Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
El Bimbo, or Little Debbie's, is coming to the rescue. Without the union loafers the prices will be cheaper and the consumer will realize a greater surplus.Globalization cannot be stopped, get used to it.
Worked in a union shop once; you could not wipe your own ass after taking a crap, the asswipe boy had to do it. Hope he was paid well.
2.5 Billion in sales... brought to their knees by a few hundred million in operating expenditures.
They also had $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. They simply couldn't sustain the wages and benefits the unions had negotiated for the workers.
They also had $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. They simply couldn't sustain the wages and benefits the unions had negotiated for the workers.
Giving pensions is an antiquated business model that does not work in the modern world. Like it or not that is the way it is. The era of American dominance of the economic scene has been over for 40 years due to economic laws that cannot be changed.
Giving pensions is an antiquated business model that does not work in the modern world. Like it or not that is the way it is. The era of American dominance of the economic scene has been over for 40 years due to economic laws that cannot be changed.
Hostess was contributing to 40 different pension plans. The baker union ran some type of MEP pension where it wasn't just that one company plan; more like a collective of all baker unions in all companies that employed bakers. At least that is how I understood it when I read it. Complex and convoluted.
It allowed bakers to move jobs and keep all their benefits with no gap in time.
They also had $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. They simply couldn't sustain the wages and benefits the unions had negotiated for the workers.
Then... they go out of business. Seems to me, however, that a company in the process of paying millions in bonuses to select members of the Executive Branch should be able to afford the rank and file payroll. No?
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo
Giving pensions is an antiquated business model that does not work in the modern world. Like it or not that is the way it is. The era of American dominance of the economic scene has been over for 40 years due to economic laws that cannot be changed.
Pensions are indeed antiquated and do not work in the modern world. And few companies offer them anymore. If OTOH you are a legacy worker and have been with the company for some time you have contributed a huge sum of money towards your own retirement. Should employers simply be able to scarf up all that cash and say "sorry... you're SOL Charlie"? Pensions seemed like a good idea: take the schmucks own money and promise give it back to him in an annuity. With any luck he'll croak before we have to pay him a dime. Now pensions can be transferred to spouses and more people actually live long enough to eat through the withheld premiums. It was the companies responsibility to invest the money wisely. The banks screwed their investors and now those investors want to screw their labor force. Banks... where ever there is bad financial juju going down a bank or banker is at the heart of it. The ire that is aimed at unions should really be focussed squarely on the financial institutions that have destroyed a decent standard of living all over the world.
Then... they go out of business. Seems to me, however, that a company in the process of paying millions in bonuses to select members of the Executive Branch should be able to afford the rank and file payroll. No?
Pensions are indeed antiquated and do not work in the modern world. And few companies offer them anymore. If OTOH you are a legacy worker and have been with the company for some time you have contributed a huge sum of money towards your own retirement. Should employers simply be able to scarf up all that cash and say "sorry... you're SOL Charlie"? Pensions seemed like a good idea: take the schmucks own money and promise give it back to him in an annuity. With any luck he'll croak before we have to pay him a dime. Now pensions can be transferred to spouses and more people actually live long enough to eat through the withheld premiums. It was the companies responsibility to invest the money wisely. The banks screwed their investors and now those investors want to screw their labor force. Banks... where ever there is bad financial juju going down a bank or banker is at the heart of it. The ire that is aimed at unions should really be focussed squarely on the financial institutions that have destroyed a decent standard of living all over the world.
H
The workers contributed $0. Hostess contributed 100% of their pensions.
Then... they go out of business. Seems to me, however, that a company in the process of paying millions in bonuses to select members of the Executive Branch should be able to afford the rank and file payroll. No?
Pensions are indeed antiquated and do not work in the modern world. And few companies offer them anymore. If OTOH you are a legacy worker and have been with the company for some time you have contributed a huge sum of money towards your own retirement. Should employers simply be able to scarf up all that cash and say "sorry... you're SOL Charlie"? Pensions seemed like a good idea: take the schmucks own money and promise give it back to him in an annuity. With any luck he'll croak before we have to pay him a dime. Now pensions can be transferred to spouses and more people actually live long enough to eat through the withheld premiums. It was the companies responsibility to invest the money wisely. The banks screwed their investors and now those investors want to screw their labor force. Banks... where ever there is bad financial juju going down a bank or banker is at the heart of it. The ire that is aimed at unions should really be focussed squarely on the financial institutions that have destroyed a decent standard of living all over the world.
H
coupled with the requirement that private pension funds must file an actuarial assessment on a periodic basis that would give any overseer or negotiator a heads up on the actual costs; why do all these companies scream legacy costs are killing them when they were in the know that they were underfunding their obligations AND ALSO agreeing to increased benefits at subsequent agreement talks?????
I'll tell you why: they all gambled that a hey day in profits would come rolling around the corner to enable them to make last minute infusions of assets into these funded plans. DIDN'T HAPPEN! Now they're all crying it was those nasty unions when those costs were only the costs the companies agreed to but did not fund as required by law in some cases.
These same bozos that mismanaged those obligations instead of writing them into fiscal forecasts are now giving themselves bonuses after declaring the company insolvent.
Yeah; it's all the Union's fault scream the morons on here.
The workers contributed $0. Hostess contributed 100% of their pensions.
Hmmmm. So.....if X worker is making 25K/yr... his pension deductible (2%,3%...5%?) is not somehow a deduction from the negotiated starting salary? If you don't think that Hostess paid each and every employee exactly less what their pension deductible was, you simply don't understand the way business works. 0%... oh the naivete.
Hmmmm. So.....if X worker is making 25K/yr... his pension deductible (2%,3%...5%?) is not somehow a deduction from the negotiated starting salary? If you don't think that Hostess paid each and every employee exactly less what their pension deductible was, you simply don't understand the way business works. 0%... oh the naivete.
H
More to the point; the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union most assuredly bargained a cents per hour into the pension fund of it's members which is administered by the UNION.
I have been retired for many years from a business in Canada that was represented by these folks. The Canadian members were, very early on, represented by the Tobacco Workers IU prior to it's amalgamation with the Bakery Workers IU and their pension funds were mostly Defined Benefit plans that featured a percentage of wage deduction with matching amounts from the companies with gov't regulations requiring actuarial assessments be performed frequently and funding if shortfalls were detected via those assessments. Very good, gold plated, plans rated equal to or better than civil service plans.
The Bakery Workers IU had their own Pension fund set up and routinely negotiated a flat cents per hour contibution by the companies and the Union assumed all the responsibilities for investing and monitoring the Pension funds which made for far less costs and risks to any companies they organized. Hostess would be one of those models. When they stop paying the hourly wages either through your retirement, lay off or firing, they stop paying any pension contibutions; it's as simple as that. NO PENSION LEGACY COSTS are borne by the companies using that model. If the fund goes into deficit through lack of effective investing by the Union; tough cookies (pardon the pun); there will be no infusion of funds obligations required by any of those companies to make up the shortfall.
Hostess is using the press to cover their stupidity in management and make the Union out as the bully boys.
The work rules imposed in union contracts required the company that makes Twinkies, which also makes Wonder Bread, to deliver these two products to stores in separate trucks. Moreover, truck drivers were not allowed to load either of these products into their trucks. And the people who did load Twinkies into trucks were not allowed to load Wonder Bread, and vice versa.
All of this was obviously intended to create more jobs for the unions' members. But the needless additional costs that these make-work rules created ended up driving the company into bankruptcy, which can cost 18,500 jobs. The union is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
