Posted on 04/14/2012 6:35:54 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The company that makes Twinkies, Wonder bread and Ding Dongs says it's making a final offer to workers to accept cost-cutting before it asks a bankruptcy court to impose the cuts.
Hostess Brands Inc. wants the Teamsters and bakers' unions to accept reduced pension benefits and changes in work rules to lower costs. It wants to outsource some delivery work.
The company said Saturday that if the unions reject the offer, it will push ahead with efforts in bankruptcy court to throw out the unions' collective bargaining agreements. A union official warned that could lead to a strike.
Hostess Brands filed for Chapter 11 protection in January, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than a decade. A trial to decide the fate of the union contracts is scheduled to start Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
“Do you think it is appropriate for management to be giving extraordinarily large pay increases and severance agreements to senior executives and at the same time demand the workers take an 8% pay cut and reduced benefits? “
Anyone forcing anyone else to work for that company? Are they slaves? The average employee at Hostess seems to have made over $60,000 in total compensation. How is that compare to your wild assed claim that CEOs make 353 times the average? Sure seems like a lot less than that. Not bad for employees with barely an education operating machinery and trained to do so by the company.
Let’s put it this way: A high school dropout could make in total compensation over $60,000 at that company and decided to piss it all away for a mere $3,000 in pay cuts. Stupid people.
“Typical liberal lying about the facts in that report.”
Total compensation includes the value of salary, bonus, and stock options given to the executive in a year. Stock options have value. If the company gives the CEO the right to buy a million shares of stock at $10.00 per share and the market price is $20 per share, that option has a real value of $10 million dollars ($10 x 1 million shares). Executives become extremely wealthy from stock options if the company performs. He receives the option from the company, it is part of his pay. When he exercises the option he gets a significant benefit. It is real income to him. How can you not count as compensation real economic value the executive receives from the company? If options are worthless as you infer, why would executives accept them?
Note, the value of options in a year does not count the increase in value of stock the executive already owns. It only counts the value of the new options he receives in the current year.
Most of the compensation for senior executives in public companies is realized from options and bonuses, not base salary.
“How is that compare to your wild assed claim that CEOs make 353 times the average? “
I’ve given you the data backing up my claim. Can you not read?
The Hostess CEO asked the bankruptcy court to grant him a guaranteed $1.5 million salary and $2 million bonus for a total of $3.5 million. If your average employee compensation number of $60,000 is correct, the CEO would be making 58 times the compensation of the average employee. Not bad pay for a guy who managed a company back into bankruptcy in 3 years.
The news reports say the company was asking for an 8% reduction in pay. On a $60,000 average salary, 8% is $4,800, not $3000. In addition, the union employees gave back $110,000,000 in 2009 when Hostess exited bankruptcy the first time. That equated to $5,500 per employee.
I have yet to see any evidence anyone in senior management took a cut to help the company survive. I have seen, and provided you with links to articles stating management salaries were increased dramatically. If the situation was so bad the workers were being asked to take pay cuts, why were increases being given to senior executives?
Yeah, they did offer crazy raises to the management leading into this... the only reason I can think of that it would make sense is if they still believed existing management had some kind of magic keeping the Kingdom of Ding Dongs going and that they’d badly suffer if they lost that.
Well, I think whoever takes over the manufacture and marketing of resurrected Hostess products will certainly disprove that belief if it existed. Hand the rights over to a bunch of total strangers along with the recipe, and watch it take off without even a glitch.
You speak like a communist that fails to understand private property. You think because someone works at a company they deserve to make it theirs. I guess if the dishwasher repair man shows up to fix your dishwasher he should be able to help himself to your car. A company that hires a person to operate a machine does not owe that person anything beyond their agreed to salary. You seem to think they do.
I’ve known hundreds of CEOs in my lifetime including having been one. Considering that the average salary in the US a few years ago when that BS report was generated was $54,000, that would mean the “average CEO” (your words) made about $20 million. Which CEOs was that? All of them? The hundreds that I knew none made that much money. Not a single one, yet, you and that report cherry picked stock valuations to make the ridiculous claim in some sort of class warfare propaganda attempt.
I didn’t see any Hostess employees owning the company. Did they go start it without the owners knowing? Did they not get paid many times prevailing wages for machinery operators under those union rules? Of course they did. They robbed that place at over $30+ an hour to operate machinery or inspect food products. They got paid far more than market wages, yet, you claim they were the victims.
There are but a handful of CEOs that make 353 times average wage but only if you include the current value of the stock and not just what they paid. I’ve seen those report when they were published. They were covered here on FR and disproved to be a fraud. The “average CEO” doees not make “353 times the average employee salary”. Not even close.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/07/how-many-workers-can-
you-hire-for-the-price-of-one-ceo/
Conslusions and charts and graphs: No data. Useless propaganda.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/story/CEO-pay-2010/45634384/1
Selected CEOs, not all nor a representative average and none of their data supports 353 times average woprker pay.
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2009
Conclusions without any data and stated as only selected CEOs.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230445860457749
0842584787190.html
Subscription required, however, also stating conclusions without any data.
http://griid.org/2011/04/06/ceo-pay-soars-while-workers-pay-stalls/
Repost of a ZDNet article with no data, just more liberal talking points.
Selected CEOs in the Baltimore region. No data and hardly anything to suggest 353 times much less average.
So far, you are batting zip. Just a bunch of liberal talking points. According to you, the average CEO makes $20 million. According to you, private companies should share all profits with the hired help and the owners should get nothing more than the workers, right, Comrade? Whatta freaking Communist!
Continue living in Fantasyland. Corporations are always right. Management is always good. Workers are scum trying to take advantage of the company. Unregulated capitalism always delivers a perfect society.
Have a nice day!
Right you are. Any entity that gets too powerful is primed for corruption.
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