Posted on 11/25/2012 7:35:33 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Let's get a few things clear. Hostess didn't fail for any of the reasons you've been fed. It didn't fail because Americans demanded more healthful food than its Twinkies and Ho-Hos snack cakes. It didn't fail because its unions wanted it to die.
It failed because the people that ran it had no idea what they were doing. Every other excuse is just an attempt by the guilty to blame someone else.
Take the notion that Hostess was out of step with America's healthful-food craze. You'd almost think that Hostess failed because it didn't convert its product line into one based on green vegetables. Yet you only have to amble down the cookie aisle at your supermarket or stroll past the Cinnabon kiosk at the airport to know that there are still handsome profits to be made from the sale of highly refined sugary garbage.
It's true that the company had done almost nothing in the last 10 years to modernize or expand its offerings. But as any of the millions of Americans who have succumbed to Twinkie cravings can attest, there has always been something about their greasy denseness and peculiar aftertaste that place them high among the ranks of foodstuffs that can be perfectly satisfying without actually being any good.
Hostess management's efforts to blame union intransigence for the company's collapse persisted right through to the Thanksgiving eve press release announcing Hostess' liquidation, when it cited a nationwide strike by bakery workers that "crippled its operations."
That overlooks the years of union givebacks and management bad faith. Example: Just before declaring bankruptcy for the second time in eight years Jan. 11, Hostess trebled the compensation of then-Chief Executive Brian Driscoll and raised other executives' pay up to twofold.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
In a perfect world, perhaps. But this isn’t it, so your point is invalid since the executive compensation changes had basically no effect on this outcome.
So you support class warfare that will flush the entire US down the economic toilet?
“An idiot without proper training becomes a union leader.
An idiot with an MBA becomes a manager.”
QUite right!
and those unable to pass the “Idiot CertificationTest” become commie presstitutes. An example of such presstitute blabbering is the following, taken from his article:
“Now that the bill has come due, Hostess blames the workers for demanding what they were promised.”
Those “promises” were forced by Goonion leaders/members and the NLRB. Nobody “promises” a mere truck driver an annual salary of $!30,000 and benefits on top of that.
Worse yet, the commie presstitute ignores the fact that Bimbo would not have had to file bankruptcy if that greedy Goonion truck driver had agreed to an annual salary of $120,000.
May G*d rot the unions, their members, and the union leaders alike.
Fascinating insight, thanks, I am afraid greed will be the death of this nation, not just financial greed, but political greed too. Illegal immigrants will never be satisfied ‘till everyone of their family and friends are in the US too, Democrats will never be satisfied ‘till they control every aspect of government and our lives.
It’s sad, you were honest with your employees, yet they still wanted more, you gave them the facts, yet they questioned the truth, the way a company goes, so too the nation. It seems people are never satisfied nor take account of those things which they are fortunate to have.
When management knew the company was in trouble they should have done everything possible to make the pension funds fully funded up to that point. Giving themselves pay raises was wrong. I realize that their pay raises may not have affected whether the company remained viable, but that money should have gone into the pensions.
They threatened to strike once too often. In a bad economy you sit tight and be grateful you have a job, under OLD conditions that could never be granted now.
The unions are SOLELY responsible for the death of the steel industry and many other industries, and now Hostess, a less on they NEVER seem to learn.
For what it’s worth, Gary Wandschneider was forced to resign from Pepsi when caught searching for women on Craig’s List using a company computer. The bimbo that he found then blackmailed him for about $100K in cash. He was married while looking for love in all the wrong places.
Not held in high regard at Pepsi.
http://wallstfolly.typepad.com/wallstfolly/2006/11/pepsi_exec_said.html
One of the reasons why companies like 401(k)s. They have a fixed, up front cost and the company doesn't have to worry about how early employees retire or how long they live or whether the employees negotiate a better retirement deal which will then have to be funded for all past and current employees.
Hostess is a company that should have probably been dissolved years ago. I wonder which investors and suppliers are losing money by delaying bankruptcy and who would have lost money years ago but got paid in the interim.
OK so management may have made mistakes—it was the Union who killed the Twinkee. Unions are nothing but a cancer upon the American business community. They are so corrupt they kill labor—lets see how well you unionize Chinese Shops?
If somebody has got the information straight, you don't need all the put-downs.
I have to commend you on that explanation. Well put.
Hostess was an 82 year old company and they were well into their 3rd generation of retired employees needing retirement pay and healthcare benefits that it was like a mini volkswagen trying to pull a fully loaded tractor trailer.
It could no longer PULL the UNION load.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Wealth of nations, Book I, Ch 10. . . and unions are nothing but the institutionalization of such “meetings” with no pretense of “merriment or diversion” as their context.
And, coincidentally, the Associated Press newswire is a continuous 24/7/365 virtual meeting of the entire journalism industry. Not for "merriment or diversion,” but to share business information. And we are then surprised to learn, as Pat Cadell recently pointed out, that wire service journalism functions as an enemy of American society. </irony>
Once the Unions destroy the host they feed off of, they are now dipping their snouts into the public trough where their cohorts, e.g. Democrats liberal socialist assist in getting them lucrative contracts at the expense of the tax payers of this Nation!
Once the tax payer has had enough of paying for golden medical coverage and pensions funds to public Union employees and put a stop to it, the Union will continue to suck of the public tax payer until the host dies or is forced into bankruptcy, look at the City of Detroit and every other liberal controlled Public Union infected City in this Country, the City has filed or will be filing for bankruptcy in the very near future!
Unions busted Hostess and will destroy every host it becomes attached to! The Unions are in the process of destroying Walmart until they agree to be unionized, where Walmart will become the best friend of the Unions and liberal socialist if Walmart capitulates to the Union thugs!
The Japanese management system in terms of leadership is better then US CEO leadership because the boss also took a pay cut and no bonuses if the company is losing business. Why the Japanese management behave this way is rooted in the origin of modern industry in Japan. Prior to modernization, Japan was feudal with society geared to support lords and their samurai protectors. When Japan industrialized, the leaders had to figure out what to do with the samurai warriors. Many were assigned to new industries as managers. They took many of the military style leadership principles with them. One is lead by example. They take care of the people under them and the people under them took care of him. Workers are not something one buys, use and throwaway. The manager and workers need each other to succeed. Managers share the glory and the price of defeat. Unfortunately corporate managers in the US fail in this concept. They like the poor think they are entitled to bonuses and raises because they are the boss, even if the corporation is losing money. Like Democrats, corporate CEO’s do not believe in sovereign nations, and make others do what they say and not do what they preach.
“It could no longer PULL the UNION load.”
The union load is worse for govt employees. Twenty years and out. Many retire at 40 at 3/4 pay which they inflate by working massive overtime the last year or two. Its a recipe for bancruptcy.
So, how is the Japanese economy these days?
The Japanese management system in terms of leadership is better then US CEO leadership because the boss also took a pay cut and no bonuses if the company is losing business. Why the Japanese management behave this way is rooted in the origin of modern industry in Japan. Prior to modernization, Japan was feudal with society geared to support lords and their samurai protectors. When Japan industrialized, the leaders had to figure out what to do with the samurai warriors. Many were assigned to new industries as managers. They took many of the military style leadership principles with them. One is lead by example. They take care of the people under them and the people under them took care of him. Workers are not something one buys, use and throwaway. The manager and workers need each other to succeed. Managers share the glory and the price of defeat. Unfortunately corporate managers in the US fail in this concept. They like the poor think they are entitled to bonuses and raises because they are the boss, even if the corporation is losing money. Like Democrats, corporate CEO’s do not believe in sovereign nations, and make others do what they say and not do what they preach.
Japan economy is stagnate because their gov wanted to prevent deflation after their banks badly invested their surpluses into real estate that was a bubble. Similar mistake we are repeating with QE. But the attitude of the corporate leaders towards their workers is much better then our corporate leaders. The gap between CEO pay to worker pay is much lesser then US ones. Japanese CEO are paid much less then US CEO but notice how it is funny that US corporations will replace higher paid US workers with overseas ones instantly, buy the lowest cost materials possible, but such opportunities are denied to US workers. I cannot buy in bulk good lower priced pharmaceutics from overseas, and US corporate boards never try to reduce costs of management by hiring these lower salaried Japanese CEO’s or CEO’s from other emerging nations who are capable and willing to work for less. So how are CEO attitude different from liberal Dem elites - do what we want, but ignore how we behave??? This is the oldest story since time, you work hard and make the bread, but I will be the one who will eat it.
Everyone should read post #10. The pay raises were mostly rescinded.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/19/who-killed-hostess
“According to David A. Kaplan at Fortune, who wrote a lengthy and extremely fascinating look at Hostess’ financial situation back in July, many of those raises were proposed but never actually happened. In fact, the new CEO brought in earlier this year dropped the salaries for four top executives to $1 for the remainder of the year.”
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