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.
Ya know if I wasn’t married...
5.56mm
Leni
That was my thought also. The heck with Hostess. What happened to Drakes? Drakes had a much better taste than Hostess. Drakes was Ring Dings, Yodels, Funnybones, Yankee Doodles, those great little coffee cakes and those neat little pies (better than most other brands) and of course Devil Dogs.
We used to have a thrift shop down the block, used to buy ring dings and freeze them. And nothing else tastes like them.
Right on regarding ring dings. That cream in the center had a most wonderful hint of saltiness, absolutely nothing else like it. And those little pies were great too, all others are way too sweet.
At some point, Drake's had the misfortune to be purchased by Borden's Foods. And, as many of the company's acquisitions, they were run into the ground -- chiefly out of incompetence, not corporate piracy.
But they have now been resurrected by another company...
Great news! okie01, thanks for that link. No oatmeal cookies, but I will check my local supermarkets for the coffee cakes.
And, I’m gonna like ‘em on Facebook, fwiw.
“REQUIEM FOR A TWINKIE
Twinkie, Twinkie, little bar
We’ll never know now where you are
First you were in Illinois
Now you’re like a cast-off toy
You were atop the world so high
A creamy pudding in the sky
Twinkie, Twinkie, your flow, your ebb.....
Damn, now we’re stuck with Little Deb”
LOL. Very clever. You are the master of poetry in motion. Good one. Especially liked the last line.
So what’s to stop people from, rather than moving, just shutting the place down and selling the recipes, trademarks, and so on to a new corporation coincidentally operating in a free state? Can’t tax the dead (not even corporations).
Especially if the bears don’t remove the foil before eating them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.