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People who work in factories work their butts off! They at least deserve a livable wage with health insurance. Physical labor is just as valuable as the jobs of the educated. What if no one took a job that demanded physical labor?
This is the problem with liberalism. Yes it would be nice if everyone got a livable wage and health insurance but there are economic realities. If the company cannot make enough to service its debts it goes bankrupt. If your job is easily replaced guess what you're not going to be paid that much to do it. Nobody is going to pay someone $25 an hour for a job when they can find someone to do it for $12 and hour. Hence why many of us are against illegal immigration but we're denounced as racist and backwards. Oh well the unskilled and semi skilled worker is getting kicked in the teeth in both directions. On one hand their jobs are expropriated overseas because factors of productions, transport to markets etc are cheaper and just as good. On the other hand millions of people are let in unchecked, most with minimal skills to compete for the few unskilled jobs out there.
Oh well atleast women can have access to free contraception and on demand abortion. Oh and we have a Black president. That'll show those evil white men. On the merry road to penury we shall go.
What the difference is, is how the companies were run.
One was family owned and operated, and the other was run by a board of directors, who was more worried about the value of their stock and the size of their dividend, then the quality of their products.
One used ethical, responsible business practices, while the other was anything for a buck.
One respected their employees while the other felt that they were just another resource.
One, management was responsible for their actions, while the other, management ran the company into the ground, multiple times.
So you think family corporations are not concerned about those things? I mean there is some truth to your analysis, family firms tend to have longer term views and may put some more focus on interpersonal relationships than PE firms.
However they have board of directors too and are subject to the same economic forces as any other business. If they don't make enough money they close.
Bascially it was a comany in a dying market by just looking at the stats on sales amoug the top five. In the end it just couldn't compete like so many buinesses.That is why the investors want to liquidate and take their losses in bankrupsy;plian an simple. If you look next time you will see thatmst major super markets have their own brands of these same type of prodcutsd at cheaer prices. Mnay young people have never even tatsed a tweinlie which alos tells you somethig of changing market taste.
They sold 500 million twinkies and had 2.5 billion in revenue. It's not a dying market or company by any stretch of the imagination. It's like cigarettes, they may have lost their luster here but there are billions of folks out there who want to smoke. Hence the tobacco companies go there. Altria is doing just fine as a result.
Following these massive givebacks, a private equity company called Ripplewood Holdings brought the company out of bankruptcy in 2009 for $130 million and rechristened it Hostess Brands. The hedge funds and other lenders forgave some old debt and extended some new debt. Ripplewood convinced the other stakeholders that it could turn the company around and, apparently, convinced them so completely that only Hostess Management and Ripplewood had seats on the board. Neither the unions nor the hedge funds acquired voting seats as part of the deals struck to keep the company afloat. They just trusted Ripplewood to turn things around, implement new technologies, introduce new products, and rebuild aging infrastructure.
It wasn't even the wages that were the big problem, it was the work rules. The Bakers union were adamant that a second truck had to be sent to each delivery because bread could not be deliviered by the same driver as other baked goods. Are you kidding me?
It wasn't even the wages that were the big problem, it was the work rules. The Bakers union were adamant that a second truck had to be sent to each delivery because bread could not be deliviered by the same driver as other baked goods. Are you kidding me?
That wasn't the bakers union, that was the teamsters union, the reason for that is the company then has to employ two more teamsters where only one drive would be needed. This type of tactic is used all the time by the teamsters union, it is a waste of a companies resources and very inefficient however the union doesn't care as long as it employs union workers.
Maybe it's a saftey issue, if you mix Twinkies, Ho-Ho's and Wonder bread on the same truck it will explode.
I can't help but wonder - who was the parasite and who was the host in this situation? When will employers and employees realize that one cannot survive without the other? I see plenty of blame to go around.
When will America realize that we cannot sustain any standard of living without a strong middle class?
I guess when that top 1% has no one left to buy their goods and services - THAT is where we are heading. Is there anyone left that thinks trickle down economics works?
I don't understand how this works. The workers would rather lose their jobs than accept lower wages? Someone please explain the logic in this.
its called the age of: entitlement. Most are probably public school educated. The union leaders didnt lose all the money they make, and yet, they encouraged the sheeple to quit. Its ok, now they get 99 weeks of unemployment.
Following these massive givebacks, a private equity company called Ripplewood Holdings brought the company out of bankruptcy in 2009 for $130 million and rechristened it Hostess Brands. The hedge funds and other lenders forgave some old debt and extended some new debt. Ripplewood convinced the other stakeholders that it could turn the company around and, apparently, convinced them so completely that only Hostess Management and Ripplewood had seats on the board. Neither the unions nor the hedge funds acquired voting seats as part of the deals struck to keep the company afloat. They just trusted Ripplewood to turn things around, implement new technologies, introduce new products, and rebuild aging infrastructure.
A union should NEVER have a seat on a board of directors because the very concept of a union is anti-profit, anti-capitalism, redistribution of wealth. No business is in business to lose money or just get by. They are in business to profit from selling goods and services to a market that is willing to buy those goods and services.
The idiot at Salon.com that wrote this gibberish is is anti capitalism.
Funny how the mainstream media doesn't tell us the whole story.
Hostess posted sales of $2.5 billion in 2011 but lost $341 million and lacked the cash flow to hold out through the bakers union work stoppage that had only lost a few days of production so far. One reason is a labor-rule burden that by comparison makes Detroit look like Hong Kong.
The snack giant endured $52 million in workers’ comp claims in 2011, according to its bankruptcy filing this January. Hostess’s 372 collective-bargaining agreements required the company to maintain 80 different health and benefit plans, 40 pension plans and mandated a $31 million increase in wages and health care and other benefits for 2012.
Union work rules usually required cake and bread products to be delivered to a single retail location using two separate trucks. Drivers weren’t allowed to load their own vehicles, and the workers who loaded bread weren’t allowed to load cake. On most delivery routes, another "pull up" employee moved products from back rooms to shelves.
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Yes Virginia, the unions really did kill Hostess
