Posted on 11/16/2012 2:14:27 PM PST by tobyhill
Several former workers at a Hostess Brands plant in Rocky Mount said Friday they were relieved after the company filed for bankruptcy, seeking to close its operations.
The closings will mean the loss of about 18,500 jobs overall.
“They’ve been holding this over our head for a long time and now it’s here,” said Lamont Phillips, an oven operator and the president of the local union. “They had to do it.
“I don’t have to deal with that anymore. The things that they were trying to do to us, it wasn’t fair.
“They always hold that over our heads, that they’ll close it down. So, I’m like, ‘OK. Close it down.’”
And on Friday, Hostess did. The flag at a Hostess plant in Rocky Mount hung at half staff on Friday afternoon, and many former workers there hung around outside to talk about what had happened.
Hostess had offered an 8 percent pay cut, but Phllips said that wasn’t going to work for the employees.
“We’re not making a whole lot of money out here and then we got to take a pay cut like that. Then you got your health benefits going up,” he said. “They stopped paying into the pension fund. ….
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.nbc17.com ...
A baker earned $16.77 at Hostess.
These idiots threw away a job offer of $15.43 per hour and still near no cost Health Insurance. I’m pretty sure they really didn’t want to work anyway.
I just hung up the phone with my dad where I talked about this and my desire to just do it. I want to do it so damn bad. But I can’t. No matter how bad it gets I can’t make myself do it. Part of me is proud and part of me loathes me for it.
I opted for cutting back. Still making enough to get bills paid, have a little fun..
But the extra? Nope. The takers can hit someone else up. This guy is going to make just enough to break even on paper and pay as little tax as possible.
“I wonder what the compensation was for the execs.
I seem to recall that in the last 15 years lots of corporations were driven into the ground by execs who then bailed out with their own private golden parachutes.”
A detailed article here:
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
(a little dated, from last July)
EXCERPT:
“Even as it played the numbers game, Hostess had to face chaos in the corner office at the worst possible time. Driscoll, the CEO, departed suddenly and without explanation in March. It may have been that the Teamsters no longer felt it could trust him. In early February, Hostess had asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a sweet new employment deal for Driscoll. Its terms guaranteed him a base annual salary of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and “long-term incentive” compensation of up to $2 million. If Hostess liquidated or Driscoll were fired without cause, he’d still get severance pay of $1.95 million as long as he honored a noncompete agreement.”
Gee, for a company in dire straits, you would think that there would be some “performance strings attached” to his compensation contract. But there seem to have been none, at least in this case. Certainly doesn’t help when the company is trying to put forward an “austerity” argument. Just sayin’...
I’ll guess that when the assets, equipment, trademarks are sold off, the new owners will look to startup again. They’ll probably be looking for -some- former employees. I’d expect them to have a “blacklist”, as well. Them’s the breaks, I guess.
Sometimes, back in the day, it was even a mite true.
Now, with OSHA and the sort of safety programs needed to keep insurance companies from devouring the bottom line, (not to mention squadrons of tort lawyers on the alert catapult), working conditions have improved for just about everyone out there who actually works.
State licensure, inspection, and exams, and even websites detailing contractor work quality provide a means to maintain a work standard.
So maybe it is just a sense of belonging, a t-shirt or jacket with the 'brand', or the desire to fork over part of the paycheck to the union that keeps these things running.
But then, I never have understood the mentality.
“I already said I didn’t research it...but...if I had to guess why, Id say the Teamsters got a better bribe than the bakers. Or possibly the teamster boss got a better kickback.”
Actually, I believe the Teamsters either were granted access to Hostess’ books, or somehow got ahold of the company’s financial information.
When they saw that, someone was smart enough to realize the company was on its deathbed. That’s why they told the bakers’ union to end the strike and go back to work...
“And that, my friends, is why welfare reform works.”
... until ObamaCare kicks in. After which they’ll be covered whether they’re working, or not.
And YOU’LL be paying for the coverage! ;)
[[ “There’s a supermarket here in New England called Shaws that is slowly going out of business because of union overhead. They have these big, beautiful stores, and they are all empty cause their prices are crazy.”
What’s taking their place. ]]
Walmart has moved into New England in a big way within the past 15 years, and most of the stores have a “food section”. Then again, there are the “Super Walmarts” with their own attached supermarket. Well-stocked and low prices.
Also, a Massachusetts company, “Big Y” seems to have moved into the market in southern New England. Very nice, but higher prices.
“I’ve been to Vermont and NH is on my to do list. Just not until June lol.
The country is beautiful and all the people I met were the tops. Same can be said for rural NY state.”
As leftist as Vermont is (the entire state), if you can put up with the attitudes, and afford the cost of real estate, it’s going to be one of the best places to be (in terms of “survivability”) when the urban/suburban areas crash and fall apart. Vermont is perhaps the most “un-diverse” state in the country, if you get my drift...
Although folks ‘way up in the Northeast Kingdom probably still have the old New England conservative streak in ‘em. Still folks like that scattered around the state. For now, that is...
Now they can get all the free stuff from Obama.
Good one! LOL.
“Good luck finding a new job you idiots.”
Yeah, “relief” is not a word I would use having just been fired in a place where UE is bumping up on 15%! They’s all been so put upon for sooo many years, and now they have nothing! So where was their union in all of this? I just imagine that all the Business Agents and the Union Leadership is headed out of town in their new union-furnished Cadillacs.
“In other news, former Hostess employees today were awarded 18,500 Darwin Awards.”
I think, to be fair, the 5,000 members of the Baker’s Union need the Darwin Award. Most Darwin “recipients” are deceased, which may well be the case when the Teamster’s Union goons who worked for Hostess hunt down Lamont and his Holder’s People “friends.”
>> The things that they were trying to do to us, it wasn’t fair.
Then start your own business, douchebag.
The idiot is now UNEMPLOYED! That means you are out of a job!The money you would have earned with a 8% pay cut is a hell of a lot more than unemployment you booger eating embarrassment to carbon based life forms .
At the time of Hostess’s liquidation, these were its brands in the United States:
Baker’s Inn
Beefsteak
Blue Ribbon
Bread du Jour
Butternut Breads
Colombo
Cotton’s
Di Carlo
Dolly Madison
Drake’s
Dutch Hearth
Eddy’s
Good Hearth
Holsom
Home Pride
Hostess
J.J. Nissen
Merita
Millbrook
Mrs. Cubbison’s Foods
Nature’s Pride
Parisian
Standish Farms
Sweetheart
Twinkie
Toscana
Wonder Bread
Let’s see. I was taught that you don’t voluntarily leave a Job until you have a Job to replace it.
Don’t like your Job as a Baker, look for a new Job on your time off or go back to school at night or weekends so you can get a better Job.
That was the America I grew up in. Now there is no downside since Santa Obama will send you a check and turn you into a Victim. In other words, a Democrat Voter for life.
Oh, I forgot one thing. According to Richard Trunka, the daily Union Thug visitor to the White House, it’s Romney’s fault.
They were made in the Tri State area when I lived in New York when I was a child.
Now they make them in Canada. Instead of eating them while enjoying a glass of Milk like I used to, I have a Beer.
I think he moved to Palm Springs, or he died, which is pretty much the same thing.
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