Posted on 07/09/2013 3:34:11 AM PDT by grundle
Craig Davis, a former forklift operator at a Hostess cake plant in Emporia, Kan., has been unemployed since November, when the Twinkies maker shut its factories and began liquidation proceedings.
He could have applied to get his old job back now that the plant is churning out Twinkies, Zingers and Ding Dongs in preparation for a July 15 return to store shelves. But he said the current starting salary of about $11 an hour, with the chance to bump it to $14, is "a slap in the face."
"When I left, I was making $16.53 an hour, so I just didn't see the point," said Mr. Davis, who worked at the plant for almost 22 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I’ve seen 12 year old farm kids operate a back hoe...amazing. Simple hydraulics.
Cry me a river! The unions did them in.
"When I left, I was making $16.53 an hour, so I just didn't see the point," said Mr. Davis, who worked at the plant for almost 22 years.
Don't forget, those employees were warned before November if they didn't agree to wage concessions (to a level still above the average wages for those jobs), the company would close. Employee response: "We chose to exercise our right to reject that ultimatum." Unemployed since November and current wage offer from new company too low? Sometimes it's better to be right than dead right.
I couldn't survive on $16.53/hour, let alone $11/hour. But I don't live in Emporia, KS either. Maybe it's a fairly reasonable wage to pay in a place with a much lower cost of living than here in the Northeast.
Another delicate issue here is the value of experience in some types of jobs. For a forklift operator, is there really a difference in skill level between a person with five years of experience and one with twenty years of experience? As an employer, my goal with all of these workers would be to take the best, brightest, and hardest-working employees at every level and train them for a better, more responsible position with higher pay. By any objective measure, there's no reason to pay someone more than the job is worth in terms of value and productivity.
22 years on a fork lift ?
Good stuff! Would make a good thread on its own. Have you tried to publish this in your home town paper?
“Mr. Davis says he would have been eligible to collect about $1,800 a month starting at age 55. Now expects to draw only $500 a month.”
My guess is that he never voted for the party that wanted to shore up social security. Now he will be relying on it. Poetic justice.
“A forklift should not be operated by some teenager earning barely more than minimum wage who has no long term stake in the job”
Why not? Teen unemployment is at depression era levels right now, and it would be good experience. I’m guessing a pallet full of fluffy Twinkies getting knocked over isn’t going to cause a lot of damage.
If he spent 22 years on a forklift and could not advance, there is no justification for his wage.
You do not buy old milk or bread or sugar or clothes at a premium price merely because they are old. You don’t pay more for an unused ten year old shovel just because it is old.
He is the poster child for the need to rid a business of the union cancer. His unwarranted cost multiplied by many is the reason the business failed. The fact is, he is old and unservicable
I didn’t ask what you think it wasn’t, I asked what you think it was.
The market determines the value. The current value is $11 per hour. Deal with it.
Remember, that company went bankrupt. It’s gone.
I'm not in favor of making fun of unions. I am in favor of busting them up once and for all.
By the way, you are a liberal. Further, anybody who has to put in parentheses that they are not a liberal is a liberal. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it is curable.
Nobody is "owed" a certain wage. Nobody. If you decide that you want to make a career of being a "forklift operator" (22 years, wow!) you need to accept the piddling wage that comes with it. I can teach my 14-year-old nephew to drive a forklift in 20 minutes. Why should I pay some grown man an artificially inflated salary for a menial entry-level type job?
You see, this is why unions end up destroying the companies that allow themselves to get infiltrated by them. By artificially inflating salaries for menial jobs, they destroy incentive for these employees to do better with their lives. They create the culture where a man becomes content to operate a forklift for 22 years and suddenly finds himself unable to make a living in the real world because he has no other marketable skills.
Unions are parasites that left unchecked, will eventually destroy the host. This is why they need to be busted up. Union = Socialism. If you are pro-union, you are also a socialist. Their ideologies are the same.
There's a bit of truth to that. MGD actually got a job one time with a line similar to that. He was a young engineering tech with only a few years experience. He told the hiring managers that his three years of experience was broad and diverse, and was not the same as having one year of experience repeated ten times.
They liked that line so much they gave him the job.
Looks like their union didnt serve them well. Lower payw no union or no job at all.
Not to worry, immigration reform is coming dont they know it will stimulate the economy? CBO says so. Guess how? By doing YOUR job for less $$$ you stupid Obama voters.
My mom put that Hostess crap in my school lunch back when my parents had black and white TV. I wouldnt touch it now.
I agree, I spent almost 35 years in a Tier 1 stamping plant in Detroit and if you watched our hi-lo drivers on the floor, you'd swear they were formula-1 drivers on the weekends.......
I would not presume to know more about running a Twinkie plant than the guy who is running a Twinkie plant.
Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo! The Teamsters blame the Baker's union and I suspect it is former teamsters and bakers that are complaining about the wages. Oh cry me a bunch of Alligator tears!
The economy was shot before the negotiations failed. Did they think they would get the same wages (or better) afterwards? Jobs are scarce as hens teeth. Did they think their shenanigans would pay off?
I suspect they did and found the truth of reality far less palatable than they thought.
Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo. Cry me a bucket of Alligator and Crocodile tears.
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