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Hostess Saves Twinkies By Automating, Fires 94% Of Their Workforce (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
Where Twinkie once employed 22,000 workers in more than 40 bakeries, their workforce is now down to just 1,170, reports the Washington Post, relying mostly on robotic arms and other forms of automation. "This 500-person plant produces more than 1 million Twinkies a day, 400 million a year. That's 80% of Hostess' total output -- output that under the old regime required 14 plants and 9,000 employees."
"We like to think of ourselves as a billion-dollar startup," Hostess chief executive Bill Toler said Tuesday, announcing that Hostess Brands, which had twice filed for bankruptcy, now plans to become a publicly-listed company valued at $2.3 billion.
"We like to think of ourselves as a billion-dollar startup," Hostess chief executive Bill Toler said Tuesday, announcing that Hostess Brands, which had twice filed for bankruptcy, now plans to become a publicly-listed company valued at $2.3 billion.
What's passed along is the cost of supporting the thousands of unemployed.
So who is to blame here? Management should have been thrown into the fire instead. They're the ones who ran the company into the ground, not the people who did the actual work every day.
The people that ran the company into the ground were .. the people who did the actual work every day. Or, more precisely, the union that represented them.
I don't get this attitude that Unions destroy everything
You have never worked with a union or their members. It's not fun. And it does drive up the costs.