NBCDFW: Twinkies Maker Hostess Going Out of Business, CEO Blames Union Strike

[Kilmer17]

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-...179643161.html

Wow.

[skinsfan07]

They leaglize pot in Washington State and Colarado, and now they'll be no twinkies?!?! Blasphemous!

[wantarace17]

crap someone tell Tallahassee

[Duckus]

Hard to survive in today's market with a ****ty product.

Sucks that management and the unions could not come to some sort of agreement. Seems silly on the union side, but obviously I don't know the details. I do wonder how long they would have survived anyhow, the article mentions that they had a lot of financial troubles in addition to the labor.

[No_Pressure]

When you have a company cutting wages and benefits for a union it's difficult to judge whether or not that's because the company is really in big trouble or they're trying to be cheap with their employees. In this case the baker's union gambled that it was a ploy and it appears that they've lost...sort of. The hostess company will undoubtedly be absorbed in pieces or as a whole by some other major food producer. The question is whether the new company will be interested in keeping a bunch of employees who were striking and contributed to the death of the company which they just absorbed, or if they'll want to fill the vacancies with their own people.

For the union and the employees who were counting on having a job with hostess it seems like they really ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

I would liken it to a guy who was staying with our family one summer and interning at a local business. It was the same business at which my sister in law worked, and she agreed to have this guy carpool with her to work. Gas prices rose quickly and pretty high that year and she went to the guy (who was a colossal idiot) and she said "look, I'm going to need you to pay for half of the gas going to and from work if you're going to be riding with me" he said "that isn't fair, I'm not paying for it now, why should I have to?? You make more money than I do anyway, you can afford it" to which my sister in law replied "yeah, but you're getting a free ride right now. If you don't pay me half of the gas costs I'll stop going out of my way to carpool with you and I'll just enjoy driving to work by myself in peace".

So in the end the guy came to the conclusion that she should have to pay for the gas, and he didn't think he should have to pay 50%. He ended up paying 100% on gas when he inevitably had to drive to work himself. The irony and stupidity of this was lost on him.

[Heisenberg]

It sounds like they were doomed regardless of any sort of union strike.

Also, from reading elsewhere it sounds like the company had stopped paying out pensions for a few years and the union wanted them to disclose what they were doing with the money, but Hostess declined to do so which lead to the pissing off the union even more.

[SpringfieldSkins]

Sucks, but that's business for you.

I'd assume that some companies will buy Hostesses more notable brands so the junk food junkies won't lose everything.

[skinsmarydu]

18,500 jobs lost. Holy crap.
All of a sudden I want a Twinkie.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Chris Christie declares a state of emergency.

(Compliments to fake cnn and others on twitter)

[Kilmer17]

You'll still get twinkies etc. They will just now be made in China. With extra lead.

And the 18k union employees will be SOL.

[greenspandan]

sad, sure, but let's get real: twinkies are garbage.

[MLSKINS]

I don't eat them anymore, but I used to love them orange cupcakes.

[mistertim]

[alexey]

When a company fails, Unions will blame the management and the management will blame the Unions... Some people will agree with the Unions while other people will agree with the management.

Now does anybody know what actually happened there?

[skinsmarydu]

Chris Christie declares a state of emergency.

(Compliments to fake cnn and others on twitter)

Now, that's funny!