Posted on 11/16/2012 5:13:37 AM PST by Sub-Driver
The Demise Of The Twinkie: Hostess Files Motion To Liquidate
By Tom Gara
And that’s that: Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread and more, announced this morning it has filed a motion with bankruptcy court to start liquidating the company immediately. A huge number of jobs are soon to be lost.
“Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce,” said CEO Gregory F. Rayburn in the statement, “and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”
In a letter posted on a new site set up to communicate with employees and suppliers through the liquidation process, Mr. Rayburn pinned the blame on its striking union:
Despite everyone’s considerable efforts to move Hostess out of its restructuring, when we began implementing the Company’s last, best and final offer, the Bakers Union chose to stage a crippling strike. This affected Hostess’ ability to continue to make products and service its customers’ needs and pushed Hostess into a Wind Down scenario. As a result, we are forced to proceed with an orderly wind down and sale of our operations and assets. We deeply regret taking this action. But we simply cannot continue to operate without the ability to produce or deliver our products.
There’s no way to soften the fact that this will hurt every Hostess Brands employee. All Hostess Brands employees will eventually lose their jobs – some sooner than others. Unfortunately, because we are in bankruptcy, there are severe limits on the assistance the Company can offer you at this time.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Your post gives me an idea. Let’s refer to every union strike situation as “Union Greed”.
I don't know if they have COBRA or had medical bene's, so follow me on this...
* They go on Unemployment
* They go on Obamacare via exchanges or Medicaid.
* Go on Food Stamps
* Their earnings are even lower, so Earned Income Credit, Additional Child Credit kick in for a no tax to refund below their tax rate for a next cost to us.
* They sign up for some usless training program that gets state aid or federal aid to pay for it, but their is no real job after they are done.
Heck they will make out better than most Freeper's working their @$$es off trying to do it without snuggling up to the Goverment Teet.
The preferred snack cake of my youth. What a delight it was to occasionally find one in my school brown-bag lunch, a welcome surprise from Mommy.
The Hostess Twinkie.
Requiescat in pace.
This sort of thing has happened many times before. Union intransigence killed the New York World Journal Tribune newspaper, Eastern Airlines, and a number of other companies, putting their members out of work.
They said a Twinkie would last 10,000 years. Bronco Bamma killed it in less than 4.
Yep: unemployment, section 8, SNAP food stamps, and Obamacare make this a soft landing for the unions.
“Heard some union worker quoted on CBS radio news (WSB) to the effect that they can make more on unemployment than with the company offer”
Typical Union thought process, they can’t think out beyond 9 months, about how long the Unemployment checks last.
Anyone keeping a running tally of jobs lost since the election?
They’ll be missed (not.)
I suspect that all those bakers are going to have a very difficult time finding a job. Hostess on their resume will be poison.
I spent 35 years in manufacturing, mostly in union environments. Union membership subtracts 20 or 30 points off of a workers IQ over the years. It is unbelievable that even union members would not understand that the market is producing a big problem.
This is the 21st century and many union members are stuck in the 1920’s.
Maybe the union will make a move to hire the 18,500 people. Oh wait - unions don’t provide any jobs! Maggot parasites finally killed the host(ess) - striking over 2% to pensions and a 5% pay cut nets them a 100% pay reduction. That is liberal math at its finest.
Maybe more people will wake up to the fact that these parasites are the death of American business and their demorat politician whores are merely their cheerleaders.
I just dig how the Bakers Union took down the Teamsters. Schadenfreudically awesome...
In fact Hostess gave financial analysts employed by the Teamsters access to the company books. The union employed
analysts told the confectioner’s union to accept the offer.
Why do I feel like I am living in the early chapters of Atlas Shrugged?
The new purchaser can set up a large plant in Indiana, a RTW state, which can supply all the Great Lakes states with Hostess products.
Before we get all teary eyed about the non union members who who also lose their jobs, how many of them wish they could undo who they voted for this year?
The demise of the unions is not long. Might be wishful thinking on my part.
That is quite likely, however, the company that buys the rights and recipes in the fire sale will move the production to their existing facilities to fill the gap caused by the down economy. Little Debbie (McKee Foods) comes to mind. They will NOT continue to produce the brand in seperate facilities (if they acquire it) - they will move the production to their plants and use their existing model of distribution and existing suppliers. They will not even add staff to acquire the brands - they can just keep the staff on hand running at a higher production capacity.
And how many related jobs will be lost in the supply chain? Probably a couple thousand more.....................
Good analogy.
In fact, they could sell it all - lock,stock,and barrel - to a single new owner, who could then as XYZ Corp sell Hostess Twinkies, HoHo’s, etc.
And they could have a non-union shop.
It’s such a popular, well-liked brand that that’s what I expect to happen.
Not going to happen. They are not viable as a stand alone company - thus the reason they have been in bankruptcy since January. They will be acquired by a competing brand like McKee foods who will move production to their own facilities and carry on the brand as a supplement to their existing product lines.
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