Slashdot Mirror
Hostess To Close; No More Twinkies
RenderSeven writes "In a press release issued today, baker Hostess Brands asked a bankruptcy court for permission to close all of its plants and sell off their assets, immediately laying off 18,500 workers. Citing high labor and rising health care costs, increasing competition and growing consumer awareness of healthy foods, Hostess says it can no longer operate without union concessions. A crippling strike has already shut down operations at all facilities, and while the Teamsters Union has ratified a new contract to keep Hostess in business, the Bakers Union has refused saying they would rather see the company closed than accept pension cuts. The Teamsters union is urging the bakers union to hold a secret ballot on whether to continue striking; citing its financial experts who had access to the company's books, the Teamsters say that Hostess' warning of liquidation is 'not an empty threat or a negotiating tactic' but a certain outcome if workers keep striking. If your late-night programming is fueled by Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Zingers, better stock up now."
[Editor's note: A whole bunch of users submitted this news. I worry about our readership's cholesterol levels.]
Tallahassee said to be inconsolable.
s/[stupid comments]/[intelligent discourse]/gi
Given the teamsters reputation, the bakers' leadership could soon change....
Or bail them out?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Talk about unexpected events! I would expect the investment to be rolling in with the recent wins for pot legalization. I mean, isn't that the old joke? If pot were ever legalized, Hostess would clean up?
What will the people of colorado do?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Not.
I wonder what these idiots were thinking.
Just before Dec. 21, coincidence?
Table-ized A.I.
It's never management's fault the company is failing, it's always the "Unions, Unions, Unions".
If a company can't afford to pay a living wage, a company SHOULD go out of business.
I am certain someone will pick up the assets and consumers will still get their food products.
NOOOOOO!
Twinkies are already pretty valuable in the post apocalyptic world.
Now they're rare too? Who needs gold when you got a twinkie warehouse!
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Bimbo Bakery, a 10 billion dollar Mexican multinational conglomerate baking company, is looking to purchase them (for the second time.) in fact, Bimbo could have easily purchased the entire thing while hostess was on the ropes, as hostess is only worth 2.7 billion in revenue, but hostess (headquartered in texas) declined to do so.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Hostess should have moved twinkie production to China.
Lesson learned!!!
Little Debbie better watch out. She's about to get a bunch of pasty, fat, basement-dwelling boyfriends.
lol http://www.examiner.com/article/the-twinkies-zombie-apocalypse-has-officially-begun
What will Zippy put his taco sauce on now?
Nooooooo!!!!!
P.S. I hate the lameness filter.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
but the 2-packs of orange cupcakes... ahhh! The only time I ever see them (fortunately) is backwoods gas stations on road trips.
Back on topic, seems the BCT union would rather be unemployed than take a pay cut.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The Yucca Mountain Waste Repository will not be built, so the sooner we can stop building Twinkies the better.
We have to depend on inferior foreign imports..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What are we going to eat after the nuclear fallout from world war III?
For us in Washington. Thank God there still making Doritos.
Way to go, Hostess management. Don't let the door hit you in your partially hydrogenated ass on the way out!
Considering that their product has a shelf life best measured in geologic terms, and is often functionally identical to substances used in ancient Egyptian mummification practices, I think that nothing of value was lost.
Except the jobs themselves, that is. It's going to be *such* a merry Christmas for their workforce this year.
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
While I have some nostalgia over Twinkies, the fact remains the stuff is utter garbage.
Honestly, this stuff makes other junk food like Cheetos and Pop Tarts look healthy in comparison.
... is devastated by the news!
Nasty corn syrup and whipped animal fat things... I haven't eaten one in almost three decades.
what happens to those pensions? They will be cutted anyway I suppose? Does not sound like the Bakers Union have a clue.
Let me get this straight: I am not, will not, and never have been fueled by Ding Dongs. In fact, I find them very discouraging to tell you the truth. I must also disclaim my lack of interest in TwinkTits and Swingerz. Let me also say, that if you think those things are Baked, think again. I believe they are instant chemical reactions achieved when sugar is mixed with stewed mattress foam and morphine.
The Twinkie is a symbol of steadfastness, of resistance to change. No matter the environment, it remains obdurate and unimpressed. The recipe has not changed in decades. This must be Obama's first step towards his promises of change! Next targets: the McDonald's french fry and The Legend of Zelda.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Now we'll have to eat Snowballs or drive across country in search of Twinkies.
I know this is being framed as a unions / management story, and that's fine and at least partly true, but really: Hostess is losing money because their products are horribly unhealthy and people are wising up about it. People wonder why Americans are fat, and the reason is always because companies like Hostess haven't gone out of business sooner.
When people learn about junk like healthy eating, companies like Hostess need to either reform or get replaced. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with a company being replaced.
I want to be clear that I don't dislike Hostess, but it appears that they have served their purpose.
If not them, then someone else will buy those brands.
Thank you, but I top off with a pulled pork sandwich or plate of deep-fried pepperoni when needed.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Now we're supposed to settle for deep-fried Snickers bars?
Won't somebody please think of the Ho-Hos?
Twinkies suck. Ho-Hos are where it's at. I freely admit though, I haven't eaten a Ho-Ho since... maybe my early 20s. I have many fond memories of them from childhood though. Oh, the sweet, savored pleasure of unwinding them. The thin layers of chocolate that would flake off the outside. That last bit of thin cake and cream core...
Alas, the desire for extreme sugar waned with youth. Health consciousness took the front seat. Would it be so bad to take a walk down that aisle just one last time? Maybe not; but it's raining today. Besides. That shit's bad for you.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Just like "The Sharper Image" and "Circuit City," the Twinkie name will live on. It is a name that is worth probably around half a billion dollars per year to a company that is able to manage it correctly. There may be a few months in which Twinkies are off the shelves, but they'll be back.
The twinkies available now will be good for most of the next 657,000 years due to all the preservatives.
They'll just get a bit crunchier after the first millennium or so.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's this kind of attitude of unions in the US which makes me say most have outlived their usefulness and something I had to explain when I lived in Germany to the Europeans that the union in the US are nothing like the unions in Europe. Many of the unions in the US are basically racketeers with a bully complex. In Europe if jobs had to be lost, usually the Union would step in and help provide those members with job training to find a new job. If that's what unions did in the US, I'd probably be more supportive.
What union really thinks that it's better for a company to go out of business and everyone in the union lose their job than to try and save as many as possible? Because a union worker making $0 isn't contributing any dues.
When the hostess brand gets bought, do the unions think the new owners are going to do? Maybe they'll keep the old benefits, but only hire back half the workers.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
No more deep fried twinkies! What will we eat at the state fair...
The only reason Hostess decided to close is to use bankruptcy law to attack the unions - and replace them with employer-supported unions such as contract workers from staffing agencies. This usually comes from companies based out of the South where workers are to "know their place" and businesses are to not be questioned.
Get rid of the provision that voids union contracts on bankruptcy and make Right to Work apply to contractors and part-time labor.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It's as if 90,000,000 fat sweaty nerds all cried out at once..... and are still whining.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Remember Twinkie, The Kid? R.I.P.
Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow #5, red #40.
RIP!
Fried Ice Cream Fried Snickers Bars Fried Bacon Fried Pickles Fried Avocado Fried Coca Cola Fried Key Lime Pie it doesn't really end....
It's as if millions of nerds, comic book store operators and World of Warcraft players suddenly cried out and then were silenced.. (as they rushed to their stores to secure loads of Twinkies and Ding-dongs)
I would be more worried about carcinogens and blood sugar level myself
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Hostess has been a major arms dealer in the war against diabetes in the US. It's great to see them finally fail.
Next up: McDonalds? Dare we dream?
The US gov't should be heavily taxing food this unhealthy or subsidizing food that is healthy. Neither of these is happening, and it's fucking ridiculous.
Hostess (like Kodak), maybe they should have considered the same couple decades ago with more emphasis on healthy eating? That's a tough call (tougher if executives wanting to pad themselves with million dollar bonuses). OTOH in someways it doesn't seem in real practical terms we are working on more healthy eating as US population getting more obese. But maybe it depends on what culture (higher ups as compared to working stiffs in urban cities). I cannot help but think of a PBS show few years ago which this person described how society emphasizes unhealthy eating habits by constant promotion of fast food that is loaded with way too much protein and fat in easy to get quantities. He suggested a national program to discourage eating unhealthy foods like programs that discourage smoking. Fast food is a huge industry so that's a big lobby to deal with. However, circumstances can put a big company out of business.
There was a time when camera film was The Thing and Kodak ruled. But along came digital technology that made film irrelevant. What should Kodak have done? Some say as far back as 1980s use their huge cash reserves to buy new technology startups and get into something besides film. I was reading Richard Elkus' book "Winner Take All" which it described there were people way back when looking into digital cameras (they didn't call it that but were considering emerging technologies i.e. ICs, video recording, etc. and how it can be put together).
It seems Hostess was a large infrastructure with a lot of people that have gone down the drain like what used to be in Rochester NY. A significant loss.
mfwright@batnet.com
That grocery store was fully stocked. It was odd that they ran out of one particular item. Now, however, it makes perfect sense! Twinkies were discontinued, then zombies showed up, and now Tallahassee can't find any.
I made this pic when I heard the news today:
https://i.minus.com/jbbRIi8sgiGgHs.jpg
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I fear for what this world has become is a company is so inept that it can't make money selling fat, lard, and chocolate to Americans...
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Too delicious to fail!
It was announced on the CBC News today that "American" twinkies would be shutting down, but that the Canadian supply would be unaffected.
Even my Indian wife who’s never eaten a twinkie knows what “twinkie” implies in terms of inflexible industrial weirdness, post-modern food culture, and unimaginable chemistry and preservatives.
We’re losing that, and because of the shared loss of context, I grieve.
So the firm was managed by hedge funds, 300% increase for execs, borrow as much as possible, break the union, sell the assets.
Blame the union.
MAKE MONEY.
Well played.
Dare we dream?
People in America once dreamed of the liberty to do as they damn well pleased.
And look what they did with their "freedom".
If they could have held on until more states legalized pot they could have been bigger than Apple.
Little Debbie has you covered.
http://www.littledebbie.com/products/cloudcakes.asp
Besides, Cloud Cakes is a much more appropriate name for the Slashdot folks, who spend most of their waking hours in the cloud.
What company has to close if workers are on strike for a WHOLE WEEK? The company doesn't have to pay hourly workers who don't show up to work...
This looks to me like a corporate version of "suicide by cop"--run your company into the ground (6 CEOs in 10 years, many executives getting big raises, company owned by hedge funds and venture capitalists, company has big debt), and then keep cutting workers pay until they have to say "enough". And then blame the unions.
If you're a company, which is failing and cannot be saved, and you have union workers, how else do you expect the company to finally close up shop? This is what it looks like--try to blame the unions.
The union says they already had half their members laid off, have already cut their pay to below industry average, etc. The union website before the strike started said the following (see http://bctgm.org/PDFs/HostessFactSheet.pdf):
Hostess is not and will not be viable: If Hostess emerges from bankruptcy under its present plan,
it will still have too much debt, too high costs and not enough access to cash to stay in business for
the long term. It will not be able to invest in its plants, in new products and in new technology.
---
I hope someone buys Drake's.
Citing high labor and rising health care costs, increasing competition and growing consumer awareness of healthy foods...
Translation: we have finally reached the point where our customers know better than to buy our products, and the health problems caused by our products have pushed our health care costs to unsustainable levels.
I look forward to the day when the tobacco industry releases a statement like this.
If only this had happened 34 years ago...
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
I'm a huge Hostess fan, but their prices were always ridiculous in compares to competitors.
Hostess creme filled chocolate cupcakes are heaven, but with Little Debbie being 2/3's the price, it's a no brainer.
The Hostess unions and management went through their negotiations. The workers found the company's terms unacceptable and went on strike. The company couldn't function and decided the best decision was to cease operations and liquidate the company's assets. The union understood that this was a possibility.
What about when government unions strike? Are we going to close down a school, sell off the assets and return the wealth to the taxpayers? It might not be a bad idea, but I can't see it actually happening. Until that outcome is a genuine risk, government unions have way too much leverage over the taxpayer and shouldn't be allowed to exist.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twinkies-1-Box-of-10-Individually-Packaged-Sponge-Cakes-/121021624569?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2d7370f9
I'm sad for the loss of Twinkies (ate a pack of Zingers today as a tribute), but I'm more upset at the loss of Wonder and Merita bread. My family goes through a SmartWheat and a Cinnamon Raisin loaf a week. We save a small fortune buying it from their local outlet store (last trip netted 8 loaves and a bag of doughnuts for $4.61). I grew up on Merita Old-Fashioned White bread (a 100-year old brand, BTW). Like others have said, I suspect another company will buy the brands and start producing again so maybe my angst will be short lived.
You can always make your own:
http://leitesculinaria.com/71100/recipes-homemade-twinkies.html
This wouldn't have happend if the bakers union had conceeded.
This wouldn't have happend if Hostess had better management.
It doesn't matter if you have the best management in the world, if your workers all at once decide to shut you down.
The workers thought management was bluffing but oddly they really did not have large bags of gold they slept on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This usually comes from companies based out of the South where workers are to "know their place" and businesses are to not be questioned.
Ignorant Yankee.
-- An immediate 100% percent wage cut.
-- Shifting 500% percent more of health care costs onto the workers (for some workers, this would mean an increased cost of $4000 a month or more for medical insurance).
-- Eliminating retiree Medigap insurance, which covers gaps in Medicare.
-- Eliminating Pension altogether
-- Closing ALL plants.
-- Eliminating the eight-hour day, which would mean no time-and-a-half pay after eight hours per day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I followed your advice...
Anyone saying the Unions did this is buying the PR line and not looking at FCC filings for the last 3 chapter 11s they issued.
Exactly which part of the spectrum was Hostess licensining for twinkies again? I was unable to find it...
In an unrelated matter, Hostess Brands, Inc. doesn't have a stock ticker, since they are not a publicly held company, so there are no 10-Q or other filings to look at.
Commodity prices are on the rise. In a weak market with cash-strapped consumers, producers have little flexibility to pass price increases onto their customers. That means shrinking margins, and if the margins get too slim, it means cutting costs.
What did Hostess really have besides some brand recognition to differentiate itself from the dozens of other junk food producers? Seems like unions and management were fighting over their share of a shrinking Twinkie.
There is no mystery about what the union was thinking. They want to send a message to the rest of the baking industry -- meet our demands or we can and will put you out of business.
The union happily sacrificed 18,000 jobs. They really don't care about their workers. Losing the dues sucks, but the only thing that is really important is union power. Since union power was the only thing preserved in this debacle, that's the only possible reason for their actions.
All those posters saying that this had to do with changing eating habits are ignoring the fact that the trademarks will be purchased by a non-union baker who will continue to sell Twinkies. Twinkies aren't going away.
Or, if that is all too much to follow just look at it this way. The union has just outsourced 18,000 jobs to Mexico.
Who is John Galt?
And that there is the core of problem.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Apparently Hostess brands in Canada are unaffected - you'll be able to import twinkies... ;)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/snack-giant-hostess-shuttering-us-business-but-canada-unaffected/article5365001/
BlackNova Traders
In one fell swoop you've shown how ignorant Americans can be. Good show old chap, good show.
srsly?
with the 80% raise that they gave themselves recently?
They jsut spout their "union=bad" non sense.
Firstly the owner simply bled hostress dry using the same hedge venture capitalism tactic, sadly the main company with debt and use off shoot or diverse tactic to skim it. Secondely, their legal action cost (14 million) are about the same as the pay cut they requested. You read that right. So the money was there to vie for legal action, but not for the employee. Furthermore the judge also remakred there were some strange point, and I am pretty sure he will rise an eyebrow at declaring bankruptcy so quick. There are other point but those person screaming "union killed hostess" have no FUCKING clue on the true story. They jsut react like apvlov dogs reading a story where union is involved and poof they jump on the union=bad bandwagon.
But stereotyping is cool *if you are not an American*. Got it.
...here.
Bottom line: wrong business, wrong capital structure, wrong unions, wrong economy, wrong government.
No management could have kept this thing solvent.
The US quite desperately needs to repeal the Ethanol mandate and bio-fuel tax incentives and get food price inflation under control.
Screw the Iowa caucus.
I haven't eaten anything branded Hostess in 19 years, and the last time 19 years ago was an isolated atypical incident. The world can do without one corporation that concentrates wealth and makes its customers directly unhealthier while doing it.
Now my Twinkies Cookbook is going to be useless... :(
When someone says, "Any fool can see
so we can all go into our own twinkie businesses
get their friends to set their salaries like the CEO does? If not, then the hypocrisy is on your side.
No doubt they'll end up selling the assets to some other company (Bimbo was mentioned above) and the products will still end up on store shelves.
Plus, it's not like there aren't dozens of knock-off brands that are just as bad or even worse.
What exactly did GP say that "[showed his ignorance]" to you?
I hope the union learned a valuable lesson from this but I bet they didn't. All those anti-big business morons who think they're entitled to 1 and only 1 job in their lifetime with amazing pay regardless of skill or performance better wake the hell up. Big, evil bosses can work people for 16 hours at crap pay but unions can hold a whole company ransom and then drive it straight into the ground. Power is power and it can be evil on either side of the coin. So if people ask if I'm anti-union or anti-corporations, I just say I'm actually anti-asshole on both counts.
how will he ever make do with the multi-million dollar raise he gave himself.
Hostess had been based in Kansas City from 1930 to 2004. It went bankrupt in 2004 and re-emerged under a slightly different name, and moved to Texas. In January of this year, it filed for bankruptcy again. That there happens to be a strike going on just added to the companies problems, but they have been in a downward spiral for some time. I haven't eaten a Twinkie(tm) in years. I stay away from Wonder Bread(tm). There was a time when people would eat this stuff, and it was a treat that they would work off pulling a plow or working at the slaughterhouse. With a more sedentary lifestyle, this stuff clogs your heart and it stays clogged. People stop buying in order to stop dying. As a result the company has less business. Surprise!
the company's been in bankruptcy twice so far. the only people making any money are the executives that are bleeding the company dry. Then again, you actually are sense enough to believe this even when you aren't corporate whoring.
why make the effort to even appear to care when you can just screw over everyone for your own personal benefit. And you appear to actually be morally bankrupt to think that is a good thing.
So the answer to "people are more aware of what is healthy" is to close up shop rather than making something healthy?
or else!
Marijuana is becoming more legal in more places and NOW the go out og business.
Man, bad timing.
really they suffer a branding issue.
They weren't aggressive against dispelling the myths, and they need to jump on the retro bandwagon and use 1950 post war packaging
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hostess has recently had some of the highest priced snack cakes in the supermarket. Their sales have fallen off. There is competition in the free market. The union wanted a bigger slice of pie from a smaller pie. The company knew it couldn't survive a labor strike. The union was not recognizing the situation. The company cut the losses instead of bleeding to death and is putting the assets on the market.
Fast forward to the new soak the rich plan Obama has for what 1.6 Trillion Dollars? The pie they plan on bleeding will rapidly vanish. The high income folks will no longer make high income here with the high overhead. Businesses will shutter and the capitol will rapidly move to more friendly to business markets.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/share-this-massive-list-of-post-election-firings-and-layoffs-with-everyone-you-can
Is your employeer leaving town? Why would they stay. Those dependant on the government will stay and sign up for all the bailouts and handouts they can get. Those stuck with the skyrocketing bill will move assets elsewhere.
The truth shall set you free!
If hostess was addictive, they wouldn't have a problem.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hostess snacks are not made with animal fats, but hydrogenated vegetable oils. They are therefore cholesterol free. It's you crazy people on low-carb diets that have the cholesterol problems. Us twinkie fans just have obesity induced diabetes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Workers are begining to again fight back against unfair labor practices. For too long workers have been apathetic and instead of demanding resonable wages have had fallen for the ruse of debt as a way to subsidies thier income. Well no more! We need to stand together and demand our rights, demand to be heard. The gap between CEO pay and that of the average worker has grown exponentially over the last few decades. Worker pay has failed to keep up with inflation for even longer than that. How many other companies will have to face a similar fate. How many other companies will refuse to respect worker rights. Now is the time for all workers to stand together united and let our voices be heard. The christmas season is the perfect time for each of us to refuse to support such corporations. How will this nation change if the stores are empty on black friday and instead we are spending time with our loved-ones.
What will they do without Twinkies? :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
As part of a recent bankruptcy settlement the unions agreed to wage and benefit cuts. Once out of bankruptcy, the management proceeded to pay themselves huge bonuses instead of reinvesting in the company.
If this fucking shit can happen to twinkles, it can happen to any fucking thing. Hostess Twinkies, holy fucking shit, this calls everything into question. What the fuck can't disappear? Air gone next? Water disappears? Fuck a duck, this shit is disconcerting.
In the past, there were always Twinkies in the future. Now... what the fuck.
Here's the thing: the products produced by Hostess--especially Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, Ho-Hos, etc.--still have very strong product recognition. As such, the bakeries where these products are made could be snapped up VERY fast by a number of bidders.
Hillshire Brands, the former Sara Lee minus the beverage operation, may make a bid for the Wonder Bread operation. And there maybe others bidding for other parts of Hostess' operation. However, don't expect Bimbo Bakeries USA, the US division of Mexico's gigantic Grupo Bimbo, to make any bids--Bimbo Bakeries USA is already hugely dominant in the US market with a large number products well-known in US supermarkets and any attempt to take any part of Hostess' property may be considered anti-competitive by the FTC and/or Justice Department Antitrust Division.
From what I've heard, it's less "larger slice of a smaller pie" and more that they didn't want 8% pay cuts and 20% health care cost increases while executive compensation skyrocketed, in a company with a recent history of contract violations, multiple bankruptcies and chain of six incompetent, looting CEOs in under a decade.
It seems to me that once the workers got fed up with the perpetual mismanagement and looting of a company being dragged down and called a strike, the executives saw the perfect opportunity to cash in one last time and blame the unions for it.
Same here. I really didn't like the damned things. Too much sugar and not much else. At least tastykakes have some flavor.
As one post earlier said, even if Hostess closes for good, Twinkies are manufactured by Bimbo Bakery in Mexico and LatinAmerica (ane believe me, *MOUNTAINS* of Twinkies) so don't worry they will not become gold-like currency in your Post-Apocalypse wet dream.
Bimbo just will try to buy the name in USA and/or import them to USA. PROFIT and goodbye unions! And yes they brought Sara Lee and another American bakeries under your nose some years ago. Well you does the same with us down here in Mexico, so sometime is nice to see that someone comes up there and eat your market for a change. ;)
While it takes the whole company out, they didn't do it on strict financial grounds. See American Airlines for a case of strategic bankruptcy, albeit on slightly better financial grounds.
I provided solutions, modbombers register only their hate of them. In fact, I even recognize that there is a problem on the employer end where it solves a major problem with Right to Work - that it does nothing against employers that form unions.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
A side story on Twinkies is the trial of Dan White, where he used Twinkies as a defense. From Wikipedia:
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression. His change in diet from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary food was said to be a symptom of depression. Contrary to common belief, White's attorneys did not argue that the Twinkies were the cause of White's actions, but that their consumption was symptomatic of his underlying depression. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter."
For years angry San Franciscans would spray paint the word "Defense" below the Twinkies sign, only to have it removed shortly afterwards.
but you lack the moral backbone to admit it.
or do you just whore this BS knowing that nobody is ignorant enough to believe you.
How much the CEO of Goodwill makes?
since the company is filing for bankruptcy. Of course, we already know that even you consider your attempted explanation to a a bunch of impotent distraction. That's why you tried to bring in a minority to scapegoat.
Ask yourself why there are no American cruise lines and then go look up the real cause. Unions are a 20th century artifact and no longer serve any purpose except to milk the remaining drops out of a dying cow. Every unionized industry not dependent on public support is either disappearing or already dead. Argue all you want about the noble cause of unions, but this story and a thousand others illustrate the opposite.
It is going to be a long 4 years for a lot of people, not all of whom really deserve it.
Non-governmental unions are weaker because the industries that they took over no longer exist or are a shadow of what they used to be. The cruise ship industry was mandated by a Democratic congress to be unionized and disappeared virtually overnight. Sure, there are still Americans working cruise liners, but they are all foreign owned.
My Grandfather worked his way into management of a steel mill. He used to tell me stories of unionized mobs lynching scabs and harrasing the families of management. It is no wonder that so many unions were infiltrated by organized crime, they weren't that much different to begin with. The steel industry survives, but mostly in the non-unionized south.
Unions for being greedy in a depressed economy "Suits" for being greedy in a depressed economy The only one who benefits will be Michele Obama, who doesn't want anyone eating twinkies in the first place LOL.
A CEO who destroys his company gets a HUGE compensation package by taking the golden parachute he setup and getting out before the company collapses. It has been done time and time again. Really kid, READ something. ANYTHING. Get a chewable book and improve your mind.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The earlier concessions proved to be insufficient to make the company profitable in the current economic climate... so yeah it ran out of money and went bankrupt. That's not because some evil investors hated Twinkies, or hated the workers and lied to them. Hostess (ver 2.0) did not lie to the workers (although I'm sure the union bosses told the workers that... probably the same bosses who refuse to make large enough concessions in the first place) it simply failed and went bankrupt.
It's incredibly bizarre that so many on Slashdot (where it's a constant theme that right-wingers are anti-science, and left-wingers are well-anchored to reality) are so un-tethered to reality; the laws of economics are as inflexible as the laws of physics:
If you pay out more than you take in, you go bankrupt. Period. A temporary inrush of new investor cash can buy time... but unless it's an on-going government subsidy, then it is only a temporary reprieve... and it is contingent on some later additional outflow (to repay the new investors)
First the cockroaches, now the Twinkies. Is there ANYTHING that will survive our inevitable nuclear annihilation?!?
As you say, the management has been stealing everything that isn't nailed down, while the workers have had to agree to multiple cuts.
The reason to say NO and risk your job is because it isn't ONE pay cut, it is pay cut after pay cut. While the CEO's get raise after raise. A 20% paycut is HUGE for most people who already need to spend their entire paycheck. You are going to say to your kid, sorry, you got to come back home and stop university and get a job because the management considers their own raises more important then the future of the company?
And the next pay cut and the next? Because Hostess makes fucking awful products. As a European I took the oppotunity to buy some on a trip to see what this fabled snack was like. Twinkie, seen in so many movies.
IT IS GODDAMN AWFUL.
Europe sure has its share of cheap crap snacks that taste like a chemical experiment gone wrong but they are cheap. Twinkies ain't cheap.
I am not just talking elitist taste, I took some back and bought some "Euro shopper" (Dutch cheap brand in largest super market chain AH) cake snacks to compare. The filling might be the same as in negerzoenen (negrokisses) but isn't and the cake is just bad. Really cheap cake (1 euro for a full sized cake (length and width of a load of bread but not the height) tastes a million times better.
I have no idea about the other products, oddly enough, couldn't find them.I got the idea that while Americans know what they are they have gone from their mind. To me they seemed as something special because for decades I heard of them but never could get any but to Americans it just a not so good snack that is expensive and bad for you.
And so the company dies. And then the class war America is having breaks out, US Unions are unlike anywhere else... well unlike in Europe. The hostility seems insane. In Holland, the Big 11 (biggest employers) wanted the strong unions of a decade ago back because it gave them someone to deal with. The Polder Model is missed by both sides (except government, it was them that sabotaged it because they wanted to set the wages, rather then employees and employers agreeing to higher wages (really, in several sectors agreements were reached and then government insisted on wage freezes)).
I get the feeling that in the US because compromise is unheard of, the battle lines get so hardened neither backs down because both are totally convinced they are right. When you see Romney speaking when he doesn't know the world is listening, you can see half of it. But the unions too seem totally alien from a EU perspective.
Let them eat cake vs chopping the heads of everyone who isn't you. Two sides who can't compromise.
Sad.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So, I can cut of your finger because if you don't let me, I will cut of your head.
Because of course, it ends there.
Oh no, now I want to cut of your hand, or I will cut of your head.
Now a leg, or I will cut of your head.
Now I cut of your torso. But hey, it is still better then having your head cut off.
Also, I wonder if you republicans heard of inflation? If you take a 8% cut and inflation is 3% then you really take a 11% cut because in NORMAL economies, salaries rise to compensate for inflation.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
GM Diesel spun of its locomotive division to Electromotive. Electromotive was bought by Caterpillar. Caterpillar said that they were paying too much in union labour costs. The labour contract was up December 31 2011. Caterpillar locked out the union January 1 2012 and said they could keep their jobs if they took a 33% wage cut. The union said go to hell. Shortly after Caterpillar purchased Electromotive, they spun up a factory in Muncie Ind., with hungry workers willing to work for minimum wage. Caterpillar closed the plant and shifted the jobs south. The union fucked 400 workers so that it could play hardball with the big 3 auto makers in Canada and "win" higher wage jobs for auto workers. Good work CAW.
"Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails." - Steve Jobs
If anything, it should reflect on the need for stronger laws to protect unions from those kind of maneuvers. In addition, it means that Right to Work should also apply to employers as well.
hungry workers willing to work for minimum wage
That can be read more accurately as desperate workers contracted out by firms such as Strom Engineering that would rather not be involved in disputes. They use them as leverage much like a Right to Work state uses its false claim of "freedom" to mess with workers.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I'm assuming your comment is about Great Britain - the world's capital of crooked teeth and non-american obesity.
It is amusing that for most Americans Britain==Europe while most Europeans see it as the 51st state.
Yeah, blame it on the union, when in reality it was the executives who looted the company to death and asked the workers to foot the bill. It was intentional mismanagement, and the executives belong in prison.
New York City writer Steve Ettlinger, in his book, “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” says that flammable and carcinogenic benzene, plays a major role in the extremely complicated set of chemical reactions that yield the artificial flavouring vanillin. And the chlorine used to bleach the flour in Twinkies is extremely toxic.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Across every world, across every multiverse, the Heroes one, true, effective weapon is gone. The villains are unstoppable. They have won. The end is nigh, and we are all doomed.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Stock up now. Shelf life is 40 years.
Hooray for the working man!!!
Another reason why Unions should be stopped.
It's time for gooey, puffy refined sugar to succumb to the New Age of food. In other words, why were they in financial doo-doo in the first place? Because their products are crap and consumers are waking up to that fact. Plus, their High Fructose Corn Syrup laden snakes contribute to the rising cost of health care, because they induce so much disease (diabetes, compromised immune system, general malnutrition, weight gain, etc.)
The workers affected by this need to go find jobs in the health food industry, or, what the heck, perhaps even create such jobs by starting their own healthy food enterprise.
Mexican Twinkies taste pretty much the same. The only problem here is for the workers that will be laid off.
You know, whoever buys the Hostess factories and brands is probably going to need workers to run them.
Whoever buys the recipes probably already has plants and workers.
They may hire a few more, but probably just in a few areas... hostess had something like 30 plants all over the place. With manufacturing suffering it's going to be rough for all of them to find a job.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, it's not just the gross numbers and how much the raises would cost the company in dollars, but also in morale. Do you think the workers morale and trust in the company improved when they found out high level executives were getting raises while their pay was being cut? Even if they have minimal fiscal impact, they have symbolic impact that affects the outcome of worker actions.
And how is their morale and trust doing today, particularly with their union? I wonder how this would have gone down if the Bakers Union members had been allowed a secret vote instead of their leadership simply folding their arms and refusing to deal.
Was management taking a pay cut? Not hardly.
Management received a raise before, yes. But this year the top level executives were given a salary of $1/year to help prop up the company.
And it's not like that mattered since the total amount of those salaries pays for perhaps .01% of the total workforce.
So much for your theory...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, blame it on the union, when in reality it was the executives who looted the company to death and asked the workers to foot the bill. It was intentional mismanagement, and the executives belong in prison.
So:
1. Buy company.
2. Run it into the ground
3. ???
4. Profit!
Interesting business plan.
... go ahead and price yourselves out of yet another industry. Then bitch when six months from now your kids are eating Chinese-made Twinkies.
In Reason We Trust
No more twinkies!! But... what will we compare the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area to??
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Sure, they will go into bankruptcy, and come out of it under a new corporate name. Then start right back up without ANY union contracts to deal with.
I feel for those 18,000+ workers but the fact is that Twinkies are disgusting and ought not be consumed by anyone ever.
Another purveyor of shit food goes under. That's a victory for common sense.
There is a long list of such companies that need to follow in Hostess' footsteps. Coke and Pepsie. Macdonalds et al, they are all a blight on the general public.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
It appears the bakers got what they wanted...Nothing and no jobs.
Step 3 is "Get as much money out of the company as you can, and saddle it with debt". That's how Romney did it, and it looks like these people did pretty much the same thing. Bonus points for making the company loan the money with which you buy it.
God, how does utter bullshit like this get modded up on slashdot? This site has really hit rock bottom. Glad I stopped posting under my account when the sock puppets hijacked the moderation system. I think this is the last I even need to be reading this obviously broken site.
Mitt Romney will save them
The Huge Manatee!
It has nothing to do with government dependency, free market, or any Faux News Psuedo Randian fantasy world. The people who run the company are corrupt, they're incompetent and milking it for all they can before shutting it down. They've given themselves massive raises they haven't earned, they've mismanaged a snack food icon, and they've plundered/mismanaged the employee pension fund.
Take your "it's your government dependency" bullshit and shove it up your ass. If every plundering slimebag corporate executive that's crushed American workers futures were hanged tomorrow, I'd say good fucking riddance.
And now, it looks like the jobs are moving out of the country.
That turned out really well.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
LOL. You MUST be an accountant.
Being a CEO requires leadership not prayer. Continual "cost cutting" on the bottom line without raising the top line will never save a failing business model. Taking away your employees' living wages, while helping yourself to seconds won't either. Hostess found this out the hard way. They also discovered that they actually *GASP* needed those employees to run their business.
Instead of working with employees from the beginning to save a failing concern drowning in debt and losing mindshare, those in the corner offices helped themselves to a bigger piece of the shrinking pie while asking others to do more with less. Like it or not, their "people" decided they would rather be unemployed than work under the conditions dictated by management. That says a lot about the leadership qualities of management. If you fail to see this obvious evidence, you probably aren't cut out for leadership or management either. Your self interested "cut-and-run" ideology corroborates it.
And the captain doesn't always have to go down with the ship when you hire someone other than Joe Hazelwood to pilot her through the Sound.
LOL. No. Because you STILL don't get it. You are either totally clueless to what I am saying or you are willfully ignorant. You don't seem to understand the difference between a policy decision and a financial one. EVERYTHING is financial to you. You have an accountant's attitude complemented with a self serving, narrow minded disposition. You keep ranting and raving about the (totally self fabricated) numbers but you do not understand that I never disputed the cold, hard, financial situation. Your eagerness to protect the CEO and other management staff that "made out good"(sic) and your suggestion that he would be better off to "cut-and-run" demonstrates that your priority would not be to work with employees to return the company to profitability, which is the ultimate responsibility of the CEO. The primary obligated job of the management team is to increase shareholder wealth, not personal wealth. Failing to understand this fundamental fact is why you would not make a good CEO or perhaps even a leader.
Try to wrap your mind around this: The goal of both management and labor is to make more money. For labor, they want more money for their effort and management wants more revenue and profit. Their goals are aligned. By failing to work together to achieve their goals and creating a bitter adversarial environment, they both failed. The leaders bear the responsibility for cultivating a positive working environment and making decisions conducive to cooperation. With Hostess management's missteps and self indulgent attitude (like yours), nobody can be surprised at the resulting animosity from labor.
Feel free to rant and rave some more about numbers you pull out of your ass, but I am done with this thread.