http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/hostess-brands-says-it-will-liquidate/
QuoteWhile Twinkies have a reputation for an unlimited shelf life, the company that makes the junk food does not.
Hostess Brands, the bankrupt maker of cream-filled pastries like Twinkies and Ho Hos, said on Friday that it planned to wind down its operations and sell off its portfolio of well-known brands. The decision comes a week after one of the company's biggest unions went on strike to protest a labor contract.
Friday's decision spells the end of Hostess, an 82-year-old company that has endured wars, countless diet fads and even an earlier Chapter 11 filing. As the national appetite for the junk food waned, the baked-goods maker fell on hard times.
In January, Hostess Brands filed again for Chapter 11, just three years after emerging from the previous restructuring. The company originally hoped to reorganize its finances, principally by cutting labor costs.
But those plans were stymied by the recent labor dispute. The work stoppage by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union affected nearly two-thirds of Hostess's factories across the country. The company first responded by closing three factories, then gave union members until 5 p.m. on Thursday to return to work.
"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Gregory F. Rayburn, Hostess' chief executive, said in a statement.
Hostess' advisers will soon begin to shut down the company's 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers. The vast majority of its 18,500 employees will be laid off, according to the company.
The liquidation may not mean the end of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread. Such sweet treats could find new life under a different owner, once the company begins an auction of its brands and assets.
Well that's probably not what those striking were looking for.
Hostess has been on the downslide for ages. Just a matter of time.
Gonna wipe out the Ho-Hos now.
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 09:15:47 AM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/hostess-brands-says-it-will-liquidate/
QuoteWhile Twinkies have a reputation for an unlimited shelf life, the company that makes the junk food does not.
Hostess Brands, the bankrupt maker of cream-filled pastries like Twinkies and Ho Hos, said on Friday that it planned to wind down its operations and sell off its portfolio of well-known brands. The decision comes a week after one of the company's biggest unions went on strike to protest a labor contract.
Friday's decision spells the end of Hostess, an 82-year-old company that has endured wars, countless diet fads and even an earlier Chapter 11 filing. As the national appetite for the junk food waned, the baked-goods maker fell on hard times.
In January, Hostess Brands filed again for Chapter 11, just three years after emerging from the previous restructuring. The company originally hoped to reorganize its finances, principally by cutting labor costs.
But those plans were stymied by the recent labor dispute. The work stoppage by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union affected nearly two-thirds of Hostess's factories across the country. The company first responded by closing three factories, then gave union members until 5 p.m. on Thursday to return to work.
"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Gregory F. Rayburn, Hostess' chief executive, said in a statement.
Hostess' advisers will soon begin to shut down the company's 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers. The vast majority of its 18,500 employees will be laid off, according to the company.
The liquidation may not mean the end of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread. Such sweet treats could find new life under a different owner, once the company begins an auction of its brands and assets.
Well that's probably not what those striking were looking for.
We have a good friend who worked at one of their plants. The union simply refused to negotiate. Word is they were willing to sacrifice their Hostess employees to strengthen their position elsewhere.
Also apparently the teamsters were crossing the picket lines.
When I first started reading comics, the Hostess adverts sold me the American Dream.
Decades later I tried a Twinkie. You can keep your American Dream :lol:
I still want to sell jokes and tricks for $$$ and gifts, though, and "See through bones, through clothing!", and start a Sea Monkey farm.
I'm not sure what a twinkie is. I suppose I could look it up, but I don't really care.
:( Now Little Debbie will rule with an iron fist
Quote from: PDH on November 16, 2012, 09:34:36 AM
:( Now Little Debbie will rule with an iron fist
Good. They make much better products.
I loved their cupcakes! :cry:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3217%2F2760771714_9c8f6ddd9d_o.jpg&hash=f9cb662441e81fc908aa3bf41097c6c4723c78e0)
Fucking unions. :mad:
I checked the Wikipedia article. Nothing I eat in there, so I'm good!
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 10:10:35 AM
Fucking unions. :mad:
Prostitutes unionized too? Damn. :(
Quote from: Maximus on November 16, 2012, 09:25:05 AM
We have a good friend who worked at one of their plants. The union simply refused to negotiate. Word is they were willing to sacrifice their Hostess employees to strengthen their position elsewhere.
Also apparently the teamsters were crossing the picket lines.
We do? :unsure:
Tallahassee will be very sad, and pissed that there will be no more twinkies. :(
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 10:42:37 AM
Quote from: Maximus on November 16, 2012, 09:25:05 AM
We have a good friend who worked at one of their plants. The union simply refused to negotiate. Word is they were willing to sacrifice their Hostess employees to strengthen their position elsewhere.
Also apparently the teamsters were crossing the picket lines.
We do? :unsure:
We do! :ultra:
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 10:42:37 AM
Quote from: Maximus on November 16, 2012, 09:25:05 AM
We have a good friend who worked at one of their plants. The union simply refused to negotiate. Word is they were willing to sacrifice their Hostess employees to strengthen their position elsewhere.
Also apparently the teamsters were crossing the picket lines.
We do? :unsure:
You couldn't have asked him this question in person? :lol:
QuoteWe do! :ultra:
Uh oh
Quote from: Valmy on November 16, 2012, 11:13:30 AM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 10:42:37 AM
We do? :unsure:
You couldn't have asked him this question in person? :lol:
I'm at work; he's at school. So no. :sleep:
QuoteQuoteWe do! :ultra:
Uh oh
Well, I thought it was sad when I heard about it, but I didn't realize that it was the same company that our friend has been talking about on FB. The situation is ugly, and the union is completely and totally to blame for this whole mess. I'm not generally anti-union, but in this case, yeah, they should rot in hell.
Man talk about a raw deal. You pay a bunch of dues to an organization that then sacrifices your job for leverage elsewhere.
Uh oh. The twins favorite snack food in danger. They will not be pleased when no twinkies are available.
Pray for me.
Quote from: Ed Anger on November 16, 2012, 01:04:32 PM
Uh oh. The twins favorite snack food in danger. They will not be pleased when no twinkies are available.
Pray for me.
And pray for the twins if they do remain available.
They are part of a balanced lunch.
Twinkies and valium?
Quote from: Valmy on November 16, 2012, 12:45:33 PM
Man talk about a raw deal. You pay a bunch of dues to an organization that then sacrifices your job for leverage elsewhere.
Hostess has been on the ropes for a decade, and this isn't the first time it's had to file for bankruptcy.
But go ahead, blame the union for a company that's not publicly traded. It's easier that way.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 01:41:04 PM
Hostess has been on the ropes for a decade, and this isn't the first time it's had to file for bankruptcy.
But go ahead, blame the union for a company that's not publicly traded. It's easier that way.
In this case, it's the truth. The employees were ready to deal months ago, but the union refused to do it. Now, the union is throwing Hostess down the river in order to protect their interests elsewhere.
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 01:43:31 PM
In this case, it's the truth. The employees were ready to deal months ago, but the union refused to do it. Now, the union is throwing Hostess down the river in order to protect their interests elsewhere.
They started the strike in November. The company filed for Chapter 11 in January. Hostess had a lot more systemic issues in its model than the Teamsters.
Thinner Americans then?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 01:45:18 PM
They started the strike in November. The company filed for Chapter 11 in January. Hostess had a lot more systemic issues in its model than the Teamsters.
Yes, but the employees were willing to do what they could to prevent complete closure. The union wouldn't let them. On top of that, though the strike started in November, the union and company owners have been discussing this stuff for over a year.
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PM
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
5,000 employees spread out over multiple states out of 18,000+ employees does not break a company: the "private equity" firm that came in after Hostess' leadership hauled ass and filed does.
An 8% salary cut, cutting healthcare and retirement contributions? On top of the concessions from the last time?
But no, management still gets theirs:
Quotehe company is also seeking permission to pay a group of 19 managers bonuses ranging from 25% to 75% of their annual base compensation. Those payments would total up to $1.75 million, the company said. In addition, it wants to pay 3,200 employees bonuses equal to 25% of what they will earn from Friday until their wind-down-related duties are completed. Those payments would total $4.36 million.
19 managers share $1.75M. But they need 8% salary cut. You should've voted for Romney, after all; you support the model. Sucker.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 02:20:52 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PM
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
5,000 employees spread out over multiple states out of 18,000+ employees does not break a company: the "private equity" firm that came in after Hostess' leadership hauled ass and filed does.
An 8% salary cut, cutting healthcare and retirement contributions? On top of the concessions from the last time?
But no, management still gets theirs:
Quotehe company is also seeking permission to pay a group of 19 managers bonuses ranging from 25% to 75% of their annual base compensation. Those payments would total up to $1.75 million, the company said. In addition, it wants to pay 3,200 employees bonuses equal to 25% of what they will earn from Friday until their wind-down-related duties are completed. Those payments would total $4.36 million.
19 managers share $1.75M. But they need 8% salary cut. You should've voted for Romney, after all; you support the model. Sucker.
I :wub: you.
In a completely prison way.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 02:20:52 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PM
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
5,000 employees spread out over multiple states out of 18,000+ employees does not break a company: the "private equity" firm that came in after Hostess' leadership hauled ass and filed does.
An 8% salary cut, cutting healthcare and retirement contributions? On top of the concessions from the last time?
But no, management still gets theirs:
Quotehe company is also seeking permission to pay a group of 19 managers bonuses ranging from 25% to 75% of their annual base compensation. Those payments would total up to $1.75 million, the company said. In addition, it wants to pay 3,200 employees bonuses equal to 25% of what they will earn from Friday until their wind-down-related duties are completed. Those payments would total $4.36 million.
19 managers share $1.75M. But they need 8% salary cut. You should've voted for Romney, after all; you support the model. Sucker.
Damn. When are you going to get a job and stop it with all the crybaby shit? If you envy management so much, just get your MBA.
There's probably a fair chance someone will buy up the rights to the more marketable products.
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 16, 2012, 04:18:44 PM
There's probably a fair chance someone will buy up the rights to the more marketable products.
...and move production to a right-to-work state.
Twinkies will live again. These jobs, however, will not.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 02:20:52 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PM
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
5,000 employees spread out over multiple states out of 18,000+ employees does not break a company: the "private equity" firm that came in after Hostess' leadership hauled ass and filed does.
An 8% salary cut, cutting healthcare and retirement contributions? On top of the concessions from the last time?
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 02:20:52 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PM
When the employees are willing to take a drastic pay-cut with even more drastic cuts to benefits in order to at least have a job but the union won't let them, well, yeah, I blame the union.
5,000 employees spread out over multiple states out of 18,000+ employees does not break a company: the "private equity" firm that came in after Hostess' leadership hauled ass and filed does.
An 8% salary cut, cutting healthcare and retirement contributions? On top of the concessions from the last time?
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:20:41 PM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 16, 2012, 04:18:44 PM
There's probably a fair chance someone will buy up the rights to the more marketable products.
...and move production to a right-to-work state.
Twinkies will live again. These jobs, however, will not.
Isn't Illinois a right-to-work state? :unsure:
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 04:38:24 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:20:41 PM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 16, 2012, 04:18:44 PM
There's probably a fair chance someone will buy up the rights to the more marketable products.
...and move production to a right-to-work state.
Twinkies will live again. These jobs, however, will not.
Isn't Illinois a right-to-work state? :unsure:
Apparently not.
http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm
Why are anti-union states called "right to work" states? Is this one of those Orwellian terms Republicans like to come up with?
Quote from: DGuller on November 16, 2012, 05:04:39 PM
Why are anti-union states called "right to work" states? Is this one of those Orwellian terms Republicans like to come up with?
Because not being forced to join a union is rather terrible.
Quote from: DGuller on November 16, 2012, 05:04:39 PM
Why are anti-union states called "right to work" states? Is this one of those Orwellian terms Republicans like to come up with?
:lol:
Unlike, say, anti-union, which is so neutral and accurate.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 01:45:18 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 01:43:31 PM
In this case, it's the truth. The employees were ready to deal months ago, but the union refused to do it. Now, the union is throwing Hostess down the river in order to protect their interests elsewhere.
They started the strike in November. The company filed for Chapter 11 in January. Hostess had a lot more systemic issues in its model than the Teamsters.
The problem wasn't the Teamsters--they had settled with them.
If the actual employees wanted to deal, but the union didn't, the employees probably should have decertified them. But I guess that, unlike, say, NBA players, Hostess employees didn't have anyone besides the union leadership to give them advice.
Why do people join unions?
People are paying 60 bucks on eBay for a box of twinkies.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/hostess-twinkies-sell-60-box-ebay/t/story?id=17739110
Mobile news: :x
Also, people are stupid.
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PMYes, but the employees were willing to do what they could to prevent complete closure. The union wouldn't let them. On top of that, though the strike started in November, the union and company owners have been discussing this stuff for over a year.
How can the union stop them?
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 16, 2012, 08:31:20 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 02:00:56 PMYes, but the employees were willing to do what they could to prevent complete closure. The union wouldn't let them. On top of that, though the strike started in November, the union and company owners have been discussing this stuff for over a year.
How can the union stop them?
Employees can not negotiate with their employer, or vice versa.
Only the union can negotiate with the employer. If employees don't like their representation, then they have to either decertify or elect new union leadership - both of which are incredibly time-consuming and difficult.
Okay, but couldn't they just leave the union?
And doesn't the strike require a ballot of union members which suggests that (at least) those employees weren't being stopped by the union? Rather the union was taking the action democratically agreed upon by their members?
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 16, 2012, 08:50:33 PM
Okay, but couldn't they just leave the union?
And doesn't the strike require a ballot of union members which suggests that (at least) those employees weren't being stopped by the union? Rather the union was taking the action democratically agreed upon by their members?
They've been on strike for a year. They might well have thought that the strike was a good move at the time, but feel that their union leadership has turned down reasonable offers since then.
The article says a week after they went on strike? I thought the dispute had been going on for the past year but not industrial action.
The resources of the strikers and unions and sympathisers must be enormous if they've been on strike for a year. Even the miners only lasted just under a year.
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 16, 2012, 08:50:33 PM
Okay, but couldn't they just leave the union?
And doesn't the strike require a ballot of union members which suggests that (at least) those employees weren't being stopped by the union? Rather the union was taking the action democratically agreed upon by their members?
Individuals can leave the union, but the union continues to bargain on their behalf, and they continue to have to pay union dues.
The initial strike would have to be approved by a vote, and the ultimate settlement would be voted on, but that's the limit of the democratic involvement.
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:34:12 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking
month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 16, 2012, 09:02:28 PM
The article says a week after they went on strike? I thought the dispute had been going on for the past year but not industrial action.
The resources of the strikers and unions and sympathisers must be enormous if they've been on strike for a year. Even the miners only lasted just under a year.
They went on strike November 9th. Last week.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
No one's blaming the workers, chill. We're blaming the union.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
I've gone from job to job and unions have had nothing to do with it.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:34:12 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
Preach.
From this Swede's perspective America is in many ways a Socialist hellhole.
Quote from: The Brain on November 17, 2012, 12:15:09 AM
From this Swede's perspective America is in many ways a Socialist hellhole.
Get a better perspective?
Quote from: garbon on November 17, 2012, 12:18:43 AM
Quote from: The Brain on November 17, 2012, 12:15:09 AM
From this Swede's perspective America is in many ways a Socialist hellhole.
Get a better perspective?
Nah. You have out-of-control unions, you fight school vouchers, you like mail monopoly, you have estate tax etc etc etc. Socialist scum.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:34:12 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
Blame really doesn't get you anywhere though, does it.
Executive compensation is a fun topic to be sure, but even paying your execs zero wasn't going to save Hostess. What they needed to do to survive was lower salaries and benefits. Something other unions were willing to do. Something the workers were willing to do. But not this particular union leadership.
Quote from: The Brain on November 17, 2012, 12:24:35 AM
Quote from: garbon on November 17, 2012, 12:18:43 AM
Quote from: The Brain on November 17, 2012, 12:15:09 AM
From this Swede's perspective America is in many ways a Socialist hellhole.
Get a better perspective?
Nah. You have out-of-control unions, you fight school vouchers, you like mail monopoly, you have estate tax etc etc etc. Socialist scum.
:cry:
Quote from: Barrister on November 17, 2012, 12:40:30 AM
Blame really doesn't get you anywhere though, does it.
When there's a pattern happening in numerous companies then I think it should. Executive compensation's only a fun topic because everyone else is getting shafted and told we're all in it together. In this case unsecured creditors of the company told the bankruptcy court that 4 executives were recently awarded 80% pay rises. The union may have killed the company but I'd argue it's that sort of management that made it terminal.
QuoteIndividuals can leave the union, but the union continues to bargain on their behalf, and they continue to have to pay union dues.
I always forget this about North America.
QuoteThe initial strike would have to be approved by a vote, and the ultimate settlement would be voted on, but that's the limit of the democratic involvement.
Given that the strike started a week ago those workers voted on it at most 4-6 weeks ago.
Aside from that I agree with CdM and the Atlantic. You can fairly blame the bakers union for not conceding enough and for actually finally killing the company. But I don't think you can blame them for what I've read about the incompetence of the company's management since the buyout in 2004, or the fact that it was a highly leveraged company that left bankruptcy in 2004 with more debt than it started with (despite the unions taking significant pay and benefit cuts).
It's interesting that CdM equates the best interests of the workers with those of the union leadership.
The owners wrecked the company.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:34:12 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
Preach it brother!
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
God, you are so sexy to me right now. Will you have my babies? :wub:
I agree with everything you're posting. My comments were for the most immediate situation that ended in liquidation, not in the long-term problems that have brought them to this point.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 16, 2012, 04:34:12 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 16, 2012, 04:31:34 PM
More than a quarter of employees striking at a beleaguered company isn't a substantial issue? :huh:
Especially when the workers in question are bakers working for a baked goods company?
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
I keep reading your posts with Joe Pesci's voice. This one works pretty well. :)
The bakers union nailed the stake in the heart but this company just simply wasn't viable. Hostess just hasn't been well ran for a long, long time. The original ownership ran it into bankruptcy, private equity ran it no better, specialist CEOs they hired didn't do anything etc etc.
The junk food market may be taking some hits, but it's going strong. Companies like Kellogg still sell a lot of junk food in the baked good's space, as do the owners of brands like Little Debbie. Candy companies like Mars are doing fine, Kraft makes tons of junk food etc. All of those companies are, however, more diversified and they continually release new products to remain relevant.
Where is Bain when we need them?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 10:49:39 PM
No, let's not blame the fundamental problem of an archaic market model that, in the day and age of SuperGiants and Wegman's, where SuperWalmarts and even Targets department stores now sell food, still maintains 570 retail bakeries. Who the fuck under the age of 70 goes to a product-specific bakery? No, let's not blame the lack of consolidating the distribution model like its competitors did, and put the product straight to 3rd party shelves. Let's not blame the private equity firm and the fucking HEDGE FUND creditor that's running the company because, you know, hedge funds know how to improvise, adapt and overcome an increasingly unpopular product that's seen major losses in the post-carbs-are-bad-world-with-no-other-product-alternatives market with an executive top-heavy company.
Instead, let's blame the union representing bakers making $11.64 an hour for refusing to take an additional 8% wage cut on top of forcing employees to pay a 20% payroll contribution to their healthcare coverage while the company shaves 80% of its contribution to pension plans--on top of the cuts they accepted after the first bankruptcy. While 19 executives split $1.75M. Six CEOs in 10 years. At a salary of $125,000 a fucking month.
Incompetent management and vulture capitalists gets a pass every fucking time for driving their businesses into the ground with lender leverage with you people, and yet you want to blame the worker bees for actually having the audacity to look after their interests, which get hosed over and over again.
I hope each and every one of you are assfucked and subsequently murdered in your sleep by Ann Romney's horse. You fucking assholes.
I've seen this type of thinking come up over and over and over again. Cars, airlines, steel, coal, virtually any unionized industry you can think.
People act as if there is absolutely no relationship between demand for the product or service a company sells and the compensation it can afford to pay its workers. People stop eating as many Ho Hos and Ding Dongs, well, that doesn't have anything to do with the workers, right? The Japs start flooding the market with cheap, well-made cars, that's not the UAW's fault, is it? Demand for coal disappears because of cheap new sources of natural gas in the North Sea to power electricity generation plants, it must be a plot by that Nazi Thatcher. The US experiences a Great Depression and the price of coal craters, we better start shooting scabs.
Why is supply and demand such an impenetrable concept to the progessive left? It's just two lines on a graph, one that (usually) slopes down and one that (usually) slopes up.
The company made extremely unhealthy, shit products that no one in their right mind should consume. I feel as bad for them as I would if a giant meth lab blew up.
Kraft or some other megacorp will aquire the various brand rights and continue selling lardass, type II diabetic Americans their beloved hydrogenated vegetable oils smothered in HFCS, wrapped in sugary corn starch.
Whargarbl.
I misspelled it. My apologies.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages2.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20081110024604%2Ffark%2Fimages%2F7%2F7c%2FWharrgarbl.jpg&hash=c8ea969332164b3073409788d491266b52767445)
Quote from: Legbiter on November 17, 2012, 04:43:39 PM
The company made extremely unhealthy, shit products that no one in their right mind should consume. I feel as bad for them as I would if a giant meth lab blew up.
Kraft or some other megacorp will aquire the various brand rights and continue selling lardass, type II diabetic Americans their beloved hydrogenated vegetable oils smothered in HFCS, wrapped in sugary corn starch.
I hope multiple crazed fat people beat you to death right after raping you for a half hour.
God bless you Otto.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 17, 2012, 03:43:15 PM
Why is supply and demand such an impenetrable concept to the progessive left?
Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?
First they abolish the gay panic defense, now this. Is there nothing the gay lobby won't stoop to?!? :mad:
Welcome to Obama's America.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on November 17, 2012, 09:55:36 PM
I hope multiple crazed fat people beat you to death right after raping you for a half hour.
Yeah, I had that coming. ;)
Groupo Bimbo out of Mexico may take a stab at getting Hostess.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 17, 2012, 03:43:15 PM
People act as if there is absolutely no relationship between demand for the product or service a company sells and the compensation it can afford to pay its workers.
QuoteEven as it played the numbers game, Hostess had to face chaos in the corner office at the worst possible time. Driscoll, the CEO, departed suddenly and without explanation in March. It may have been that the Teamsters no longer felt it could trust him. In early February, Hostess had asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a sweet new employment deal for Driscoll. Its terms guaranteed him a base annual salary of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and "long-term incentive" compensation of up to $2 million. If Hostess liquidated or Driscoll were fired without cause, he'd still get severance pay of $1.95 million as long as he honored a noncompete agreement.
When the Teamsters saw the court motion, Ken Hall, the union's secretary-treasurer and No. 2 man, was irate. So much, he thought, for what he described as Driscoll's "happy talk" about "shared sacrifice." Hall says he tracked Driscoll down by phone and told him, "If you don't withdraw this motion, these negotiations are done." Hostess withdrew the motion a few weeks later when Driscoll left -- the same Driscoll who, Hostess told the court in its motion, was "key" to "reestablishing" Hostess's "competitive position going forward." Abbott and Costello couldn't have made this stuff up if they'd gone to Wharton.
The board replaced Driscoll with Greg Rayburn, a restructuring expert Hostess had hired as a consultant only nine days earlier. Rayburn was a serial turnaround specialist who had worked with such high-profile distressed businesses as WorldCom, Muzak Holdings, and New York City Off-Track Betting. He became Hostess's sixth CEO in a decade. Within a month of taking over, Rayburn had to preside over a public-relations fiasco. Some unsecured creditors had informed the court that last summer -- as the company was crumbling -- four top Hostess executives received raises of up to 80%. (Driscoll had also received a pay raise back then.) The Teamsters saw this as more management shenanigans. "Looting" is how Hall described it in TV interviews.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
Obviously it was the unions who were acting irrationally.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:24:19 AM
Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?
QED. You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated. If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers. All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 12:08:14 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:24:19 AM
Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?
QED. You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated. If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers. All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.
Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Either one would work.
It is supply and demand. There are not many CEOs and they demand a lot of money.
I suspect if you picked up some random schmo willing to work for five figures, they could probably run the company into the ground even faster. :hmm:
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 18, 2012, 12:20:55 PM
I suspect if you picked up some random schmo willing to work for five figures, they could probably run the company into the ground even faster. :hmm:
Pick me!
Quote from: sbr on November 18, 2012, 12:10:46 PM
Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Either one would work.
The assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making. Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.
Quote from: sbr on November 18, 2012, 12:10:46 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 12:08:14 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:24:19 AM
Why do you spread your generously lubed ass cheeks to submissively take incompetent corporate management and private equity monster cock?
QED. You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated. If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers. All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.
Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Either one would work.
In this particular case, we were talking about the possibility that, per Max's and Meri's statements about their friend, that the actual workers were willing to accept management's offer, but the union leadership wouldn't let them. At the time, I accepted that, but I was under the impression that the strike had gone on since last November; if it really just started this month, I have a lot of doubt about what the friend was saying. In general, though, I don't doubt that in many cases, there's something of a disconnect between the interests of union leadership and the interests of their rank-and-file members. On the other side of the fence, this is often mirrowed in a disconnect between the interests of the upper management/executives of the business and the interests of the owners, i.e., the stockholders.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 12:32:15 PM
The assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making. Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.
Not at all. But if you're complaining that unions are being unreasonable for demanding companies be bound by their contracts, it's weird that you gloss over the fact that Hostess gave its executive officers raises in the face of impending bankruptcy.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on November 17, 2012, 09:55:36 PM
Quote from: Legbiter on November 17, 2012, 04:43:39 PM
The company made extremely unhealthy, shit products that no one in their right mind should consume. I feel as bad for them as I would if a giant meth lab blew up.
Kraft or some other megacorp will aquire the various brand rights and continue selling lardass, type II diabetic Americans their beloved hydrogenated vegetable oils smothered in HFCS, wrapped in sugary corn starch.
I hope multiple crazed fat people beat you to death right after raping you for a half hour.
Okay, but we don't work cheap. Law of supply and demand and all.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 12:32:15 PM
The assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making. Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.
One of the jobs of CEOs should be to look at the future environment and try to adapt the company. It's not like people wanting to eat healthier is a trend that's come out of the blue. A CEO has a great deal more control of a company than the president has over the country.
Quote from: PDH on November 18, 2012, 12:19:10 PM
It is supply and demand. There are not many CEOs and they demand a lot of money.
Actually, there is an immutable 1:1 ratio between the number of CEOs and the number of companies, even if some of the people who are CEOs don't technically have the title.
Quote from: Admiral YiThe assumption being of course that any negative outcome for the company, such as fewer people eating Twinkies, must be a result of bad executive decision-making. Similar to the concept that a poor economic situation is a failure of presidential leadership.
When you're in charge, you're responsible for outcomes, good or bad, even if those outcomes aren't your doing. If you're running a company that's losing millions, you haven't earned a raise.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 18, 2012, 12:55:58 PM
Not at all.
Then you should take up the issue with dps, who seems to believe otherwise.
QuoteBut if you're complaining that unions are being unreasonable for demanding companies be bound by their contracts, it's weird that you gloss over the fact that Hostess gave its executive officers raises in the face of impending bankruptcy.
I'm not complaining that unions are being unreasonable for demanding companies be bound by their contracts. I'm complaining that unions act as if they're totally oblivious to the market conditions for the product or service their members are producing.
You keep ignoring the CEOs' actions. Odd, that.
Quote from: Faeelin on November 18, 2012, 01:36:03 PM
You keep ignoring the CEOs' actions. Odd, that.
Very odd.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 01:01:26 PM
When you're in charge, you're responsible for outcomes, good or bad, even if those outcomes aren't your doing. If you're running a company that's losing millions, you haven't earned a raise.
That's a pretty stupid way of looking at it. CEOs should be paid for doing the best they could in the circumstances, which sometimes may involve losing less millions than a lesser CEO would've lost. Holding the CEOs responsible for things outside of their control is a pretty unhelpful compensation system, if you want to attract good CEOs rather than lucky ones.
What matters is the owners, not the CEO.
Quote from: sbr on November 18, 2012, 12:10:46 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 12:08:14 PM
QED. You and the Elizabeth Warrens and the Martim Silvas and the Occupy Wall Streeters of the world think that if sufficient public opinion is mobilized then the laws of supply and demand can be negated. If only the 99% is sufficiently energized, and attains sufficient political consciousness, then Twinkie assemblers will all keep their jobs, receive generous raises, and get free lunch vouchers. All without you and I having to eat any more Twinkies or pay more for them.
Or they could stop giving CEOs multi-million dollar bonuses for driving companies into the ground. Either one would work.
No, it doesn't work that way; you see, Free Marketeers like Yi believe in the invincibility of the top-down model--one where executive management, with their countless useless books on "leadership", their useless Executive MBAs, their statistically based management models like Six Sigma or the latest bullshit invention
du jour give them all the moral elasticity needed to treat their employees like chattel, squeezing them for their own bad decisions and their incompetency. The "Job Creators" always get a pass with this crowd. But those with the jobs? Fuck 'em.
Profits down because of our fuck-ups? Shave off some employees. Reduce their hours, cut their benefits. Work longer. Work harder. For less money.
Profits down because we can't innovate? Get rid of pensions; force everybody to play the Wall Street casino, and let their retirement hopes rest on finding the occasional dropped chip from the big gamblers.
The Japanese build cheaper cars with better fuel efficiency? Blame the UAW; after all, even though they don't design the fuckers, or the fucked up and over-saturated dealership model or install planned obsolescence as a corporate strategy, hey, they're a convenient scapegoat, because they're overhead. Always easier to blame the commies rather than the capitalists.
Never mind that successful companies have no problem investing in their workforce, that a happy workplace is a union-free workplace, that truly successful companies are those that understand that living wages, investment and retention is a force multiplier. You want to bitch about Teamsters? Fine, but some of the biggest retail distributors like Wal Mart and Best Buy have non-unionized trucking fleets, and why do they not need the Teamsters? Because they're paid the best. But their in-store staffs? Faceless, replaceable chattel. But they knew enough not to fuck with their distribution network by paying truckers enough not to get unionized, or even want to. There's no need for unions when corporations ran their businesses more on basic fucking humanity than greed and venality, and guess fucking what, basic humanity doesn't cut into shareholder value that fucking much.
So Hostess had a "supply and demand" problem; funny how the other players in the shit-for-food market don't. I don't see Little Debbies or Entemann's or anybody else's product having trouble finding their ways onto shelves. But hey, let's keep 570 Hostess bakery outlets as a relic of business model from 40 years ago, and instead blame the union representing bakers making shit for wages instead, because they dare to say that enough is fucking enough. The only "supply and demand" Free Marketeers are interested in is an endless supply of low wage workers that can't demand shit, like a living wage. If Hostess' incompetent management could've figured out how to outsource Twinkie production overseas, we'd have been buying them from the Chinese, complete with lead paint and sawdust, in a fucking heartbeat. For half the production and twice the retail.
Yeah it's "the market", it's always "the market". For a bunch of snot nosed atheists and agnostics, you all sure put a hell of a lot of blind fucking faith in the "Invisible Hand" and the infallibility of its Wall Street priests. Pretty fucking ironical.
The suits get a pass to drive their companies into the ground, hit their silk parachutes, and move on to the next company they can drive into the ground, all the while guiltless and blameless for perpetuating the same upside-down and fundamentally immoral model over and over: stagnated wages, slashed benefits, and on and on. But unions are the bad guys. Always the same with you people.
TL;DR
Quote from: DGuller on November 18, 2012, 02:05:22 PM
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 01:01:26 PM
When you're in charge, you're responsible for outcomes, good or bad, even if those outcomes aren't your doing. If you're running a company that's losing millions, you haven't earned a raise.
That's a pretty stupid way of looking at it. CEOs should be paid for doing the best they could in the circumstances, which sometimes may involve losing less millions than a lesser CEO would've lost. Holding the CEOs responsible for things outside of their control is a pretty unhelpful compensation system, if you want to attract good CEOs rather than lucky ones.
Well, there's at least 3 problems with that. To start with, it's arguably better to be lucky than good, but that's a pretty minor issue (I think most people would agree that while it's arguabaly better to be lucky, hoping that someone's past good luck will hold true in the future isn't really a good reason to hire them).
Second, while in theory someone running a company that lost $100 million in the last year might be doing a good job because with anyone else in charge, the company would have lost $200 million or more, how would you know? Maybe instead, with someone else in charge, they would have broken even or turned a profit. It's one thing to say, "Well, we think the CEO made good decisions even though the conditions he had to deal with were so bad that we still lost money, so we think he should be given more time to turn things around." It's another to give him a big raise or a fat bonus when you're losing money.
Third, even if the CEO (and other executives) really deserved extra compensation because they did a really good job in the bad situation the company found itself in, giving raises and bonused in those circumstances is a horribly bad idea if your workforce is unionized, because it makes it that much harder to sell the union on the idea that cutbacks are needed.
If you didn't want to take part in a race to bottom Seedy, you shouldn't have globalized the market.
Quote from: Neil on November 18, 2012, 02:45:25 PM
If you didn't want to take part in a race to bottom Seedy, you shouldn't have globalized the market.
What's this "we" shit. I don't have a Harvard MBA, you flanneled socialist.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 01:40:44 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on November 18, 2012, 01:36:03 PM
You keep ignoring the CEOs' actions. Odd, that.
Very odd.
What the fuck are you talking about?
A responsible CEO would have forseen that fewer people would eat junk food and moved the business away from it.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:46:59 PM
Quote from: Neil on November 18, 2012, 02:45:25 PM
If you didn't want to take part in a race to bottom Seedy, you shouldn't have globalized the market.
What's this "we" shit. I don't have a Harvard MBA, you flanneled socialist.
It wasn't the Harvard MBAs who globalized the market. It was You, The People of the Traitor States.
Quote from: chipwich on November 18, 2012, 02:47:30 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 01:40:44 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on November 18, 2012, 01:36:03 PM
You keep ignoring the CEOs' actions. Odd, that.
Very odd.
What the fuck are you talking about?
A responsible CEO would have forseen that fewer people would eat junk food and moved the business away from it.
Is it even true that fewer people eat junk food? Maybe a lower percentage of the population, but in absolute numbers, I'm not so sure.
Quote from: chipwich on November 18, 2012, 02:47:30 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 01:40:44 PM
Quote from: Faeelin on November 18, 2012, 01:36:03 PM
You keep ignoring the CEOs' actions. Odd, that.
Very odd.
What the fuck are you talking about?
A responsible CEO would have forseen that fewer people would eat junk food and moved the business away from it.
Exactly. A responsible CEO would have increased shareholder value by putting a lot of those people out of work a long time ago.
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 02:50:57 PM
Is it even true that fewer people eat junk food? Maybe a lower percentage of the population, but in absolute numbers, I'm not so sure.
As long as there was marijuana and first graders, there would be Twinkies. An innovative CEO would've marketed specifically to first grader potheads.
Did they try to sell Twinkies abroad?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:36:27 PM
No, it doesn't work that way; you see, Free Marketeers like Yi believe in the invincibility of the top-down model--one where executive management, with their countless useless books on "leadership", their useless Executive MBAs, their statistically based management models like Six Sigma or the latest bullshit invention du jour give them all the moral elasticity needed to treat their employees like chattel, squeezing them for their own bad decisions and their incompetency. The "Job Creators" always get a pass with this crowd. But those with the jobs? Fuck 'em.
Profits down because of our fuck-ups? Shave off some employees. Reduce their hours, cut their benefits. Work longer. Work harder. For less money.
Profits down because we can't innovate? Get rid of pensions; force everybody to play the Wall Street casino, and let their retirement hopes rest on finding the occasional dropped chip from the big gamblers.
The Japanese build cheaper cars with better fuel efficiency? Blame the UAW; after all, even though they don't design the fuckers, or the fucked up and over-saturated dealership model or install planned obsolescence as a corporate strategy, hey, they're a convenient scapegoat, because they're overhead. Always easier to blame the commies rather than the capitalists.
Never mind that successful companies have no problem investing in their workforce, that a happy workplace is a union-free workplace, that truly successful companies are those that understand that living wages, investment and retention is a force multiplier. You want to bitch about Teamsters? Fine, but some of the biggest retail distributors like Wal Mart and Best Buy have non-unionized trucking fleets, and why do they not need the Teamsters? Because they're paid the best. But their in-store staffs? Faceless, replaceable chattel. But they knew enough not to fuck with their distribution network by paying truckers enough not to get unionized, or even want to. There's no need for unions when corporations ran their businesses more on basic fucking humanity than greed and venality, and guess fucking what, basic humanity doesn't cut into shareholder value that fucking much.
So Hostess had a "supply and demand" problem; funny how the other players in the shit-for-food market don't. I don't see Little Debbies or Entemann's or anybody else's product having trouble finding their ways onto shelves. But hey, let's keep 570 Hostess bakery outlets as a relic of business model from 40 years ago, and instead blame the union representing bakers making shit for wages instead, because they dare to say that enough is fucking enough. The only "supply and demand" Free Marketeers are interested in is an endless supply of low wage workers that can't demand shit, like a living wage. If Hostess' incompetent management could've figured out how to outsource Twinkie production overseas, we'd have been buying them from the Chinese, complete with lead paint and sawdust, in a fucking heartbeat. For half the production and twice the retail.
Yeah it's "the market", it's always "the market". For a bunch of snot nosed atheists and agnostics, you all sure put a hell of a lot of blind fucking faith in the "Invisible Hand" and the infallibility of its Wall Street priests. Pretty fucking ironical.
The suits get a pass to drive their companies into the ground, hit their silk parachutes, and move on to the next company they can drive into the ground, all the while guiltless and blameless for perpetuating the same upside-down and fundamentally immoral model over and over: stagnated wages, slashed benefits, and on and on. But unions are the bad guys. Always the same with you people.
:lol: Are we having a debate on the labor market and the plight of Hostess workers or are we having a contest to see who can achieve the highest density of meaningless words in their posts?
We had this exact same debate during the GM and Chrysler vote buyouts. You and other friends of labor claimed it was a result of bad management, in total denial that a rapacious (or dare I say it--greedy :o) UAW priced themselves right out of the market. It was all management's fault that they couldn't come up with a way to build the small, fuel-efficient that American buyers had demonstrated they didn't want, and outcompete the Japs with unionized labor that costs twice what theirs does.
I don't think management is infallible. What kind of retard would think that? The bizarro universe version of the retard that thinks unions can *never* ask for too much, that's who. The management of Beatrice completely fucked up their brands. Netflix made a fantastic mistake with their TV/DVD split.
One can try to make the argument that Hostess' management completely fucked up my not retooling their brand as the Hostess Spinach and Arugala Lite 'n' Healthy Wrap company. I personally think that would not have been an easy transition. But you and your friends don't even try to make the argument. Any time a company faces falling demand, it's irrevocably, indisputably, any-fool-can-see a failing of management.
Save it for your next stockholder meeting with Tagg and the boys, Romnyi.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 03:04:36 PM
:lol: Are we having a debate on the labor market and the plight of Hostess workers or are we having a contest to see who can achieve the highest density of meaningless words in their posts?
More to the point, if the alternative to taking a paycut and losing some benefits is your job going away, does it really matter at that point whose fault it is?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 03:20:28 PM
Save it for your next stockholder meeting with Tagg and the boys, Romnyi.
Needs more vivid adjectives and colorful adverbs! :lol:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 02:53:36 PM
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 02:50:57 PM
Is it even true that fewer people eat junk food? Maybe a lower percentage of the population, but in absolute numbers, I'm not so sure.
As long as there was marijuana and first graders, there would be Twinkies. An innovative CEO would've marketed specifically to first grader potheads.
i.e. Colorado State freshmen.
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 03:23:45 PM
More to the point, if the alternative to taking a paycut and losing some benefits is your job going away, does it really matter at that point whose fault it is?
QuoteMike Hummell, a receiving clerk and a member of the Bakers' union working in Lenexa, Kan., said he was making about $48,000 in 2005 before the company's first trip through bankruptcy. Concessions during that reorganization cut his pay to $34,000 last year, earning $16.12 an hour. He said the latest contract demands would have cut his pay to about $25,000, with significantly higher out-of-pocket expenses for insurance.
"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."
When unemployment is the better option, hey, then all the Free Marketeers ought to applaud how libertarian they're being.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 03:24:26 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 03:20:28 PM
Save it for your next stockholder meeting with Tagg and the boys, Romnyi.
Needs more vivid adjectives and colorful adverbs! :lol:
After almost 10 years of listening to your trickle-down bullshit, I've pretty much used them all up.
There is nothing wrong with six sigma. :mad:
Or six smegma as some managers liked to call it.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 03:36:39 PM
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 03:23:45 PM
More to the point, if the alternative to taking a paycut and losing some benefits is your job going away, does it really matter at that point whose fault it is?
QuoteMike Hummell, a receiving clerk and a member of the Bakers' union working in Lenexa, Kan., said he was making about $48,000 in 2005 before the company's first trip through bankruptcy. Concessions during that reorganization cut his pay to $34,000 last year, earning $16.12 an hour. He said the latest contract demands would have cut his pay to about $25,000, with significantly higher out-of-pocket expenses for insurance.
"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."
When unemployment is the better option, hey, then all the Free Marketeers ought to applaud how libertarian they're being.
Maybe we ought to look at cutting back over-generous unemployment compensation. A receiving clerk making $45 grand a year? Shit, no wonder they went bankrupt.
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 03:23:45 PM
More to the point, if the alternative to taking a paycut and losing some benefits is your job going away, does it really matter at that point whose fault it is?
Only in that you're paying one of these parties to represent you in the workplace.
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 03:48:49 PM
Maybe we ought to look at cutting back over-generous unemployment compensation. A receiving clerk making $45 grand a year? Shit, no wonder they went bankrupt.
So unemployment compensation should be kept below the poverty level? Nice guy.
The whole insurance thing is really a killer. Obama should have given you socialized medicine.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 18, 2012, 04:08:19 PM
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 03:48:49 PM
Maybe we ought to look at cutting back over-generous unemployment compensation. A receiving clerk making $45 grand a year? Shit, no wonder they went bankrupt.
So unemployment compensation should be kept below the poverty level? Nice guy.
If the guy's single, $25,000/yr is no where near "below the poverty level". Poverty level for a single person is somewhere around $12,000.
And whether it's "nice" or not, yeah, if you can make more on unemployment than you can working, that's a disincentive that needs to be fixed.
:unsure: Who's getting $25,000 a year in unemployment instead of a job that pays less?
Quote from: DGuller on November 18, 2012, 06:30:58 PM
:unsure: Who's getting $25,000 a year in unemployment instead of a job that pays less?
No clue. Not me.
Quote from: DGuller on November 18, 2012, 06:30:58 PM
:unsure: Who's getting $25,000 a year in unemployment instead of a job that pays less?
According to what CdM posted, some guy named Mike Hummel.
The maximum benefit in California is around $670/week. A dude in Kansas is making nowhere near that. I imagine it's comparable to Iowa, which has a max benefit of $365/week (more if you're married and/or have kids).
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 18, 2012, 08:00:22 PM
The maximum benefit in California is around $670/week. A dude in Kansas is making nowhere near that. I imagine it's comparable to Iowa, which has a max benefit of $365/week (more if you're married and/or have kids).
Man I get less then that a month.
Well, I said that taking a paycut should be preferable to losing you job (at least in the current job market), and then CdM posted where this guy said that he'd get more money on unemployment than taking a paycut to $25,000/yr. If he doesn't stand to make more on unemployment, then my original point stands. If he does, then my point about unemployment compensation being too generous stands.
Quote from: dps on November 18, 2012, 06:29:06 PM
If the guy's single, $25,000/yr is no where near "below the poverty level". Poverty level for a single person is somewhere around $12,000.
Quote2012 Kansas Poverty Level Guidelines
Number In Family Maximum Annual Income
1 $16,755
2 $22,695
3 $28,635
4 $34,575
He stated he's got a mortgage payment, so for shits and giggles, let's say he's married with an infant child. Sell the house, right? Wife has to nurse the baby? Fuck her, wear a papoose.
Don't strike, though. That would be wrong.
QuoteAnd whether it's "nice" or not, yeah, if you can make more on unemployment than you can working, that's a disincentive that needs to be fixed.
Naturally. Your company cuts your pay from 48K to $21K in 8 years, to the point that it's worse than unemployment? And it's unemployment that's the problem?
I hope your moral compass points you away from puppies and handicapped children.
If your company cuts your pay from 48k to 21k, you should strike, put them out of business, and then get a real job. Either that, or just get a real job.
If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed.
:yes:
Twinkies will live on in Canada, Long live Twinkies!
I had lunch with my friend today. He said most of the BCTGM members were furious with union leadership. Only about a third of them at his plant had actually gone on strike and there had been mass membership withdrawals over the past few weeks. The Teamsters are also pretty steamed about not having been told ahead of time about the strike that has now cost them their jobs as well.
It says something when the Teamsters is the most responsible organization in the picture.
Quote from: Maximus on November 19, 2012, 05:52:54 PM
It says something when the Teamsters is the most responsible organization in the picture.
:lol:
:rolleyes:
QuoteHostess lives another day to mediate with union
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Twinkies will live to see another day.
Hostess Brands Inc. and its second largest union agreed on Monday to go into mediation to try to resolve their differences after a bankruptcy court judge concluded that the parties hadn't gone through the critical step. That means the maker of the spongy cake with the mysterious cream in the middle won't go out of business yet.
The news comes after the maker of Ho Ho's, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread last week moved to liquidate and sell off its assets in bankruptcy court. The company cited a crippling strike started on Nov. 9 by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that started, which represents about 30 percent of Hostess workers.
''Many people, myself included, have serious questions as to the logic behind this strike,'' said Judge Robert Drain, who heard the case in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York in White Plains, N.Y. ''Not to have gone through that step leaves a huge question mark in this case.''
The mediation talks are expected to begin Tuesday, with the liquidation hearing set to resume on Wednesday. After Monday's hearing, Jeff Freund, an attorney for the bakers union, said any guess as to how the talks will go would be ''purely speculative.''
In an interview following the hearing, CEO Gregory Rayburn said that there is enormous financial pressure to come to an agreement with the union by the end of the day Tuesday. He noted that it's costing Hostess about $1 million a day in payroll costs alone to keep the company alive.
''We didn't think we had a runway, but the judge just created a 24-hour runway,'' said Rayburn, who added that even if a contract agreement is reached, it's unclear whether all 33 Hostess plants operate again.
Hostess, weighed down by debt, management turmoil, rising labor costs and the changing tastes of America, decided on Friday that it no longer could make it through a conventional Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring. Instead, the company, which is based in Irving, Texas, asked the court for permission to sell assets and go out of business.
Hostess, which is in its second bankruptcy in less than a decade, said that it was saddled with costs related to its unionized workforce. So the company brought on Rayburn as a restructuring expert to renegotiate its contract with labor unions.
Hostess, which had been contributing $100 million a year in pension costs for workers, offered them a new contract that would've slashed that to $25 million a year, in addition to wage cuts and a 17 percent reduction in health benefits. But the bakery union decided to strike.
By that time, Hostess had reached a contract agreement with its largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which urged the bakery union to hold a secret ballot on whether to continue striking. Although many bakery workers decided to cross picket lines this week, Hostess said it wasn't enough to keep operations at normal levels.
Rayburn said that Hostess was already operating on razor thin margins and that the strike was the final blow. The company's announcement on Friday that it would move to liquidate prompted people across the country to rush to stores and stock up on their favorite Hostess treats. Many businesses reported selling out of Twinkies within hours and the spongy yellow cakes turned up for sale online for hundreds of dollars.
Even if Hostess goes out of business, its popular brands will likely find a second life after being snapped up by buyers. The company says several potential buyers have expressed interest in the brands. Although Hostess' sales have been declining in recent years, the company still does about $2.5 billion in business each year. Twinkies along brought in $68 million so far this year.
There went the eBay bubble.
Quote from: DGuller on November 16, 2012, 05:04:39 PM
Why are anti-union states called "right to work" states? Is this one of those Orwellian terms Republicans like to come up with?
Yep, it is one of the most nonsensical terms ever created. The theory is increasing labour mobility by giving employers the power to fire at will (ie without having to pay any form of severance) will give the most qualified workers the ability to find employment at the most competitve rates. This is sold as a something to help workers.
Of course, in practice this type of legislation is anything but. Skilled workers who are in demand do not require this kind of legislation to find jobs. This legislation is designed to treat unskilled workers like so many inputs into production so that the company can engage in just in time labour to adjust downward at a moments notice without cost - unless one considers the worker of course.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 19, 2012, 06:12:40 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 16, 2012, 05:04:39 PM
Why are anti-union states called "right to work" states? Is this one of those Orwellian terms Republicans like to come up with?
Yep, it is one of the most nonsensical terms ever created. The theory is increasing labour mobility by giving employers the power to fire at will (ie without having to pay any form of severance) will give the most qualified workers the ability to find employment at the most competitve rates. This is sold as a something to help workers.
Of course, in practice this type of legislation is anything but. Skilled workers who are in demand do not require this kind of legislation to find jobs. This legislation is designed to treat unskilled workers like so many inputs into production so that the company can engage in just in time labour to adjust downward at a moments notice without cost - unless one considers the worker of course.
Aw fuck it, it's quitting time.
Quote from: Maximus on November 19, 2012, 05:52:54 PM
I had lunch with my friend today. He said most of the BCTGM members were furious with union leadership. Only about a third of them at his plant had actually gone on strike and there had been mass membership withdrawals over the past few weeks. The Teamsters are also pretty steamed about not having been told ahead of time about the strike that has now cost them their jobs as well.
It says something when the Teamsters is the most responsible organization in the picture.
It also says something about how messed up US Labour laws are when only 1/3 of the union wants to strke and a strike is mandated by the union. Dont you guys even know how to create decent legislation that requires majority strike votes?
Either that or your friend is exaggerating a few details...
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2012, 05:53:34 PM
Quote from: Maximus on November 19, 2012, 05:52:54 PM
It says something when the Teamsters is the most responsible organization in the picture.
:lol:
Teamsters are a sizable portion of Hostess' sales force, and the drivers receive a commission on sales they make to stores they deliver Hostess products to. One of the reasons different products have to go on different trucks, redundant distribution routes, etc. It was the model Hostess wanted.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 17, 2012, 03:43:15 PMDemand for coal disappears because of cheap new sources of natural gas in the North Sea to power electricity generation plants, it must be a plot by that Nazi Thatcher.
This isn't right. At the time of the miners' strike most electricity in the UK was from coal generated power plants. It remained so, overwhelmingly, for a decade after the miner's strike. Natural gas only started to take off in the mid-90s. It was however cheaper to begin to import coal and privatise the profitable mines than to subsidise, through the nationalised coal industry, domestic production. But it wasn't a shift in demand - that's why my dad spent the two years before the miners' strike shipping coal to stockpiles near the power plants.
Also the miner's strike, on both sides, was politics. Thatcher wanted to exorcise the legacy of the miners' strike in 1972 and to send a message to the trade unions. The NUM was the most militant union and for them and many on the left they thought they could bring her government down and knew that if they lost this fight it'd be the end of union power in this country.
Edit: In 1990, five years after the miners' strike gas accounted for 0.05% of UK energy production, coal was over 66%.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 19, 2012, 06:12:40 PM
Yep, it is one of the most nonsensical terms ever created. The theory is increasing labour mobility by giving employers the power to fire at will (ie without having to pay any form of severance) will give the most qualified workers the ability to find employment at the most competitve rates. This is sold as a something to help workers.
Of course, in practice this type of legislation is anything but. Skilled workers who are in demand do not require this kind of legislation to find jobs. This legislation is designed to treat unskilled workers like so many inputs into production so that the company can engage in just in time labour to adjust downward at a moments notice without cost - unless one considers the worker of course.
It's a damned good thing you don't practice law or whatever down here. Because that is not what "right to work" laws are about at all. They simply prohibit employers and unions from creating contracts that require employees to join a union or pay union dues.
I believe he is confusing "right to work" with "at will employment".
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2012, 09:56:55 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 19, 2012, 06:12:40 PM
Yep, it is one of the most nonsensical terms ever created. The theory is increasing labour mobility by giving employers the power to fire at will (ie without having to pay any form of severance) will give the most qualified workers the ability to find employment at the most competitve rates. This is sold as a something to help workers.
Of course, in practice this type of legislation is anything but. Skilled workers who are in demand do not require this kind of legislation to find jobs. This legislation is designed to treat unskilled workers like so many inputs into production so that the company can engage in just in time labour to adjust downward at a moments notice without cost - unless one considers the worker of course.
It's a damned good thing you don't practice law or whatever down here. Because that is not what "right to work" laws are about at all. They simply prohibit employers and unions from creating contracts that require employees to join a union or pay union dues.
It's not always that simple right? I mean my mom has to pay union dues even if she doesn't join the union. I'm pretty sure this is a RtW state. There must be some exceptions. I bet it's not the same in every state either.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 19, 2012, 10:04:27 PM
It's not always that simple right? I mean my mom has to pay union dues even if she doesn't join the union. I'm pretty sure this is a RtW state. There must be some exceptions. I bet it's not the same in every state either.
The casinos are heavily unionized. I would be surprised if Nevada were a right to work state.
In the meantime, try to get your hands on Jos Louis or May West cakes. In the long term, my portfolio will thank you :P
Quote from: derspiess on November 19, 2012, 09:56:55 PM
It's a damned good thing you don't practice law or whatever down here.
There is no such thing as "right to work provinces" in Canada, everyone has to pay their union dues, it's a Federal judge decision and it applies to all provinces, even if work codes are provincial affairs. Another reason to dislike federalism ;)
One thing that doesn't make sense about this story is how could it be the case that a tiny fraction of union leadership could be so unrepresentative of the wishes of its members, and its members have utterly no recourse? Such a system opens the door to so many potential abuses. Seems like either the law there is totally fucked or, more likely, details are being misrepresented.
Also, I agree with the Honourable CdM. :sleep:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 19, 2012, 10:08:27 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 19, 2012, 10:04:27 PM
It's not always that simple right? I mean my mom has to pay union dues even if she doesn't join the union. I'm pretty sure this is a RtW state. There must be some exceptions. I bet it's not the same in every state either.
The casinos are heavily unionized. I would be surprised if Nevada were a right to work state.
Casinos are a bad example, as that is the unusual example where the Mob is working both sides of the field.
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on November 19, 2012, 11:46:27 PM
One thing that doesn't make sense about this story is how could it be the case that a tiny fraction of union leadership could be so unrepresentative of the wishes of its members, and its members have utterly no recourse? Such a system opens the door to so many potential abuses. Seems like either the law there is totally fucked or, more likely, details are being misrepresented.
Yeah. That part made sense to me when I was under the impression that the strike started last November--I could see the majority of the union voting to strike at that time, but thinking that they had gotten a reasonable offer from the company since then, and wanting to take the company's offer and go back to work, but not being able to do so because the union leadership wouldn't accept the offer and submit it to a vote. But if the strike just started this month, it makes no sense, unless the friend is overstating how many of the rank-and-file share his opinion.
QuoteHostess wins OK to give execs up to $1.75 million in bonuses
A bankruptcy judge approves Hostess' plan to offer bonuses as an incentive for managers to oversee its liquidation. Hostess is talking with 110 potential bidders.
By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times
November 30, 2012
Hostess Brands Inc., in the midst of winding down its business, won approval Thursday from a federal bankruptcy judge to give as much as $1.75 million in bonuses to its executives.
The money is intended as an incentive for 19 top-level managers to remain with the Twinkies and Ding Dongs maker to oversee its liquidation.
The payouts will be granted only if managers "achieve a set of specific tasks and goals within a specified time frame that are designed to speed and lower the cost of the wind-down," Hostess spokesman Lance Ignon said.
The maximum bonus amount, Ignon said, represents 0.07% of Hostess' revenue and 0.17% of the value of its assets and is below the average for bonuses in comparable bankruptcy cases. Hostess Chief Executive Greg Rayburn would be not be eligible for a bonus, Ignon said.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, N.Y., also agreed Thursday to grant final approval for Hostess to sell its cult-favorite brands and shut down its operations for good. The company filed for bankruptcy after a battle with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. The union accused the company of slashing wages and benefits while bumping up executive pay.
Last week, Drain gave interim approval to the liquidation, which is expected to take about a year. Hostess' closure would result in more than 18,000 workers losing their jobs.
Hostess has received interest from a wide group of bidders, including Hurst Capital, a Florida investment firm that has made an offer. Also reportedly interested are Grupo Bimbo, which owns Sara Lee and Entenmann's, and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co., which owns the maker of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
The company is now "in active dialogue with 110 potential bidders, 70 of which have signed nondisclosure agreements," Ignon said. The baker's investment bankers received 10 calls Wednesday alone.
Hostess, which stopped contributing to its pension plans last year, also told the court that it needed to stop paying $1.1 million a month in retiree benefits.
The 82-year-old pastry maker entered bankruptcy for the second time in a decade in January. The Irving, Texas, company said this month that it could no longer function after a nationwide strike by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.
The union joined a workers' pension fund earlier this week to ask Drain to hand over control of the liquidation process to a Chapter 11 trustee.
They accused Hostess' management of being "woefully unsuccessful in its reorganization attempts" and said a trustee would best protect creditor interests and "support an orderly and timely wind-down."
Pretty standard. We've done the same bonus/incentive package shit when we buy a company with their top management. Whomever holds Hostess's assets wants to see as large a return as possible on what's left of them.
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff, so it's kind of puzzling why you'd post this sort of thing without any commentary, because you know there are a number of idiots around here who have no clue how the corporate world works and will just rage about LOL CAPITOLITSTS! :hmm:
:ultra:
LOL CAPITOLITSTS!
:showoff:
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:35:23 PM
:showoff:
:hug:
Just didn't want to leave you hangin'. :D
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:31:39 PM
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff, so it's kind of puzzling why you'd post this sort of thing without any commentary, because you know there are a number of idiots around here who have no clue how the corporate world works and will just rage about LOL CAPITOLITSTS! :hmm:
I've made my point. The GOPtards, vulture capitalist fanbois and other assorted groundings suckered by Wall Street know where I stand.
I'm raging.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 30, 2012, 07:39:14 PM
I've made my point. The GOPtards, vulture capitalist fanbois and other assorted groundings suckered by Wall Street know where I stand.
I'm part of the problem. :cool:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 30, 2012, 07:39:14 PM
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:31:39 PM
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff, so it's kind of puzzling why you'd post this sort of thing without any commentary, because you know there are a number of idiots around here who have no clue how the corporate world works and will just rage about LOL CAPITOLITSTS! :hmm:
I've made my point. The GOPtards, vulture capitalist fanbois and other assorted groundings suckered by Wall Street know where I stand.
On Martin bashir's face. LOLOLOL.
Ed Schultz. Brats fed like grapes.
I bet Ed Schultz's family doesn't get any thanksgiving turkey. He ate it all.
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:41:43 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 30, 2012, 07:39:14 PM
I've made my point. The GOPtards, vulture capitalist fanbois and other assorted groundings suckered by Wall Street know where I stand.
I'm part of the problem. :cool:
I've been saying that for years.
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:31:39 PM
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff
Nope. He really believes what he posts.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 01, 2012, 03:22:27 AM
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:31:39 PM
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff
Nope. He really believes what he posts.
While I certainly don't take what apparantly now has been dubbed the Cdm "LOL CAPITOLITSTS" view of business--I understand that whoever takes over the remaining assests of a failed company wants to get maximum value from those assets--I also don't share the view that the very executives who lead the company into failure have such mad bizness skilz that you have to pay them top dollar and give them bonuses in order to get that maximum value.
You can't turn a cruise ship on a dime, and big companies are like that too. It's too hard to judge the performance of the guy who only ran the company for the last couple years, even if he couldn't turn it around. He might have done the best possible job and still failed. Still doesn't mean he should get a billion dollar check when it's finally dead but hey.
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:41:43 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 30, 2012, 07:39:14 PM
I've made my point. The GOPtards, vulture capitalist fanbois and other assorted groundings suckered by Wall Street know where I stand.
I'm part of the problem. :cool:
Of course. You are what's called a "lick spittle".
Quote from: dps on December 01, 2012, 10:22:53 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 01, 2012, 03:22:27 AM
Quote from: Caliga on November 30, 2012, 07:31:39 PM
The thing is... I think you understand this stuff
Nope. He really believes what he posts.
While I certainly don't take what apparantly now has been dubbed the Cdm "LOL CAPITOLITSTS" view of business--I understand that whoever takes over the remaining assests of a failed company wants to get maximum value from those assets--I also don't share the view that the very executives who lead the company into failure have such mad bizness skilz that you have to pay them top dollar and give them bonuses in order to get that maximum value.
Yi believes in extremist capitalism, but not extremist opposition to it.
I believe in people disposing of their property as they see fit. I believe the labor market should be grownups contracting freely, to achieve the best deal for themselves they can.
I don't believe an employer is your daddy, or your mommy, or your feudal lord, or the tooth fairy. I believe they are mercenaries, out for a buck, just like employees.
Is that extremist capitalism, or is there more to it than that?
"We're all mercenaries!" doesn't sound very idealistic or romantic enough.
What's idealistic or romantic about waking up in the morning and punching in so you get money?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 01, 2012, 11:16:11 PM
What's idealistic or romantic about waking up in the morning and punching in so you get money?
There are people I'd be glad to wake up in the morning and punch for money, if it was legal and they weren't allowed to punch back.