Well.....you can pass that info along to all the folks who worked on the factory floors that came home tonight without jobs. I'm sure they thought things were handled fairly...or at least thought they'd still have a job. Not. Most of them--at least the ones interviewed by local news stations here-- were shocked that it came to this...maybe they shouldn't have been, but they were. It was sad to see them interviewed and wondering what the heck happened. As usual corporate greed at the top quickly rolls downhill. It's a moot point anyway...they've been in Chapter 11 and didn't have the brightest of futures as a company anyway...but so many people without jobs in this economy and let's face it, not that many prospects in the near future. It's just another frickin' corporate tragedy...that could have been prevented, if managed properly for the benefit of ALL employees.
Just saw this Hostess Twinkies 5 Boxes of 10 Individually Packaged Sponge Cakes Free SHIP | eBay And I LAUGHED.
That's nothing. Check this one out: Hostess Twinkies Delivered by Van with Your Company Logo Displayed on It | eBay Anyone got a spare 10,000,000 laying around?
There were some they talked about on the news today...then they showed you how to make your own.. 8 ounces (two sticks) unsalted butter (melted) 2 cups sugar 4 large eggs 2 ¾ cups all purpose flour ¼ corn meal or polenta 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt 1 ¼ cups buttermilk Whisk together butter, sugar, eggs and buttermilk. Fold in dry ingredients. Spoon into prepared moulds and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Once cool, trim the tops and inject filling. Filling 16 ounces cream cheese 1 cup powdered sugar 1 vanilla bean scraped and pod discarded
Was trying to find a reputable source for this... but most news sites seem to keep selling the story that the CEOs are blaming the Unions for the bankruptcy filing. Daily Kos: Private equity-owned Hostess blames striking workers as it liquidates Essentially doing what many of these investment firm pricks get to do regularly nowadays... give themselves even bigger pay raises, bonuses, etc... suck the company drier than desert sand... reap the benefits, disregard the thousands of lives they'll ruin. It's disgusting.
I'm going to wait till the smoke clears before forming my opinion on the whole Hostess Debacle. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around, but at this point the news and stories is fueled by emotions and bias opinions. FYI After doing some research, a very small portion Hostess's cost is used to pay the corporate executives. Any cut from them will not make a difference.
These are all things you can buy in a grocery store. Clearly, this isn't how you make a REAL Twinkie. They probably didn't bother telling people how to make a real one because most people don't have access to all the funny chemicals and such that chemists use.
-starts laughing like the Joker- THIS MAKES MY DAY...HECK MY WHOLE WEEK.-In terms of things of great humor- And believe me I need something to laugh about. This whole Twinkie Business is going to make me either die from laughter or just literally every time I see something related to Twinkies Chuckle. I wonder how soon before the Twinkie Scammers hit?
Um, it absolutely WAS their fault. They chose to just sit back and let the company tank, costing them their own jobs. Hostess wasn't in a position to meet their incredibly selfish demands and had to pack it in. If they had gone back to work and negotiated an agreement that benefited both sides, everything would still be okay. Instead out of sheer stubbornness and spite, they fucked everyone over. Don't tell me it wasn't the union's fault. I'm not a fan of strongarming and coercion through threats. Fuck unions. They're fucking selfish.
I will tell you all day that it wasn't the union's fault. Because it wasn't. When you have top executives getting huge raises and bonuses, and the employees already took pay cuts, you're gonna blame the union workers who had enough of that shit, and went on strike? Why should it fall on them to make all the sacrifices? If the executives arent taking pay cuts, neither should they. The company wasn't profitable. They already went through bankruptcy before. Still, executives got raises and bonuses, and employees got screwed. This is not a situation where you blame the employees. The executives are the ones who fucked everyone over. It's them who are strongarming through threats. They were running the company into the ground, it was going to end up closing due to their greed and horrible business practices anyways. Doing it now lets them shift the blame and STILL get shitloads of money as everything draws to an end. But no, you go ahead and blame the employees who were getting shafted while the higher-ups got more and more money. Call the union selfish when they werent the ones at the top of the company giving themselves endless raises. What it all boils down to is that if a company is tanking, and the people running it give themselves 85% raises while demanding that the employees take pay cuts, benefit cutbacks, and possibly not even pay their pensions, its the people who run the company that ran the company into the ground, no one else.
Two things. One from both sides of the argument. The teamsters Union reviewed the books of Hostess and highly suggested the Bakers Union not to go on strike due to the fragility of Hostess's finances. The Teamsters Union was looking after both the workers and the company. There is no real proof of the extravagant pay raises from the executives. I have heard of pay raises up to 300%. Most of the word about executive pay was made by pro union people. The pay cuts that was proposed would have affected everyone. Including executives. It would start at a 8% cut in pay company wide. After a year there will be a 3 or 4 % raise. I forgot which one and 1% the years after till the 8% is made up. And some other benefits will be cut. By that time the deal will expire and another one will have to be made.
The company was already tanking; it made $2bn in revenue last year but owed $994m alone to the workers pension fund and had filed for ch11 protection back in January. workers had already agreed to an 8% wage drop as a result . Meanwhile, the pension fund is mysteriously un-protected, meaning it won't see a penny of the liquidation, while the owners (who had previously de-listed the company) will profit from the firesale, as they are primary creditors. To be fair, the union was offered a return (over three-four years) to original wages and representational management positions on the board, but I really think in this case it was too little, too late. The workers were also offered an equity scheme which would see them gaining private equity (like buying discounted stock in the company you work for through your salary so it's tax-free), but I suspect that between the idea of A) "you can spend your already-reduced wages on stock in the company that we're having trouble managing", B) The company already not paying into the existing pension fund, so they didn'thave that much credibility with the workforce and C) Such a scheme would have required the management and the unions to come to an agreement on company valuation, that most likely would have gone into arbitration and taken literally years to agree upon I can honestly see why no-one who knows the first thing about the situation is all that surprised at the outcome. Closing the doors on the company is actually a smart move if the owners want to make off with as much remaining capital as possible, while not having to deal with administrators. not that I am railing against 'The Man' here; Unions have historically done some mightily crappy things too (looking at you, walmart, CVS, many others, etc). but before you go announcing "fuck 'em" to the world, at least take a second to, at the VERY LEAST, read the rest of the thread and the article in question, it does rather make you look like less of an ignorant twat.
I read it. Again there is no solid proof yet. Like I said, I'll wait till the smoke clears till I form an opinion. It's been proven countless times that early outrage makes people look stupid once more information becomes available.
