give ourselves a raise now.
Hostess: I'm sorry, we still losing money. Another paycut?
Union: I guess...if needed.
Hostess talking amongst themselves: You gotta be kidding. Let's give ourselves a bonus in celebration.
Hostess: How about another paycut? Bankruptcy and all that, you know.
Union: friend!@# you. You take the d!@# paycut. We not sacrificing anymore while you just give yourselves more money.

Problem is that the Union employees lost their jobs and benefits and "Hostess" got bonuses and pay increases.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Problem is that the Union employees lost their jobs and benefits and "Hostess" got bonuses and pay increases.

You have posted in previous threads on this same subject that this was the plan all along.

 

[BrownBrokeDown]

Stink and Hoax, you're right. They did lose their jobs. But sometimes you have to take a stand and say enough is enough. I was in a non-union job in a different situation, but I had to make that same decision. Yes, it sucks to basically choose to walk away from your job. I'm sure a lot of them wound in major financial difficulties. If they didn't make that choice, how many more times would they have been asked to sacrifice while the higher ups got more money? At what point did Hostess actually show that they cared about staying in business? At what point did the top 1% in the company offer to take pay cuts to stay in business?

 

[Lineandinitial]

"Take a stand"??? Har Har Har. Since when does principle account for paying bills, food, education for kids, etc. Go rally the ex workers and start your own twinkie company. Do all the hard up-front work and take all the risk and then pay everyone appropriately.

 

[stink219]

Stink and Hoax, you're right. They did lose their jobs. But sometimes you have to take a stand and say enough is enough. I was in a non-union job in a different situation, but I had to make that same decision. Yes, it sucks to basically choose to walk away from your job. I'm sure a lot of them wound in major financial difficulties. If they didn't make that choice, how many more times would they have been asked to sacrifice while the higher ups got more money? At what point did Hostess actually show that they cared about staying in business? At what point did the top 1% in the company offer to take pay cuts to stay in business?

You should be asking the guy that has not gotten a job yet. A 7% unemployment rate nationally and a 10% locally is enough for people to hold on the their career. If your income falls below what you could get elsewhere, I'd say you are correct.

 

[BrownBrokeDown]

You should be asking the guy that has not gotten a job yet. A 7% unemployment rate nationally and a 10% locally is enough for people to hold on the their career. If your income falls below what you could get elsewhere, I'd say you are correct.

Trust me, I understand that. Where I live, when the telecommunications companies and others went out of business in the early 2000's, there was rampant unemployment. I was without a job for 11 months. My point about Hostess, is that the people that were running the company, had no intentions of saving the company as long as the union was still there. If they had intended to save the company you would have seen more efforts than just the union workers taking hits. If they had held on, it would just have been a repeated pattern over and over, until there was nothing left anyway.

 

[BrownBrokeDown]

"Take a stand"??? Har Har Har. Since when does principle account for paying bills, food, education for kids, etc. Go rally the ex workers and start your own twinkie company. Do all the hard up-front work and take all the risk and then pay everyone appropriately.

Principles account for a lot. They are what your kids should be learning. When I was in my personal situation that I briefly mentioned, my wife, kids and I all set down and made the decision together. Everyone understood what was going to happen, and that there was going to be many sacrifices. I guess it's all about a persons perspective on the issue.

 

[stink219]

That's probably true.

 

[AZBrown]

They are out of work. What are you talking about?

My "they" refers to the executives that ran that company into the ground, all while retaining their ivory back scratchers, and Swarovski crystal ash trays, for their illegal Cuban cigars.

 

[Wally]

A big part of the problem was the price of sugar. Sugar price is controlled in the US to protect Florida sugar cane production. Sugar is much cheaper in Mexico.

Another big problem is market share which was going down steadily year after year.

 

[Bagels]

Hostess was competing in a declining market with aging facilities and high labor & distribution costs.

Does management share a large blame of Hostess's problems? Yes. Does our society reward executive management teams for failure? Yes. Did Hostess's new "owners" purchase the company with the intentions of profiting off its liquidation? Perhaps.

But what mattered is that the company's cash flow had become a concern, and the company simply couldn't raise its prices to cover it -- one of Hostess's biggest problems is that the recession had accelerated people's transition toward cheaper, substitute products. Without question, if Hostess were to survive, it needed to lower its labor costs. It reached a deal with the IBT, but its other unions wouldn't budge. It's been argued that they believe the company was headed for liquidation, anyway, and they were attempting to protect the industry wage but I don't buy that considering that only a small portion of the industry remains unionized (covering a small geographic region).

The workers that voted against the concessions did so because they believed they could earn similar wages elsewhere should the company liquidate (just as many UPS drivers believe they could earn $32+/hour w/no-cost benefits elsewhere). Instead, today they're competing for their old jobs at the many companies that purchased pieces of Hostess. And most of these jobs will pay barely above minimum wage, with no benefits offered.

 

[Gary Edward Esch]

My dad worked for hostess for 24 years and when the company folded he had already taken so many parts as a teamsters truck driver to be making what he made 15years ago.... By the way the bakers were the ones who stroked to not take more cuts then they already had and minutes after they striked and hostess said fine then we're closing for bankruptcy the bakers tried to give in and take the cuts the teamsters drivers were already taking for three months but hostess said no too late.. Planned it all along... Texted my dad the Friday before Thanksgiving and said don't come to work tomorrow... Did not get a full weeks worth of pay, no severance and no 60 day notice... The past year and a half before closing the high level 1% were steeling money workers were paying to pensions and putting it in their own bank account... My dad's pension will now be $1200 rather than $2100 thanks to them and they got away with it

 

[anonymous6]

My dad worked for hostess for 24 years and when the company folded he had already taken so many parts as a teamsters truck driver to be making what he made 15years ago.... By the way the bakers were the ones who stroked to not take more cuts then they already had and minutes after they striked and hostess said fine then we're closing for bankruptcy the bakers tried to give in and take the cuts the teamsters drivers were already taking for three months but hostess said no too late.. Planned it all along... Texted my dad the Friday before Thanksgiving and said don't come to work tomorrow... Did not get a full weeks worth of pay, no severance and no 60 day notice... The past year and a half before closing the high level 1% were steeling money workers were paying to pensions and putting it in their own bank account... My dad's pension will now be $1200 rather than $2100 thanks to them and they got away with it

that's really sad and it's scary too. thanks for posting a first hand account.

 

[Winston Smith 6076]

Taste better without union/thug labor. I'll buy me a box tonight! Yum!

 

[brownmonster]

Taste better without union/thug labor. I'll buy me a box tonight! Yum!

You are getting old with your multiple user names.