Posted on 11/17/2012 10:28:20 AM PST by matt04
Labor leaders in Maine say the resilience of the Hostess workers on the picket line at the company’s Biddeford plant, which is in the process of being shut down after the company on Friday said it would liquidate the business, gives them inspiration in the face of what they believe have been ongoing efforts — by politicians, including Gov. Paul LePage, and corporate investors — to reduce union influence.
Bakers’ union officials and their supporters say also that the demise of Hostess Brands Inc., which failed to convince striking workers to return to their jobs, is a warning sign for corporate investors seeking to squeeze more profits out of the working class.
“Unions have been losing power for years,” said Ken Rumney, a striking worker outside of the Hostess plant in Biddeford on Friday. “This is an exceptional case. If Hostess had been allowed to get away with what they’d been trying to do, other corporations would have lined up to try the same tactics. Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to [try to] break their unions.”
“I think we’re the first ones who have stood up and said, ‘We’re not going to let you get away with it,’” said Sue Tapley, the strike captain on hand Friday morning at the Biddeford plant, which employed nearly 600 people. “You can fight them. You can shut them down.”
(Excerpt) Read more at bangordailynews.com ...
"Gee Little Suzie, I'm sorry Santa couldn't put presents under the Christmas Tree this year - but the GOOD news is that Santa stood up to the BIG, BAD COMPANY ..."
To the union drones.
This is just like being in a lifeboat, shooting a bullet into the floor (the boat then leaks), and then saying “Jus’ keepin’ it real”. So, Sherlock union members, what is the next step in the game plan? You did not get what you wanted, so you throw a temper tantrum, and the company goes bankrupt and shuts down the factory. Yeah, that’s how you get back at those eeeeevvviiiiil companies, destroy them, shut down their factories, that will show them! So what if you have no job now? Oops, silly me, I brought up a little bit of reality. How rude of me! Well, how ya gonna deal with the bills? Call me in a couple of months and tell me how that is working out for you. What geniuses!
Please tell me this is satire!
-——to reduce union influence-——
Actually the goal is to exterminate union influence.
Ons solution would be to cede Maine to one of the Canadian provences
I think they get it.
Like certain corporations, they have made the conscious decision to align themselves with the government rather than with the citizenry, rather than with their customers.
I think they know that their jobs will continue to decline and that, as more and more companies go out of business/go bankrupt, their pensions will vanish.
They are aligning themselves with the Democreeps because they know the Democreeps will do anything (even steal a presidential election by electronically switching votes from Romney to Obammie the Commie) to stay in power.
And if they are aligned with crooks like that, they know the government will steal the private retirement accounts (read: 401Ks) from the private sector and give it to the unions to save their pensions (national interest, to keep the government up-and-running, economic justice, we can’t afford “austerity riots,” it’s the patriotic way — take your pick which excuse(s) they’ll use).
PROTECT YOUR PRIVATE RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS, FRiends. I predicted six years ago that they’d be coming for them, and they will.
Not sure if unions ever had a place but today they are one of the most destructive entities in the nation and should be snuffed out.
I think the union wanted the sacrifice the Hostess 18,500 workers to give them leverage for the future contract negotiating with other bakeries
....since the lost of 23 plants will definitely reduce bakery capacity nationwide and give unions more power to dictate terms when they threaten to strike at other plants...
What’s the lost of 18,500 jobs to achieve their ends ?
Wow. I wish I could go back a hundred years and invest all of my money in economic illiteracy. I’d be rich.
Dear Labor "Leaders", you've picked the wrong targets. What's reducing your influence is consumers, who are choosing to buy products from other companies. Corporations would care less and have cared less about "union influence", if they are making the money they expect to make. Dear Unions, you have made it impossible for corporate investors to make the money they expect or even make money period. Without making profits, they cannot stay in business. Consumers are refusing to pay the prices you've forced on them, the company loses money and goes out of business.
Math is hard, especially, when it kicks you in the butt.
Here's what's going to happen. Consumers will demand their Hostess cupcakes, HoHo's and DingDong's and they will get them. Other corporations, unburdened by "union leaders" and union influence will purchase the brands, recipes and probably the factories. They will bring Hostess cupcakes, etc. back to demanding consumers. The union workers (not union "leaders") will be bye-bye. Heck, alot may be hired back at lower wages, but no union dues.
Economics is a reality, just as Gravity is a reality. And we all know that gravity is a b*tch.
This article tells me the recession hasn’t gone on long enough. Well, that and the election. The recession will end when people lose everything and decide to work their way out of it.
Way to hang tough! Stay tough and go out and collect dues from all of your members now.
Proverbs 27:22 Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.
Union bosses called what they did 'inspirational'.
Union business models are busted. They are based on economics from the 40’s and 50’s when unions actually protected worker. Federal law now provides just about all the protection worker need, hence they have become obsolete.
Rake and file are largely sheep that can’t think for themselves. Bottom line is economics trump union thuggery in the long run.
Given this it is hardly a surprise union influence is diminishing.
Yep. You showed them alright.
Ya big dopes, now no one has a job.
Did I miss where in the article the author mentions the Teamsters accepting the terms of the agreement?
And just what kind of “warning sign” do these idiots think they are sending? That management better liquidate now to protect shareholders from even greater losses because unions are going to be stupid and think they can force the company to stay in business and lose money?
I don’t see or hear any of these workers lining up to buy Hostess.
FMCDH(BITS)
So lets see...
Sue Tapley can now list “strike captain” at the top of her resume.
Good luck with the job hunt there Sue!
I disagree. A pretty good percentage of workers are not lazy, they are less productive because if idiot work rules that prevent them from being productive. Union leaders are masters at creating intense peer pressure to conform to a model that is designed for one purpose in today's labor marker, dues revenue through division of labor taken to an idiotic level. Hostess is a prime example. More workers, more revenue for the union.
You miss the point. The union leadership won't starve. They'll do just fine. The rank and file will starve - not that the leadership cares. The ones quoted here crowing about "sending a message" to the evil corporations will get in their Cadillacs and drive to their million dollar homes secure in the knowledge that their future is peachy.
Do any of those union idiots think that anyone will ever hire them knowing what they did to Hostess?
“Hey, look how resolved we are - we’re ready to shoot ourselves in the head; send the American economy ever farther into the sh*tter; and destroy another great, old American company!”
The very definition of the term “assh*le.”
Class warfare. And now they are unemployed.
SUCCESSFUL parasites don’t kill the host(ess).
What did you accomplish?? You and the other UNION THUGS KILLED Hostess Brands!!
pride goeth before the fall
Come on I’d be happy too. Now they can sit at home, watch TV, eat Twinkies, get paid by the government and not have to pay income tax. Welcome to the 47%!
“Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to [try to] break their unions.”
Ah, dude, they broke the union, they broke it good.
“I will feel sorry for the rest of the company, including the Teamsters who voted to save the company and their jobs.”
I had posted on other threads that my oldest son had worked for Hostess for 17 years. He told me tonight that it has been 20. Hard to keep track when you get old.
Anyway, you are right about the Teamsters being angry about this idiotic move by the bakers union. Last night my son and co-workers were ready to get out the bats and start swinging.
The drivers did take an 8% cut in wages just to keep their jobs while the low I.Q. bakers not only refused to take a cut, but also wanted a raise. He never wanted to join a union, but after serving in the Air Force he needed to support his ever-growing family (4 kids) and got on at Hostess.
I hear people here saying that they “hope they starve”. It is unfortunate that these people are spouting off without knowing the facts. Yes, that’s directed at you, TexasRepublic. While I do agree with you about the bakers, I strongly disagree that the route-drivers should lose their homes and have their kids go hungry.
Thanks, matt04 for your support of those who wanted to continue working.....panax
Let them eat bread?
We’ll have to check on them in a couple of years and see how they are doing.
I hope they kept their picket signs, their going to need something to burn to keep warm this winter. As*holes
Here in Florida they are closing all the day old bread stores which sold bread and other bakery items from Hostess so its not just the union its allot of other small business suffering because of the greedy unions.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
They are just trying to spreading the misery equally to everyone.
Yes, isn’t that amazing? Now they can be “inspired” to find another job....stunning!!
Older folks on disability and fixed incomes who depended on day-old bread to stretch their food dollars were wondering where they could go now for low-cost bread. A lot of folks seemed clueless as to how this happened, but there were a few, maybe 20%, some even union members, who were attributing it correctly to union greediness and to the upcoming jolt to business of new employment costs.
We were handing out flyers (selectively -- to those who looked teachable) with links to websites explaining the upcoming costs of Obamacare and the effects they have on the costs of employment. While these 18,500 workers just joined the unemployed, restaurant workers just had their income slashed by 25% as companies like Denny's and Red Lobster and Papa John's cut their 40-hour work week to 30 to avoid the Obamacare tax. Another lie by this administration that millionaires would be the ones feeling the pain, not the poor.
It depends on the state. There are some states that won't pay unemployment for workers that went on strike. They consider it the same thing as quiting.
“Unions have been losing power for years,” said Ken Rumney, a striking worker outside of the Hostess plant in Biddeford on Friday. “This is an exceptional case. If Hostess had been allowed to get away with what they'd been trying to do, other corporations would have lined up to try the same tactics. Hopefully, this will be an example to other companies not to [try to] break their unions.” [emphasis added]Has Ken let the cat out of the bag? Was this in fact a nationally-orchestrated chess move using Hostess, its employees, and supply chain as pawns in a larger game of union dominance? Where is the breach-of-trust line crossed between the members of the local and the union management chain? For that matter, by "nationalizing" the fight, was the union negotiating with Hostess in good faith? This could be a whole new ambulance to chase!
What utter morons. They don't yet realize that the entire country is going to see the unions as the blood suckers who murdered one of America's favorite companies.
This is the worst public relations stunt they could have possibly pulled. They'll be reviled and spat upon for years to come for what they did to Hostess and the 18,000 people who's jobs they killed during this economic crisis.
Not only that for some reason this idiot thinks they are the first to do this. Unions have been closing companies do to unfair demands since they came into existence. I worked for a lumber company that was started in 1945, I started to work there in 1962 after I got out of the army, worked there until in 1998 a sale to a new owner caused him to shut it down to do the Union leasers that refused to renegotiate a new contract. Cost 600 jobs. Now in the mills place there are "service" jobs that pay a small percentage of what the Mill jobs paid, no health insurance and fewer people employed. Plus a bunch of auto dealers moved in and promptly went belly up, no one to buy their cars. A bunch of empty dealership lots sit in the place of some of the old mill buildings.
The Union members that worked there do not have the attitude that "we showed 'em" most of them say that when they drive by the old mill site they feel like crying.
We should encourage a movement among union workers that if the employer goes bankrupt and sells, the union members demand all their union dues back from the unions.
A new kind of “reparations” if you get my drift.
I saw some Tweets that for many hours that the bakers union website was mysteriously down for “maintenance,” right after it really became know that they alone were responsible for the demise of Hostess. By “maintenance” I believe they were referring to the less than supportive emails and calls they were probably getting.
Next week may be Black Friday but sweets lovers across the nation hung their heads in sorrow on a dark Friday yesterday as Hostess announced they would cease making their line of products, which include the iconic Twinkies brand, because of the Bakers Union Strike. 
I've been trying to research this and all I've found on the web are links to the uber-leftie sites who use this to justify union actions
Question 1:, Is this factoid true? (Execs gave themselves a huge Raise
Question 2: If true, why did the execs do this?
Question 3: If it's not true, how can we kill this meme that execs killed the company not the union
Thanks In advance
Okay, I'll be more specific. My venom is directed at the unions, both their elitist leaders and their clueless rank and file that support them. I have witnessed unionist mentality taking down companies time and again. Remember Eastern Airlines? A pox on them! However, I am sorry for their victims, such as your son. I can only hope that any illusions the victims may have had about their unionist coworkers have been dispelled. My vitriol is reserved for the union thugs -- I hope they starve. Better?
Much better, thank you.
I agree these pieces of crap deserve nothing. They quit they walked off of their jobs and put their company out of business. Now the Maine unemployment compensation board are breaking the rules and giving these bums unemployment. This would not happen for anybody else who refused work. Anybody else would be denied because they refused work or chose not to work. Anybody else who turned down even an hour for minimum wage would not be eligible what make these bums so special. Not only did they five up their jobs they lost every job that would have been held there in the future. I also hope that who ever takes over that plant refuses to hire anyone that walked off for fear that the poor babies would do the same thing to me. Then they want us to feel more sorry for them because it is the holiday season they knew what time that it was when they quit.
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