The Bell Tolls For the Twinkie - UPDATED

[Gilhelmi]

...most Hostess brands will be picked up by other manufacturers as soon as they're available.

Life is not over, only Hostess.

I'm going to go out to eat one last Hostess twinkie tonight, but I know that "life's little twinkie gauge" will not go empty... Yet.


I have to kind of laugh at the union workers. I don't want to call them "selfish" but they demanded something from their bosses but their little strike blew up in their faces and they completely lost their jobs. Just a show that it's best to be under-paid and have a job, then go on strike and risk losing your job.

I agree, in this economy and with a US President wanting to raise taxes on businesses. Asking to even maintain their wages was a bit ludicrous. We are really living in a time where everyone (including Unions) are going to have to cut back wages, especially in the struggling snack food industry (who I think are unfairly taxed for being "unhealthy", but that is another debate).

I feel bad for them, but I hope this will serve as a warning and save other Unions and companies from the same fate.

 

[rofltehcat]

Last chance to stock up for the apocalypse.
Guess they figured out that nobody would be buying them anymore after december 21st =)

 

[Jfswift]

That's it, the worlds coming to an end. Higher priced bacon and no more twinkies.

 

[Baresark]

Useless ass unions. Ayn Rand called situations like this. In Atlas Shrugged, things get hard, people are losing money left and right, everyone is suffering, and Unions are all demanding raises and more, when there isn't more to give. The unions fail to negotiate and they have a stranglehold on the company.

Also, for the people attacking the CEO's for getting raises, that is a straw man argument. We are talking about money saved from thousands of workers. A few CEO's getting more money, even a significant increase doesn't even rate on the radar of money that Hostess dealt with. I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm simply doesn't matter. In terms of classic economics, people lose sight of the situation. You can take less money, have a job, have some benefits still or you can have no money, no benefits. I know what I would choose, and then just look for a better job.

In psychological terms, people like to blame one or a few people for a problem. It's not ever 1 or 10 people who are causing the problem, it's is everyone cheating a little bit. As Dan Ariely wrote, it's everyone lying, cheating and stealing just little enough that they still feel honest.

 

[Worgen]

Unions have their place, I'm more than willing to admit. But going on strike when the company is already under bankruptcy protection? HOW DID THEY NOT SEE THIS COMING? Oh, they have barely enough money coming in to function, let's fuck their revenue stream over! Did they think the slow collapse of the company in a bad economy was all just a very complex ruse to cut their wages?

The story he also doesn't mention that hostess was cutting salaries of its workers but as usual, it was also giving executives pay raises. really him blaming the unions was probably just one last way to fuck with them. If they weren't such idiots then they wouldn't have gotten a strike.

No company has ever gotten a strike that didn't deserve one.

http://jezebel.com/5961155/congratulations-little-debbie-hostess-is-going-out-of-business

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

It's sad news, but I don't think we've seen the last of rich, cream-filled yellow pastries. Other companies will acquire the rights and fill the Hostess-shaped holes in our hearts. Still, sucks to hear the brand go.

 

[jetriot]

The real reason this happened is a problem not just with Hostess but all of the older companies that gave in to excessive union pension and health plans. It is simply not sustainable in a world where population growth is slowing and markets are oversaturated. You can blame high executive pay but that is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs they have for retirees. We will be seeing a lot more of this in the near future.

People forgot that there was a time we saved for our retirement and they are about to be screwed over when they soon discover what they were promised was simply not sustainable or possible. It is literally the sins of the fathers screwing over the younger generations. We always say think of the future generations when we talk about the unsustainablity of social security, medicare, pensions or in Europe your similar plans but that cliff is fast approaching and probably impossible to fix without a lot of pain.

 

[Tahmoh]

Kraft will probably buy up all the well known stuff for pennies so i doubt it's the end of the twinkie.

 

[Icehearted]

Found out about this this morning. Immediately went to my local grocery store to grab a couple boxes.

I ended up having to go back to the grocery store later in the day, for other stuff, and every single box was gone. Seems like I wasn't the only one with the idea of stocking up.

I just got back from doing a little nosing around. Local stores were cleared out, people were really bummed. Then I tried some gas stations and bingo!

For those of you looking to score a few just for yourselves, just look for them at convenience stores nearby. Probably won't find boxes, but I nabbed a couple of old favorites while I could.

 

[Rich Twinkies]

The Bell Tolls For the Twinkie

Hostess Brands, the company that makes the venerable Twinkie, is shutting down its operations.

The cream-filled confection known as the Twinkie, often viewed as one of the few foodstuffs that could survive a nuclear (or zombie) holocaust unscathed, is facing an unexpected but no less devastating end: the bankruptcy of the company that makes it. Hostess announced today that it is seeking permission from a U.S. federal bankruptcy court to close down, a move which will cast nearly 18,500 people out of work.

The company blames a strike by The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents around 5,000 Hostess employees, as the cause, saying it "does not have the financial resources to weather an extended national strike." The bakers went on strike over a new contract, recently accepted by the larger Teamsters union, which would leave employees with reduced wages and benefits. That deal came about after Hostess filed for bankruptcy protect in January, its second struggle with insolvency since 2004.

So how does a company that makes Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, Ho-Hos and Wonder Bread - the best-selling white bread in America, by the way - go bankrupt? It sounds like it could be an especially hard-nosed negotiating tactic, especially since Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn told CNBC that industry "overcapacity" means Hostess employees won't get their jobs back even though most Hostess brands will be picked up by other manufacturers as soon as they're available. But he also said that even if the bakers went back to work immediately, it's too late to change course on the shutdown.

Hostess can't begin liquidating its assets until the court gives it the green light, but all production of Hostess foods has ceased and no further deliveries will be made. Stores can sell what products they still have in stock, but the company said in a letter to its stores that it could provide no time frame for when the sell-off will take place and stock will become available again. I've always been more of a Ding-Dong man myself, but whatever your poison - Twinkies, Fruit Pies, Cupcakes or just enriched white bread, if that's how you roll - if you've got a thing for this stuff, you better haul it down to the local corner mart and stock up. This could get ugly in a hurry.

Source: CNN [http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/16/news/companies/hostess-closing/index.html?hpt=hp_t1]


Permalink

Actions speak louder than words. I started a petition http://wh.gov/XX3z then I went down and bought four boxes.

 

[Royas]

Useless ass unions. Ayn Rand called situations like this. In Atlas Shrugged, things get hard, people are losing money left and right, everyone is suffering, and Unions are all demanding raises and more, when there isn't more to give. The unions fail to negotiate and they have a stranglehold on the company.

Also, for the people attacking the CEO's for getting raises, that is a straw man argument. We are talking about money saved from thousands of workers. A few CEO's getting more money, even a significant increase doesn't even rate on the radar of money that Hostess dealt with. I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm simply doesn't matter. In terms of classic economics, people lose sight of the situation. You can take less money, have a job, have some benefits still or you can have no money, no benefits. I know what I would choose, and then just look for a better job.

In psychological terms, people like to blame one or a few people for a problem. It's not ever 1 or 10 people who are causing the problem, it's is everyone cheating a little bit. As Dan Ariely wrote, it's everyone lying, cheating and stealing just little enough that they still feel honest.

It's not a straw man argument by any means. The basic attitude is "If you are asking me to work more for less money, you'd better damned well be doing the same yourself". You don't take money away from your employees at the same time you give yourself and your executives a raise, that just won't fly. It doesn't matter if the actual money amounts are significant to the company as a whole, it's more an issue of fairness and not asking your people to do something you aren't willing to do yourself.

The money amounts don't matter, I'd be pissed off enough to consider striking myself. Besides, let's face it, Hostess was going down regardless, the strike just accelerated the process by a year or so.

 

[Voulan]

When I went to the US on a holiday, I made a point of trying all those strange brands of food that I only ever get to see in movies, like Twinkies.

It wasn't worth it. You know that stuff in the middle, what you call cream? That is not cream. That is some questionable, artificial thing between some disgusting hard sponge.

Also, orange plastic cheese slices are not cheese either. Same goes for that questionable beef.

Then again, I live in New Zealand, so I might be being unfair. The one good thing about the food in America is that you get heaps for your money. A McFlurry here, for example, costs $3.20 and is in a small pottle - over there, I got one the size of a large drink, filled to the brim, for half as much money.

 

[Baresark]

snip

It's not a straw man argument by any means. The basic attitude is "If you are asking me to work more for less money, you'd better damned well be doing the same yourself". You don't take money away from your employees at the same time you give yourself and your executives a raise, that just won't fly. It doesn't matter if the actual money amounts are significant to the company as a whole, it's more an issue of fairness and not asking your people to do something you aren't willing to do yourself.

The money amounts don't matter, I'd be pissed off enough to consider striking myself. Besides, let's face it, Hostess was going down regardless, the strike just accelerated the process by a year or so.

I can't disagree that Hostess was probably going down, and the Unions expedited the process. I mean, they did have Execs that worked for $1 for the year until January. But in regards to what you were saying about salaries: in a fair society, it should certainly be the case that everyone gets hit. Society is not by any means fair though. The expectation that a everyone takes a pay cut isn't realistic. But when it comes down to money issues, it's just completely inconsequential that a few people get raises when others are taking a hit. I mean inconsequential on an economic level, not on a social level.

It comes down to very basic human traits. If any one of those affected workers could have walked out of there with a raise, they would have, to the detriment of their entire cause. You can't blame executives for doing what any one of them would have done. This whole thing is proof of that. That is one thing that is simultaneously the weakness and strength of collective bargaining. The perceived upside is shared suffering (which is not an upside at all, but people want to see others suffer as they suffer) and unity of individuals under a common flag. The downside is that a great many of those people might have taken a pay cut to keep a job, but they couldn't because collective bargaining tied their hands. And the only people who made out on this whole situation are the union leaders themselves because at the end of the day they got their money and they will all get paid.

The whole thing is rather ridiculous though. Everyone wants to blame a few executives, but as soon as they started picketing, they killed the company. Not that the execs didn't have any culpability at all, they certainly did. It's decisions they made that put the company into a financially troubled state. But if anyone says it's not the Union that killed it and lost all those jobs, they are lying. Regardless of if the company would have gone under, it stood a chance till they were picketed. When one union pickets, all the other associated unions get involved. The delivery drivers wouldn't deliver needed supplies, any maintenance companies that are union would refuse to fix equipment, all kinds of things. They don't grow cream and spongecake inside the factory after all and they had to get those supplies brought in. And even if companies wanted to deliver supplies, the picketers would never have let them in.

They should have just moved to Mexico and taken their whole operation out of the US. The end result would have been the same for America, but at least there was a chance at some future time of jobs being brought back. Now there is no chance, at least not from Hostess.

In conclusion, this is by no means a condemnation of the individuals involved. And I'm not pessimistic about it as I sound. As someone who's job ends January 21st of 2013 because our entire department is being outsourced, I get that it's just the cost of doing business. I also know how much of a mistake it's going to be and I'm OK with that.

 

[Tiger Sora]

Here America , try this instead;

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Thats not a real apple, don't you see all that code when you quote. It's totally fake.

Anyways, like the artical said, some company will pick it up. Wether they can continue to use the name though...

 

[Formica Archonis]

No company has ever gotten a strike that didn't deserve one.

HeheheHAAAAHAAA! Oh, god, man, thanks for the laugh before I go to bed. That is a good one.

 

[Beautiful End]

Ho-Hos? That's a snack?
...
Hehehe.

Anyway, I heard twinkies and such can survive a nuclear holocaust. So I would advice people to buy as many as you can and, you know, make them last a lifetime.

Luckily, I don't like any of that but according to my friend, they're already gone at the local store. :l

At least here in Mexico we'll still have "Los Submarinos"

Yeah, and Choco-roles (Wich apparently are the Ho-Hos equivalents)

But they taste different now. Along with Gansito. :[

I miss the old school ones...*Sigh*

 

[MrGalactus]

Just so ya know, the Union Strike story is probably corporate propaganda

 

[nexus]

Unions have their place, I'm more than willing to admit. But going on strike when the company is already under bankruptcy protection? HOW DID THEY NOT SEE THIS COMING? Oh, they have barely enough money coming in to function, let's fuck their revenue stream over! Did they think the slow collapse of the company in a bad economy was all just a very complex ruse to cut their wages?

Unions had nothing to do with it.

You're talking about Twinkies and Wonderbread. No one eats this shit anymore and the market has reflected it as such. Personally, I haven't seen someone eat a Twinkie in at least 10 years.

 

[Worgen]

No company has ever gotten a strike that didn't deserve one.

HeheheHAAAAHAAA! Oh, god, man, thanks for the laugh before I go to bed. That is a good one.

Its funny because its true.

Ugh, and I fucked up the quote, its actually. "No company got a union that didn't deserve one."

 

[Kmadden2004]

Wow, who knew that the Twinkie, the food product that could survive a nuclear blast, ecological collapse and zombie apocalypse, would finally be wiped out by the Unions?