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 ...
Most everything Hiltzik writes is utter garbage. Just another leftist masquerading as a journalist.
Waiting to see who they blame when GM goes bankrupt again.....
“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. “
interesting. I suggest that what is being proposed is that every union company be turned over to the unions (just like GM) because obviously nobody else could possibly “know what they are doing”
That the real message here. Facts don’t matter.
It’s tough to find money for capital improvements when you are losing $300 million per year.
It’s tough to find money for capital improvements when you are losing $300 million per year.
You mean it wasn’t that the unions demanded different drivers for different products going to the same places which robbed the company of funds needed to modernize? Let’s not forget that the union most likely fought modernization as that usually results in more automation and less workers. I refuse to believe any union thug would be for more automation.
Union dues paid by employee were over $2 million each year. I bet $2 million could modernize a big part of a bakery nicely.
Straw man argument. Nobody has claimed that the unions wanted it to die. They wanted it to richly featherbed their salaries and their retirement, forever.
About a year ago, I saw a show on The Food Network about convenient snacks. It said Little Debbie haa a much greater market than Hostess, because their manufacturing was much more efficient, so they could sell for less.
It could be that Hostess’ management was unable to take advantage of modern manufacturing methods that would have allowed them to operate more efficiently and that contributed to their apparent demise.
Maybe in Mexico they’ll be able to make a profit and keep people employed
Coming from the LAT, that's rich! Haw haw haw!
I guess we can argue all day long about who we should point our crooked little finger at but the fact remains that there are 18,500 workers out there who will be shifting from taxpayer mode to government dependency mode.
They did, about four years ago. We were a test market. McAwful doesn't even begin to describe it...
They’re right.
Should have bought more intelligent robotics and sacked the labor.
LA Times whoring for the Unions....
Victory brand Twinkie’s anyone?
Now there are over 40,000 abandonded houses in Detroit. NO property taxes being collected—turning into our own version of Chernobyl.
Unions are part of management. The deals they make are signed on both sides of the table. Worst problem is size, which makes the union like the government in power.
Kind of tough to modernize when your union is fighting every step of the process (i.e., to ‘save’ jobs).
The union got just what it deserved.
Unions do to companies what the federal government does to the USA as a whole.
They both pusue an economic model that is unsustainable in the long run.
That is one major reason why the unions have been losing ground for years and why the US is heading towards a fiscal calamity.
Unionized companies pay union employees more than their non-union peers earn in the surounding areas.
It is a form of wealth redistribution through extortion.
Money is redirected from other needs to pay union employees more than their real contribution.
In other words, they take more than they earn for the company.
The federal government engages in the same practivce of wealth redistribution via extortion. They are just more open and blatent about it.
The federal government redirects money from earners or from other national needs to "pay" to people who haven't earned it.
That is exactly the same action that takes place in a labor union / company relationship.
As with the unions, the government is able to do this because they have the power to do it - not because it is right or the best policy for the nation.
The recipients of money, benefits or other wealth that they have not earned are all moochers - some are just able to disguise it a little better and to give it a better sounding label.
“But management AGREED to every one of those ridiculous conditions. They’ve got to take some responsibility for that.”
True, but try being in management’s shoes some day.
...and look at it the other way - if no union, then no stupid conditions like that - it wouldn’t even be considered.
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