Hostess bakery walkouts threaten company’s future

[KansDem]

From today's Kansas City Star--

Hostess said in a prepared statement that “a widespread strike will cause Hostess Brands to liquidate if we are unable to produce or deliver products. If that’s the case, the company will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,300-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”

The company statement said that “we know the concessions are tough, but it would make more sense for unhappy employees to simply leave the company voluntarily than to strike and cause the company to close down, forcing everyone to lose their jobs.”

About 64 percent of the Hostess Brands workforce are non-union or work for other unions than the bakery union, the company said. About 5,680 employees are represented by the bakery union.

Mike Hummel, a union member who works at the Lenexa plant, said that because of the union’s concessions, his pay has plummeted from a peak of $48,000 to $34,000 last year and an expected $30,000 this year.

A turnaround won’t work, Hummel said, if it’s just “off the backs of their workers who make the least. … They’ve just about made the job unworthy of saving. They’re radically changing our lives. Why shouldn’t we fight back?”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/12/3913087/hostess-workers-honor-picket-line.html#storylink=cpy

Is Hostess being "harvested?"

From the article: Hostess Brands chief executive Gregory F. Rayburn said the Irving, Texas-based company regrets the decision, “but we have repeatedly explained that we will close facilities that are no longer able to produce and deliver products because of a work stoppage — and that we will close the entire company if widespread strikes cripple our business.”

So the CEO says "work stoppage" is responsible for this? I wonder if sales of Hostess products are down due to a more health-conscious nation, thereby forcing Hostess into bankruptcy. But, what the hey! If you can blame the workers while seizing the company's assets, why not? That's the "Romney model!"

[MrYikes]

1. wrong, wrong, wrong

it is bad management decisions that are the downfall of this privately held company. Just walk into any walmart and see how little space hostess has; that is the primary indicator of how well they are doing and that has nothing to do with the employees. Let the officers who have made the bad decisions take the responsibility.

[Cal Carpenter]

2. Fuck your corporate blackmail

This is flat-out why capitalism doesn't work.

The owners don't give a shit about the product or the workers, just the profits.

So they can liquidate and get their golden parachutes while the rest of the US devolves into third-world status.

Fuck you Hostess.

And let's not fool ourselves that this is an exceptional situation. This is the NORM in capitalism. This is REWARDED in capitalism.

As an economic system, it fails.

ETA disclaimer: My subject line and rant are *not* directed at the OP, just in case that isn't obvious

[BanzaiBonnie]

3. Any company that wlaks that close to the edge

can crumble from one of many factors. If it wasn't the walkout, it would be something else.

Hostess food is not real food and a remnant of the fifties, when there was a slogan from the sugar companies, "Sugar is good food, eat some every day."

[Brickbat]

4. If a strike brings your company down, you're not managing your company well.

A strike can be a handy scapegoat to chuck it all in and claim failure, and strikes are supposed to have an effect on a company, but running it into the ground? They're blaming the workers for the bosses' mistakes and mismanagement.