Former Hostess workers in Rocky Mount 'relieved' at plant closing (Can't get much dumber)

NBC 17 ^ | 11/16/2012 | JUSTIN QUESINBERRY

[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. ….

[Smokin' Joe]

It isn’t just the bakeries, it is the day-old bread stores which will close, too...

[Ann Archy]

Rocky Mount is a PATHETIC place, last time I was there!! Hundreds of empty houses after the huge flood and LOTS of people on welfare. What IDIOTS....8% reduction was too much??? Now it's 100%

You can't fix STUPID AND UNION!

[Ann Archy]

We just cancelled our trip next summer going thru all the New England states for a few weeks.....WHY would I want to spend hard earned money in BLUE STATES?????

[maryz]

I like Wonder Bread, but what I want to know is what they were making per hour.

I heard on the radio that the dough mixers made $17 an hour (I assume that means operating a dough mixing machine, not making it by hand!).

[xzins]

17 an hour is not very much....34,000 a year.

[maryz]

True -- even less if you have to pay union dues out of it!

It does depend somewhat though on where the plants are located. Even in Boston (where I am), there are people who make less in spite of the high cost of living, but in some parts of the country, I believe the cost of living is significantly lower.

[maryz]

Of course, I’ve been wondering too how much of a hit Hostess has been taking from Michelle Obama’s “healthy eating” pogrom — oops! I mean program! I imagine Hostess treats would have been among those in school vending machines before the junk food jihad started. (School vending machines, not to mention school cafeterias, came well after my time, so I’m not sure!)

[xzins]

I live in a chronically high unemployment, high welfare rural area. At the same time, so many of them have farm backgrounds, and the available jobs are tough....logging, construction, etc.... Folks get excited at $10-11 dollar jobs that come open, and that’s only 20,000 a year. Many can make that work out here because they have a piece of the farm that gramps left everyone, and because both husband and wife work.

$17 an hour where I live would be welcome in spades. Anyone moves here with a small to medium business would do great with a ready work force that is far more interested in work than in unions. The problem might be a relatively small population for the entire county (about 25,000), but they’d get hard workers.

That doesn’t make 17 grand be a lot of money, though. It just isn’t when you factor in the daily necessities of transportation, fuel, home, food, clothing, family needs, etc.

But it’s a liveable income for a lower middle class lifestyle, and that’s all these folks would be asking.

I agree with those who said that losing 8% of your income is better than losing 100%, which is what the unions managed to do on behalf of these now unemployed workers.

[NathanR]

BTW, if you’re making Wonder Bread do you really qualify as a Baker.

Yes. LOL

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

That is a good one. I wasn’t aware of that specifically but I know there are many scams going around like that. While we work hard to pay for bums and slackers, they are working the system with a Chessmaster’s cunning.

I don’t believe in Karma but I do believe there is some form of accounting in the next life. And all I do bad in this life I will be held to account and so will they. I would shape up a bit if I was them so as not to have too large a debt to pay off in the next life.

But yes, we are being cleaned out by the takers and parasites. We are working hard just to pay half our take back to the various governments in taxes and 40% of this nation is raking it in for doing nothing or almost nothing.

It is sickening.