Anna Rice was depressed. David Mulligan called it “terrible.” And Meghan Casagrande worried her young daughter might never get to taste an American snack staple that made its way into generations of lunchboxes, inspired a legal defense, and is fabled to last forever.
Like many others, they came out Friday to buy and pay tribute to Twinkies, the cream-filled golden sponge cakes that date to 1930, emptying store shelves here and across the country. The run was prompted by the news that Hostess Brands — which also makes Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, among many other products — was shutting down for good after a financially crippling labor dispute.
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Eighteen thousand five hundred people out of work plus the loss for suppliers. And all these folks are running around attempting to buy junk food for their children.
The nature of the "junk" food notwithstanding, I haven't seen any details of the so-called labor dispute that allegedly forced Hostess to close. By rewarding their workers with adequate salary and benefits, how much would it really add to the price of their products? No labor dispute is "financially crippling". If they didn't want to raise the price of their products, the big shots could absorb the added costs by taking a small hit in their exorbitant salaries and benefits - they still make their millions. Just anaother example of why we need strong unions across the board in this country because if you think the income gap is large now, just wait a while. At what point will it get so bad that the workers will rise up? Do we have to return to the early days of the 20th century before people say enough is enough? Santayana said, "those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it". The operative word there, is "condemned". And so we shall.
The Huffington Post ran the following comment on an earlier article. CORRECTION: An earlier version of as well as an earlier headline of this post incorrectly stated that Greg Rayburn received a 300 percent raise as CEO of Hostess as the company approached bankruptcy. Rayburn wasn't CEO of Hostess until after the company filed for bankruptcy. The post also incorrectly stated that he was paid a salary of up to $2,550,000 per year. His salary when he joined the company was $100,000 per month, according to a company spokesman. If the CEO took NO SALARY that would have added $1.25 per week to each and every union members paycheck. WOW, that certainly would have solved the problem. The problem that most union-employed companies face is the same one that cities, towns, states and the federal government faces, because of pensions, they are paying the salaries of two or three employees for every active job. It just can't be done and expect the entity to survive. Customers are only willing to pay so much for a product
Never had to hire anybody, huh ex? After admitting ignorance to any level of details to point, what a sickening subscription to solidarity...yet not narrowly unexpected.
"I don’t want to see China take this one away as well."
China didn't take this one... UNION THUGGERY did....
The only joy I can take out of this is that we got to see one group of UNION THUGS take down another. Solidarity, brother.
Good for Hostess to not give into the Thugs.
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does anyone remember a twinkie with chocolate on the top with the swirl, as the cupcake has?
Thank the unions....when a truck driver cannot deliver in the same truck the twinkles and bread even when going to the same store....and cannot take into the store...something is wrong....stupidy and greed by unions. Common sense is when you have same products going to same store you should not need different trucks to deliver them....because of unions.... I can remember (we had a Wonder bread plant in Dorchester) and when they delivered that bread to the store nothing smelled better or tasted better and that was over 60 years ago....too bad lets hope common sense prevails and a company can take over it. You do not need over what 400 unions telling you how to run your company...
Bread comes from a large number of local bakeries. Twinkies and the like are made in only a few locations.
Bread must be delivered fresh to stores daily. It doesn't keep. Twinkies have a shelf life of many months and can be stored in warehouses.
They are different products with different characteristics and different points of origin. It makes sense that bread is delivered separately and it always was -- for 3/4's of a century.
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The owner of this company is a private equity group. Private equity groups are in the money business -- not bakeries, not office supplies, not paper products -- Money!
The businesses they buy will always end up being heavily in debt because the money to buy the business is piled on to the debt of the acquired company. It's also common for the equity group to extract large amounts of money as "management fees" and the like.
Whether the acquired company is successful or not doesn't really matter. The goal is to pump up the company's reputation just enough to be able to sell it. The equity group almost never loses money and usually makes money even if the company goes into bankruptcy or liquidation.
FYI for Hostess' full final year end 2011 financials, see this PrivCo.com Private Company Financial Report on Hostess Brands. It shows just $40M in cash and over $1.4B in total liabilities. And 9 straight years of revenue declines. That pretty much says it all. Union strike were just the final nail in the coffin: http://www.privco.com/private-company/hostess-brands-inc (Source: PrivCo.com: Financial Intelligence on Privately-Held Companies)