Posted on 08/23/2014 11:53:00 AM PDT by re_tail20
Hostess Brands LLC announced on Aug. 20 that the Illinois bakery where Twinkies were first invented will close this fall. More than 400 workers will be affected by the shuttering of the company’s Schiller Park location in October. Sadly, this isn’t surprising.
In 2012, Hostess closed three bakeries nationwide after a massive union strike, high labor costs and increased competition turned up the heat on the baked-goods company. It’s hard to believe that some variation of these factors didn’t cause Hostess to sever its ties with Illinois. About 280 of the company’s workers in Schiller Park voted to unionize in May.
Union leaders at the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, who were caught off guard by the closure, would have been wise to remember their follies in 2012. They must have thought Hostess was bluffing when they balked at contract negotiations. But Hostess wasn’t bluffing, and now hundreds of workers have lost their jobs.
It didn’t help that the state has been handing out millions in tax breaks and free cash to other confectionaries, while saddling companies such as Jelly Belly and Hostess with the fourth-highest workers’ compensation rates in the nation and the fourth-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. When Illinois government picked winners, these two companies packed up and shipped out.
There’s a reason why the Twinkie bakery in Indiana is still open for business. As it turns out, the Chicago Tribune reported that some of the Schiller Park workers may be able to get jobs at the Hoosier State facility.
Snack and candy businesses that make money on small margins often can’t afford to play politics. Perhaps if they had been making colorful candies instead of cream-filled cakes, Hostess could have gotten a piece of the action.
Eventually most of these companies who are forced to hire
union will leave for the south and right to work states.
Then the the northeast yankers are going to do the
same thing they did in 1861. Pass a bunch or regulations
and tariffs that only the right to work states have to
comply with. The next civil war will be the northeast yankers
doing the same thing they did the last time. Cause a war
to rape the south of it’s wealth.
This author does realize that this Hostess is actually a different company from the old Hostess, right?
That Hostess company ceased to exist and another company bought up the brands and changed its name to Hostess
Twinkies®
can survive
nuclear war,
not a union.
Are Ding Dongs dead?
Who bought the rights to it when Hostess went belly up?
No assurance of that.The liberal talking heads will run their mouthes until the facts come around to bitch-slap them.
Leaders? How about the rank and file who voted to jump aboard the sinking ship? Didn't THEY learn from their brethren?
I hope they get a new mayor—I just LOVE her—LOL
I don’t know, I don’t know if anyone did.
They have a coffee cake now, branded as Hostess, I tried it, OK, but way too sweet, just not the same at all. And square, I liked those round ones, even though in general I like square things.
In a related story ...
The Drakes line was brought back here in New England. Some items were cut apparently because I never see Funny Bones, but other items are there and the boxes look the same as they looked before the original Hostess closed shop.
Apollo Global Management LLC (APO) and C. Dean Metropoulos & Co.
Metropoulos & Co. has purchased several instantly recognizable all-American brands, including Bumble Bee Tuna, Chef Boyardee, and Pabst Blue Ribbon
LOLARMAOOTF
I guess the union sure showed them, huh.
“Companies want to be located in a State named after Indians?”
Good point. If the “Redskins” must change their name, so should Illinois. It isn’t the name of the “native Americans”, it is the name the French gave them.
Workers voted to go union....talk about clueless!!! I’m sorry but anytime a union asshole joins the ranks of the unemployed I get a warm fuzzy feeling!!
This is really bad news for Illinois, because as we all know, if Hostess Twinkies farts, the national economy get diarrhea, or something like that.
When the original Hostess went Chapter 7, various brands and recipes were sold to multiple organizations.
Looks like Drakes is still in business, just not my Hostess LLC:
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