Hostess Shrugged

[Guest Mad4rcn]

[quote name='Hershmeister' timestamp='1353365797' post='848443']
It's their company and they can do with it what they will - well at least they should be able to.....
[/quote]

^ YES !

[mcurrier]

[quote name='HvyMtl' timestamp='1353527519' post='849202']

@mcurrier, If you are going bankrupt, and are "putting salaries back to original salary" for some of your workers, while asking others to deeply cut their salaries? Is that fair?
[/quote]

Typically, it is 'management', owners, stockholders that take the cuts while trying to save a company, all of which are non-union. It is rarely the "employees/worker" (union members) that take [u]any cut[/u] at all while the company is floundering. This may have been a move to let the non-union workers go out with something in their pockets before the inevitable happened.

I have owned quite a few businesses myself. Whenever our companies fell on hard economic times, it was always myself and other investors who took the pay cuts so that we would not have to lay off workers. I have run a few businesses for 2-3 years without taking a dime for myself, living strictly off of savings. I have known many others who have done the same, trying to save the company/business. I don't know the specifics of the Hostess situation, no one does as it has not been reported in detail. All I'm saying is that could possibly be the case.

We don't know without more details.

[Guest HvyMtl]

@mcurrier You may be a rare bird, and I respect your business decisions. Heck, if I knew what you did, and I needed the product/service, I would send $ your way, as being responsible as an owner proves to be good for business.

That said, Hostess seems to have had too many changes with management over a critically short time, from other sources I am hearing the buyers got loans with too high of interest, and the debt load was simply too great. Just wish I could confirm with mainstream media.

And you are right, we do not have enough info. Even to blame the unions. Some who seem to have, particularly, and perhaps ironically, the Teamsters (ugh) cut themselves to the bone to save the place, too.

[TripleDigitRide]

I couldn't care less about the Twinkie, but I sure do hope someone brings back the Suzy Q's of years past. Changing the cake formula to something with a longer shelf-life was a huge mistake, in my opinion. They've never been the same.

[mcurrier]

[quote name='HvyMtl' timestamp='1353564085' post='849377']
@mcurrier You may be a rare bird, and I respect your business decisions. Heck, if I knew what you did, and I needed the product/service, I would send $ your way, as being responsible as an owner proves to be good for business.
[/quote]

And I appreciate the sentiment. Believe me, there are many, many small business owners who do exactly the same thing. I'm pretty sure I was reading a post on TGO just a few days ago written by a guy who owns a small business and said he hadn't taken any personal pay for almost a year so he could keep paying employees. It may have been somewhere else, I don't remember. I read so much (too much?) stuff.

[Oh Shoot]

[quote name='HvyMtl' timestamp='1353564085' post='849377']
...And you are right, we do not have enough info. Even to blame the unions. Some who seem to have, particularly, and perhaps ironically, the Teamsters (ugh) cut themselves to the bone to save the place, too.
[/quote]

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union seems to be the main one involved, yet there are apparently over 6,700 Teamster members also?

So that's like they run their own trucks and all the drivers are Teamsters?

- OS Edited November 23, 2012 by OhShoot

[Guest HvyMtl]

Yes, I do know Hostess did run their own fleet of trucks. From the small delivery vans all the way up to 18 wheelers. Used to be a great place to work. Got to take home food. But, that was a few years back, before the first bankruptcy.

[mcurrier]

[b] How to make a Twinkie at home[/b]


http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/11/16/twilight-twinkie/?intcmp=features


[size=5][b][color=#000000][font=arial, sans-serif][left]How to Make a Twinkie Filling at Home[/left][/font][/color][/b][/size]

[color=#000000][font=arial, sans-serif][size=3][left]Read more: [url="http://www.foxnews.com/recipe/how-make-twinkie-filling-home#ixzz2D3fyy6xR"]http://www.foxnews.com/recipe/how-make-twinkie-filling-home#ixzz2D3fyy6xR[/url][/left][/size][/font][/color]


[b] Ashton Warren's Perfect Twinkie Recipe[/b]

http://www.foxnews.com/recipe/ashton-warrens-perfect-twinkie-recipe

[mcurrier]

Govt. Bailout of Hostess Corp.

[b]Hostess Bakery plants shut down Friday the result of a union strike idling some 18,000 workers. The Obama administration will hire most all of these displaced employees. The State Department will hire the Twinkies, the Secret Service the Ho Hos, the generals will sleep with the Cupcakes and all the Ding Dongs are going to Congress.[/b]

[Guest TankerHC]

The deal Hostess offered the Union was more than fair. An temporary 8% pay cut in exchange for an 4% increase for two years followed by further increases and 25% stock in the company with voting rights.

I guess when your in a Union a 100% pay cut is better than a temporary pay cut and owning 25% of the company.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

[quote name='TankerHC' timestamp='1353945911' post='850797']
The deal Hostess offered the Union was more than fair. An temporary 8% pay cut in exchange for an 4% increase for two years followed by further increases and 25% stock in the company with voting rights.

I guess when your in a Union a 100% pay cut is better than a temporary pay cut and owning 25% of the company.
[/quote]
Defies logic, doesn't it? That's the way some unions are. More of that tail wagging the dog stuff.

Some of the discussion "works" on the premise that the union controls the roost. Too bad, that ain't the case. Whatever
a private company does with it's assets, whether right or wrong in the opinion of unions or others, it can still do. It gave
an ultimatum to take a pay cut or shut down. The choice was made.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

[color=#222222][font=Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)][quote name='TankerHC' timestamp='1353945911' post='850797']
The deal Hostess offered the Union was more than fair. An temporary 8% pay cut in exchange for an 4% increase for two years followed by further increases and 25% stock in the company with voting rights.

I guess when your in a Union a 100% pay cut is better than a temporary pay cut and owning 25% of the company.
[/quote]

That employee-ownership angle sounds good in principle. There are most likely situations where it is also good in practice. Early microsoft secretaries and office boys retired millionaires on stock options.

Sometimes the employee-ownership angle is the last refuge, the last desperate attempt of incompetent scoundrels to remain big shots in charge. I saw this first hand in the mid-1980's at a place I was working on open ended contract, 30 day notice either party. So if the place had gone "employee-owned" wouldn't have either benefited or harmed me. If the place went belly-up, would have just had to go scrounge up another gig, neither the first or last time, no big deal.

Anyway, the big shot in charge was a grandiose incompetent fool. He had "married into serious old family money." Opened an ambitious big deal and got it generating big revenue but it never generated enough revenue to pull a profit because the idiot was the worst kind of spendthrift and possibly a contender for "worst manager in history."

So he blew thru millions of his wife's money, and millions of investor money, and finally the shadow of imminent bankruptcy was upon him. So his last desperate move to remain a big shot lording it over several hundred peons was to attempt to convince the peons to accept pay cuts that would buy into employee ownership. To be managed by this same idiot of course, who expected to continue to draw a big salary and strut around the property like a puffed up toad, mismanaging everything he could touch. Even the dumbest minimum wage employees didn't have any interest in that. They were only there to trade work for money, didn't like the dude, and could plainly see that with this guy at the helm the place would go underwater in short order regardless.

In that case the place went bankrupt and was purchased by competent management and things got better, and the poor grandiose big shot wasn't a big shot anymore, though he remained incredibly grandiose and never admitted any mistake except random bad luck in business.[/background][/size][/font][/color]

[mcurrier]

[color=#FF322E][font=GoodWeb-CondBold, 'Arial Narrow Bold', 'Arial Narrow', Trebuchet, Arial, sans-serif][size=6]HOSTESS SEEKS APPROVAL FOR EXECUTIVE BONUSES[/size][/font][/color]
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HOSTESS_BANKRUPTCY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-29-07-55-06

[R_Bert]

[quote name='mcurrier' timestamp='1354207419' post='852444']
[color=#ff322e][font=GoodWeb-CondBold, 'Arial Narrow Bold', 'Arial Narrow', Trebuchet, Arial, sans-serif][size=6]HOSTESS SEEKS APPROVAL FOR EXECUTIVE BONUSES[/size][/font][/color]
[url="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HOSTESS_BANKRUPTCY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-29-07-55-06"]http://hosted.ap.org...-11-29-07-55-06[/url]
[/quote]

An extra $100K /yr for a 19 managers to ride the mine-cart to hell on a $2.4B/yr company ? Chump change. I would not stick around for that.