Twinkies bakers say they'd rather lose jobs than take pay cuts

Factory work is hard, tedious, unpleasant labor –these are the people who deserve to reap the rewards of hard work; not the do-nothing Mitt Romney’s of the world.

I wish them the best.

Factory work is hard, tedious, unpleasant labor –these are the people who deserve to reap the rewards of hard work; not the do-nothing Mitt Romney’s of the world.

I wish them the best.

It’s fine if you don’t want to work there anymore but don’t block other people from applying. There may be people willing to do the job for that pay.

What an amazingly biased and one sided story!

You never mentioned the huge pay increases the Hostess management team gave themselves after declaring bankruptcy. It’s awfully hard to ask the other guy to make concessions after giving yourself a fat raise.

What about Hostess raiding the privately funded pension? What is the difference between the union effectively foreclosing on the Hostess and the private equity firms doing the same when Hostess fails to pay off their debts? Why not include that CRITICAL part of the story in your reporting?

I hope the bankruptcy judges gives worker pensions priority over investment raiders/bankers profits. The rank and file employees never asked for Hostess to assume massive debts so they could take the company private.

Does Reuters or your parent company have some undisclosed financial arrangement with some one involved with the Hostess fiasco? Your reporting sure looks that way!

Tis’ a shame that any work that is considered “hard, tedious and unpleasant” is no longer acceptable to many Americans. Tis’ but one reason more and more jobs in manufacturing are moving overseas. As the worker in the article says “why should I work when I can just collect unemployment”? Indeed, why should anyone work anymore? It simply is no longer necessary.

Yea, blame Mitt Romney. USA, Welcome to the Third World where dumb citizens hold elections and elect dumb leaders.

… Sounds good. Free up some room for other people. I’ll pull a lever for 10 hours a day for $35,000 a year.

The unions destroy yet another American company. Who really believes that they are going to make more than $35,000 a year for the skill set of baking Twinkies? That’s 15,000 people out of work — very unfortunate.

First of all, who really cares if this company suspends production of what is probably the most unhealthy bread and cake products that are made. Secondly, this is only the beginning of labor actions in the US. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act in the US, tens of thousands of mistreated employees will feel more empowered to stand up to their abusers and demand better working conditions and a living wage.

harharhar, poor, poor unskilled workers want over $35 000.00/year to stand on a factory line making Twinkies?!? Who the hell spends 26 years doing something like that? If these people didn’t like the job at the pay offered they were more than free to leave. But noo, they have to burn the house down after them. Isn’t that what the dems are accusing the republicans of doing?

Welcome to Obama’s America. Expect wave after wave of this over the next four years. Let’s see you degenerate lefties eat, clothe and house yourselves on homosexual marriage, harhar! Who’s going to pay for your food stamps? Who’s going to pay for your ‘bamaphone? The left is going to ‘gimmme, gimme, gimme’ america right into a ghetto.

This is really, really fun to watch. Go barry go, go barry go!

Ask and you shall receive. Iconic Hostess brand will live on baked in Hermosillo, Mexico maybe, bout an 1hr from the border but never stateside again for $19 hr (incl pension and benefits), $19 a week maybe.

so how is that working for you now ?

Both parties, management and the union, were dead wrong. Management appeared to show no regard any longer for its force that did all the dirty work to make them the money that they squandered. But the union did not help by bleeding them with benefits and pay earlier in the contracts, but to top it off the Union representatives that came in and stirred all this up and told everyone ‘they would rather loose their job than to take a pay cut’ refused a secret ballot asking the rank and file what THEY wanted.
Instead, the union forced the company closed and the union representative went back to his/her job, salary paid by union dues of the workers they put out of work. Great job there Union, take care of your people! Better to be out of work and unemployed at this time of year than to be employed and insured!

Why was a secret ballot denied to the bakery workers on the issue of a strike?

Wake up people…union leaders are dictators. Union leaders think that all workers are equal, its just that some are more equal than others.

the unions want to talk about mismanagment. Nice deflection from the fact the unions inflicted so much dysfunction on Hostess this company couldn’t ship bread and twinkies on the same truck to save costs, much less the rest these dysfunctional morons imposed.Facts always confuse the dickens out of liberal dementia.
The profound idiots are now going to enter a work force of high unemployment, and can expect at best jobs that pay $10 an hour with no benefits. Personally i find them unemployable and tomorrows transients.

Nonsense. I worked in a couple factories, and a printing shop and it’s easy, mindless, repetitive work. A “bun handler” moves a try of buns from a conveyor belt coming out of the oven and places it on another conveyor belt leading to the packing machine. Thirty five grand, and any kind of benefits for that job is a very good deal. And regarding the “unpleasant” quip, nonsense as well. The work is so mindless, you spend most of your time shooting the breeze with your coworkers while you “work” It’s actually pretty fun.

Wow. Such blindness. If these guys think welfare and food stamps are better than making 35,000 per year then have never lived on food stamps. Are they even connected to reality? Do they know how many millions of people are out of work? Do they know what they have cost themselves and how far behind they will go financially?

Twinkies from Mexico coming to a store shelf near you soon! There are no unions, no OSHA, no nothing…You want the job, you work and thats it, the average Mexican makes $5.00 a day and they’re happy to get it!

“Unlike some non-unionized rivals, the maker of Wonder Bread and Drake’s cakes had to navigate more than 300 labor contracts, with terms that often strained efficiency and competitiveness, Hostess officials have said. In some extreme cases, contract provisions required different products to be delivered on different trucks even when headed to the same place”…this is just one example of what a
union does to a business….see why they are dying out?

Factory work is practically unavailable in this country, of the tedious version or otherwise. nepotistic unions prevent people who aren’t connected to someone in a union from getting jobs. Hard work from such people isn’t a consideration.

It’s arrogant, self-important people like this that voted Barack Obama in. They have no respect for the people who employ them or for the work they’re hired to do. They’ll certainly get the sort of government they deserve, but the rest of us will be forced to suffer right alongside them. That’s the real tragedy.

These liberal fools, while seeking another job, will find a manual labor sector saturated with illegal aliens. And the Democratic party (the very people they think support them and their fellow working class citizens) is the primary reason illegal workers have been able to remain employed without fear of consequence.

Hostess posted a $341 million loss in 2011 on revenues of about $2.5 billion. Contributing to those 2011 losses:

- $52 million in Workers’ Comp Claims
- Dealing with 372 Distinct Collective-Bargaining Contracts
- Administration of 80 Separate Health and Benefits Plans
- Funding and Tending to 40 Discrete Pension Plans
- $31 million in year-over-year increases in wages and health care benefits for 2012 v. 2011

Uncounted in the above numbers were the outrageous union-imposed rules that made for a
too-high-to-bear cost of sales:

- No truck could carry both bread and snacks even when going to the same location
- Drivers were not permitted to load their own trucks
- Workers who loaded bread were not allowed to also load snacks
- Bringing products from back rooms to shelves required another set of union employees
- Multi-Employer pension obligations made Hostess liable for other, previously bankrupted,
retirement plan contributions from employees that never worked for Hostess at all

Factory work is hard, tedious, unpleasant labor –these are the people who deserve to reap the rewards of hard work; not the do-nothing Union leaders of the world.

omg people stop putting the blame on everyone else but who is the one that is responsible for this THE UNION. I have worked in a factory all my life and enjoy it very much but if a union came into our place I would leave. They are just money hungry and want those big dues. If the union wasn’t involved wanting more money for themselves Hostess would probably stay and all those people will still have jobs.

How many union execs lost their jobs over this?

I can’t figure out why Hostess didn’t hire new workers.If the current workers quit,then hire new ones.If Hostess couldn’t find anyone to take wages that would allow Hostess to stay in business,then best to just close up.They could have gone to Mexico.

Now all us taxpayers will be paying their bills.

For those of you saying that $35,000 per year is too much, how much should we settle for as American Workers? $20,000, $10,000? At what point do you say that the company has taken too much and it is time to stand up? Is it okay to accept what a Mexican worker, or a Chinese worker makes as the bottom line? Large unions are not perfect, but at least they have somewhat of an interest in bargaining for their employees, whereas the company has none.

Shut it down and rehire there are plenty of people out there needing a job. When will Americans realize we are living in tough economic times. Most everyone has had to take a pay cut it is just the way it is. They will be going in 2 weeks tops. I think ill go eat a twinkie, to many dumb dumbs still left.

At the 7-Eleven by where I live the shelf space where the Hostess used to be now has Marinela products made in Mexico in its place. So just like it should a good product at a lower cost takes its place.

“Workers had a laundry list of frustrations…”
What a shame. Like they’re the ONLY ones with rising costs for everything, working for an employer whose products are no longer in vogue with the likes of the First Lady, pushing fitness and dietary changes. But rather than either help their employer, or at least understand how drastically the changing market has affected sales, these selfish brats would rather see the company go under. Brilliant move, bakers.

. . . enough! Management was at fault for a number of reasons and the shareholders could have voted them out. What couldn’t be changed is the “waaa-waaa” from the workers and the Union Leaders. They accuse the management of “self-interest”, yet they are the ones who put in contract requirements that only serve their needs, not the needs of the enterprise. Allowing the Bakers Union to say “we would rather not have a job than continue with Hostess” is arcane at best and other “unions” suffered what they have done to other businesses – go out of business. Fianlly, if you don’t want to work in a “factory” – get out and let others in who do know the value of hard work – because you don’t.

Union rules required different products to be delivered to the same stores on different trucks? And these people don’t understand why they don’t have a job? Your union killed Hostess before they could create winning new products for health conscious consumers. Hey, at least there’s now one less union to deal with.

This is а mеssаgе tо thе bаkеrs: If yоu wаnt tо mаkе mоrе mоnеy, еаrn it by gеtting аn еduсаtiоn. Dоn’t еxресt tо gеt riсh оff оf еxtоrtiоn аnd bеing irrеsроnsiblе. Thеy dеsеrvе tо bе firеd fоr wаlking оff thе jоb, just likе аny оthеr еmрlоyее. рushing buns dоwn а соnvеyеr linе dоеsn’t sоund likе hаrd wоrk tо mе. аnd аnyоnе whо wоuld аbаndоn thеir роst аftеr аgrееing tо thеir wоrk sсhеdulе just isn’t а vеry rеsроnsiblе реrsоn. It’s а shаmе реорlе likе thаt quаlify fоr unеmрlоymеnt. My аdvisе tо аny оf thе еmрlоyееs whо аbаndоnеd thеir роsts is tо gо tо sсhооl аnd tо асtuаlly раy аttеntiоn this timе. соming tо сlаss is а gооd idеа, tоо. Hоwеvеr, I wоuldn’t hirе аnyоnе аssосiаtеd with this uniоn, nо mаttеr whаt сrеdеntiаls thеy hаvе.

(“I’d rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment,” said Johnson).
[Hostess] had to navigate more than 300 labor contracts, with terms that often strained efficiency and competitiveness… In some extreme cases, contract provisions required different products to be delivered on different trucks even when headed to the same place.

Increased unemployment insurance has made it much easier to give up on a job you don’t like. This confirms the truism that you get more of what you subsidize (unemployment) and less of what you tax (employment).
This episode also shows that a business has to make a profit to keep its doors open. What we have been hearing the last 4 years from this administration is a war on profits. While investors lose when there are no profits, this shows that the biggest losers are the lower and middle class as they lose jobs. At what point do we finally learn that every time the rich are punished, it is the poor and middle class that get hurt the most? We all win together or sink together. This dividing us between 99% and 1%, management and labor, etc, is a sure loser for all of us.

The title of this article needs to add – “…provided they get a taxpayer bailout (aka welfare)”

I have no sympathy for people who must be told what to do by mgmt that does not do the same, “you go strike and collect NO pay while we collect our pay and benefits” I’d say once you walk the picket line and give up your pay as well, I’ll picket. It’s easy to tell others to sacrifice when you don’t need to. The logic of I’d rather have no job than a job that pays less shows the mentality of the union worker, as dumb as all the jokes imply. Well now when you lose your home for not paying will that be the fault of the “rich” or yours for quitting and having NO savings.

As long as these people realize that there are no jobs out there, and don’t start to cry about not having one, then quit. Sounds like a foolish move to me.

Well well well it came out today that it was the executives that sank the company. The union had nothing to do with it,

“I’d rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment,” said [Kenneth] Johnson, a worker at Hostess for 23 years.

News Flash: If you quit your job (which the bakery union workers did by going on strike), you cannot draw unemployment. The other workers who did not strike can collect, but not the ones who went on strike. Sorry Kenneth!

There’s a billion or two Chinese and Indians just waiting to start making, and eating, them ding-dongs, fudgeroos and twinkies that have helped America gain it’s weight in the world. Imagine the nerve of those ungrateful chicanos not wanting to settle for less for the privilege of having a job!

At the risk of some melamine contamination, let THEM eat cake.

I do not feel sorry for any of the these strikers, CHAZZ,has it right,whoever set up the contracts, was not so hot when dealing with unions. I did a lot of contracts and they were all the same nation wide.

“…the snack maker’s second-largest union, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers.”

Let’s see now… tobacco workers and grain millers. What does that have to do with the baking industry?

They said they would rather collect unemployment than work for a lower wage.This is typical of society today. Don’t give me what I want, I’ll take my toys and go home, not to mention suck more blood from the already drying veins of the taxpayer.

I haven’t bought Hostess products in decades, so I can’t say I’m sorry to see them go. To have the company’s demise brought about by obscenely obtuse and myopic union leadership, though, causes the hope to spring up in me that I will one day see the demise of unions in this country.

That demise will be helped along by such actions as the lone union baker in a Florida Wal-Mart walking off the job in protest. Keep walking off the job, you union ‘bots. One day you’ll discover that all your jobs went either overseas or to non-union Americans. Who will pay those over-priced dues, then?

i get SO tired of hearing everyone say they just should take yet another cut and be thankful. Yea, like they are SO upper-class and probably don’t deserve 1/2 of what they get right now anyway! Anyone of YOU prepared to take (AS of Dec 1) a 40% reduction in your total income, whatever it may be. I apologize… but.. speak up… I am sure you would be helping the big picture of the American economy if you did just that.. so………

They’re getting their wish. Now they can try and find a real job.

Why dont you crybaby union communists ever just quit instead of driving every business you are involved with into the ground? YOU didnt build that company, you just held it hostage and made sure no one else could have a halfway decent living.

Funny, funny stuff. The lefties and unionists support burning a business to the ground if they don’t get their way but lose their minds if the republicans threaten to act the same way, harhar. The democratic politicians are a mirror reflection of their unionist supporters. Just as the lefty unionists want the business owners to pay more ‘or else’ the democratic politicians want the rich and successful to pay more ‘or else’, harhar! Just take from those that have and give to those that don’t want to work.

Oh well, in their minds they’ll just quit, tax the successful a bit more and live out the rest of their days collecting obama-dollars. Hey, they might even get a free cell-phone out of the deal once ‘dey gets ons the welfares’, harharhar! Pathetic worms.

You think another employer will hire any of them after doing this to Hostess? What kind of stuttering moron would hire a person that destroyed the last company they worked for? By exactly the same logic what kind of job creator is going to risk opening a business in an obama america? Can you say hostile to business? Can you say recipe for disaster? Go barry go! Go barry go!

“i get SO tired of hearing everyone say they just should take yet another cut and be thankful.”

Funny how in all of this – the Union taking a cut – was never mentioned…

Funny that management taking a cut wasn’t mentioned much either. This was a cumulative effect of mismanagement over many years. What has been mentioned in the articles relating to this is that the company hasn’t developed any (or very few) new products for years. Hostess spent 5 of the last 8 years in bankruptcy. The writing was on the wall…

Let this event and the polarised comments in this forum be a lesson to all.
Just about every aspect of the world has opposing forces that need to be balanced.
When people who’s thinking resides too far on either side of the political spectrum stay determined to give no quarter to the opposite view of their own, this is the outcome.
Just as it is with the Twinkie corporation, so too it is with the various levels of government, the US citizens and the rest of the world.
Holding an extremist view and refusing to compromise with the opposing view, has always, and will always end in disaster.
Putting yourself in the position of your opponent and at least attempting to see things from their point of view, and learning to strike a compromise with them can be human nature with a little practice.
Human-beings have been gifted with a huge brain that allows us to practice empathy with our fellow man. It’s not a sign of weakness to show empathy and compassion to people who see the world differently to you. It’s a sign of intelligence.

What these Twinkie wuzzes really need is a dose of reality. They’ll get that when they have to sit home on their DingDongs and the unemployment runs out. It is staggering to find out in this employment environment there is a group of people (even union people) who would rather kill a business and their livelihood rather than look to way to make the business work.

I can ASSURE all of them there IS a way to get Twinkies and DingDongs to market in a more efficient and practical way then they have thought of. And I can FURTHER assure you that another company will do it, sans this bull headed workforce and their many unions and stifling contracts.

Apparently, in this modern era, the purpose of a capitalist business and their thousands of employees exists to support and stroke the ego of labor unions. Hostess Cup Cakes and Snow Ball will be made again and they will be made under the guise of a smaller company with a NEW workforce. Enjoy your permanent retirement. No one wants to hire a bratty 26 year employee to flip bake pans and keep a cot in the corner of the local union hall…no matter HOW much experience you have.

Darrow…for the Prosecution

So they intentionally cause their company to fold and they want unemployment. They shouldn’t get a dime, they effectively quit, which is not grounds to get welfare/unemployment or any other government funds.

Running a business is neither simple nor glamorous. It is hard, frustrating work. “Givebacks” and work rules aside, a company that does not make a profit is broke, with a capital “B”. End of story. End of gaming.