Posted on 11/22/2012 4:15:23 AM PST by tobyhill
After several years of costly concessions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) authorized a walk-out earlier this month after Hostess received bankruptcy court approval to implement a wage cut that was not included in its contract.
With operations stalled, the company that makes Twinkies and other famous U.S. brands said last week that liquidating its business was the best way to preserve its dwindling cash. It won court approval on Wednesday to start winding down in a process expected to claim 15,000 jobs immediately and over 3,000 more after about four months.
Interviews with more than a dozen workers showed there was little sign of regret from employees who voted for the strike. They said they would rather lose their jobs than put up with lower wages and poorer benefits.
"They're just taking from us," said Kenneth Johnson, 46, of Missouri. He said he earned roughly $35,000 with overtime last year, down from about $45,000 five years ago.
"I really can't afford to not be working, but this is not worth it. I'd rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment," said Johnson, a worker at Hostess for 23 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Amazing. I never heard of this Bastiat before, but it seems he was extremely wise.
Very few people think of the big picture... they look at themselves and their own self-interest, and are unable to see that, in the long run, such a narrow focus will lead to disaster. Like the strikers in Greece and Spain, dependent on government, taking and taking until their governments can’t afford to support them any more, and still unaware that it is their own behavior that led them to that place.
According to this article, it’s 75% of their annual salary.
That’s a hefty freaking bonus. What about some severance pay for the NON-union workers who lost their job?
The guy worked there for 23 years and only makes 35K? Either he got demoted, is insanely stupid and can’t get a job elsewhere, or this is total BS!
The best example of union mentality!
They are all socialist lemmings and are totally brain dead.
Now let me see if I get this right.
I have a business. My employees want to put me out of business. They succeed in puting me out of business. I sell the assetts. How much should I reward them? Maybe a new phone?
COBRA is 102% if the actual premium (not necessarily, what the employee was paying, but the actual cost of the premium), and if I recall correctly, that is only for 18 months, and then COBRA is no longer in effect.
In companies less than 50, it is considered Continuation of Coverage (at least it is in Texas) and it is only for 6 months.
“Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM)”
Okay that combo alone makes me wanna ban all unions. LOL.
Just curious if walking off your job allows you to actually receive unemployment benefits? That is in a way like quitting your job. They were not layed off, they quit. The other 13,000 workers lost their job due to being layed off, but the Union workers actually walked off.
I wonder how that would work?
Ubama is going to give the unions card-check, and the NLRB is going to force all employers to turn over the names and addresses of all their employees to the unions.
With these two tools, they can forge the signatures of employees and unionize any company without the consent of the employer or employees.
And their first target is going to be Walmart and the hundreds of millions of dollars of union dues they will be able to extort for the Democrat campaign-finance slush fund.
The Black Friday Walmart walkouts are being orchestrated straight out of the White Hut. You can take that to the bank.
Once Walmart goes down, the rest of the employers in the country will follow in short order.
Well no shit Johnson...It's the same that's happened to most in the private sector for over 10 years now...Work harder for less, as the evil government parasites raise your taxes to fund their fat lottery style tax paid retirements.
Sell this Texas Company to Mexico, where the illegals in Texas think company benefits mean a 5 minute break.
Who care about the stinking consequences.
He’ll be getting a lot less than he would have if he fought the union for his job. So he’ll be getting 2/3ds of what he was making up to a preset amount? And is that 99 weeks still in force or has it dropped back to the 26 weeks?
Very safe assumption there.
Back in the early 90’s I would tell teenagers that if they can’t say one of the following, they will not be able to own their own home as adults:
1. I own my own business.
2. I’m a salesperson
3. You can’t take someone off the street and teach them my job in a few weeks.
And the first two are no guarantee.
These guys can say none of those things. Unless they live in large cities with diverse economies, once their unemployment runs out they are absolutely screwed. There will be no opportunities unless they educate themselves. The days of working an unskilled job for good money are done.
And it’s not just the death of unions that is doing it. It is the simple fact that the world has rebuilt itself since WWII and is not competing with us. Why should an american doing an unskilled job make ten times as much as a guy in the Sudan doing the exact same thing?
The reason I moved from computer programming to communication intensive business analysis and project management at the turn of the century is because I saw the writing on the wall regarding outsourcing of technical jobs. It’s paid big dividends.
The BCTGM has an office in my home town - a very non-descript building. Turns out it is the National Headquarters, never knew that ...
I feel like organizing a protest, round up all the Twinkies I can find, and fire them at the office from the parking lot [using a beer can cannon] ...
Whaddaya think ???
“54,200 a year which is before taxes and is not a great wage”
It’s the national average and damned good considering it’s unskilled workers.
Thanks for your post, exDemMom. It’s Bastiat-like. He not only unmasked the philosophical destruction (before the communist manifesto was even written), he named those destructive individuals of his day.
One more Bastiat post...
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law which may be an isolated case is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole with their common aim of legal plunder constitute socialism.
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine, what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine? If you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and evil, then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the more evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
I think I read somewhere where the bonuses would about $2 million spread among 19 in upper management. That’s not outrageous.
This was a union on union fight. The bakers versus the teamsters. The teamsters were making 100k plus the had severely feather bedded the number of drivers and handlers. The bakers decided it would do them any of good to take cuts because they were doomed because of the teamsters. So they decided to take their chances in a liquidation.
bflr;ping
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