Posted on 07/13/2013 4:55:38 PM PDT by mdittmar
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) President David B. Durkee issued the following statement in response to the impending re-entry by Hostess Brands, LLC, into the snack cake market:
“This coming week, Hostess Brands, LLC, is expected to re-enter the wholesale snack cake market. Despite the fanfare, the long-term viability of this effort is highly uncertain. Rather than hire professional, experienced bakers who have produced quality snack cakes in the company’s bakeries for decades, Hostess management has chosen instead to hire primarily workers with little or no experience in the demanding wholesale snack cake baking industry.
“The BCTGM has consistently stated our interest in working cooperatively and productively with the new owners of this company. We have always maintained that the experience, skill and professionalism of our members offer the new owners, who have no experience in the wholesale snack cake business, the best chance for long-term success in consistently putting out a quality product.
(Excerpt) Read more at aflcio.org ...
I fully expect the union thuggery to sabotage in store products, even to the tune of poisoning, in order to ‘teach the industry a lesson about using the unions or else.’ Unions will murder children to throw their weight around. Evil bastids they are.
Here is another good one from “How It’s Made”. Not Twinkies but I imagine pretty close.
I would think that the only actual “real” professional and highly experienced bakers needed if any, are the ones working in the test kitchens developing new products. Otherwise you only need someone bright enough to follow directions and operate the machinery, basically a minimum wage job.
Ha, you are kidding! That takes the cake/pun intended.
If they are “professional,experienced bakers” they should start their own business,imagine there is a market for quality baked goods,seems a shame that their talents will go to waste.
Three unions signed a letter on Friday and sent it to Obama saying that Obamacare is going to hurt their members as business is cutting back hours to get under 30 hours. So screw the unions. I am going to but some new Hostess Cupcakes and I don’t eat that type of food.
The first thing we need to do, double the price of oil!!!
Violence from union thugs to follow in 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .
The Union thugs just can't resist inserting the obligatory threat. Roughly translated as we will be attempting to unionize your factories well into the future.
See my post #82, it is not even assembly line type production where you have workers doing any sort of hands on work – it’s all automated save for someone at the beginning operating and pouring pre-measured amounts into a big automated mixing vat and someone at the end taking the boxes and putting them onto pallets or loading them onto trucks.
Comparing someone working at a Hostess factory or a similar operation a “pastry chef” is like calling those frozen Lean Cuisine dinners – “cuisine”.
Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi:
When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the Administration, seeking reasonable regulatory interpretations to the statute that would help prevent the destruction of non-profit health plans. As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. This is especially stinging because other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last week’s huge accommodation for the employer community—extending the statutorily mandated “December 31, 2013” deadline for the employer mandate and penalties.
Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios:
First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.
Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act. Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.
And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.
We believe that there are common-sense corrections that can be made within the existing statute that will allow our members to continue to keep their current health plans and benefits just as you and the President pledged. Unless changes are made, however, that promise is hollow.
We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions.
We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.
James P. Hoffa
General President
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Joseph Hansen
International President
UFCW
D. Taylor
President
UNITE-HERE
Lighten up Skippy. Paying union dues does not make one a “professional”. I know a lot of people whom I consider being the best at what they do. They are not union members.
Bump
Little Debbie snack cakes have gone up in price in the past year without competition. Voortman cookies have replaced Twinkies on the shelves and they are a tasty and cheaper snack alternative.
IIRC, the BHO administration promised them “help” under the foreign competition compensation program if the union killed the company.
You got to love the fact they unions now hate obama. Will the put the evil eye out on him? The Unions turned on Jack Kennedy and Bobbie Kennedy.
Since all their goodies tasted like they had been produced by robots in a chemistry lab why should anyone care whether the new company hires “professional bakers”?
Flame away twinkie lovers.
Why flame? You may like lutefisk or some other so-called food that I would retch at. You are entitled to your opinion and tastes, and others are entitled to theirs.
Or were you trying to intentionally irk others with your post?
I say we go after conservatives of all stripes. Romney lost white, blue collar, middle-class voters. Get them back and we get the whole shebang.
Their products taste like crap! Professional bakers? Please! My homemade goodies taste much better than this and I have no “professional” title. Plus I can make it cheaper than their crap using coconut oil, butter, real vanilla, and real chocolate.
Will you bake for me :-) Please......
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
Well there is some justice in the world.
You thought the Democrats were your friends? Guess again.
Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Non-profit! What a bald faced lie!
There are plenty of profits. They go to the Unions and the corporations that administer the plans. The only differences between the Union Plans and the for profit plans is that the Union members typically pay more for their plans and get less service for it. I know because I work for a company that has both. The non-union employees are much happier with their health care insurance than those who get the union insurance while paying less.
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