Bakery Union Strike forces Hostess into bankruptcy..........

Hostess Brands is closing shop today ..going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said..

Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidder.

The company had warned ithe union that it would file a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shut operations if enough workers didn't end a weeklong strike by 5 p.m. ET Thursday. On Friday, it followed through on that threat.

No more ...Wonder bread, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, Donettes, Dolly Madison Zingers , Drake's snack cakes and Twinkies ( my personal fav.)..

I loved that golden sponge cake with the three creamy globs of filling...

Hostess's latest woes took hold when thousands of employees in its bakers union went on strike Nov. 9 in protest of a court-imposed labor contract that cut wages, commissions, and healthcare benefits ..

 A bankruptcy judge gave Hostess permission to force the bakers union to accept a new five-year labor contract that featured an 8% wage cut in the first year, new pension plan restrictions and a 17% increase in healthcare costs for employees.

But the bakers' union resisted and went on strike...

Hostess management said work rules from existing labor agreements made it hard to improve productivity and spend money efficiently. For example, some rules required different workers to deliver bread and cakes, the company said.

Hostess's investors plowed another $60 million into Hostess last year but wouldn't provide more without new labor givebacks.

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I hear there's a petition going around that wants       President Obama to nationalize the "Twinkie industry," saving the popular junk food from possible extinction like he did with GM and Chrysler...

Elsewhere Several former workers at a Hostess Brands plant in Rocky Mount said Friday they were relieved after the company filed for bankruptcy, seeking to close its operations.

“They’ve been holding this over our head for a long time and now it’s here,” said Lamont Phillips, an oven operator and the president of the local union. “They had to do it.

“I don’t have to deal with that anymore. The things that they were trying to do to us, it wasn’t fair.

“They always hold that over our heads, that they’ll close it down. So, I’m like, ‘OK. Close it down.’”

And on Friday, Hostess did what LaMont wanted...... Hey!  LaMont you were on strike....you can’t collect unemployment benefits ..the good news LaMont you could qualify to receive food stamps ...

that's all bullshit Slim. I was watching the nat'l news tonite, and i shit you not, the picture presented was that the "health consciousness" of America had finally finished of the twinkies. It was almost a rest in peace type segement....bless the twinkies. Granted the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between  

 A world without Twinkies is a world with a big hole in it.....

As Alexandra Petri say's ..It's a sad day ..the Twinkie survived the Great Depression. The Twinkies are members of the Greatest Generation. ...

Without any question,truly a sad day ...........

for some crazy ass reason, many believe there was a "mandate" from this past election. A 50--48.5 divide has never defined a mandate, as it does not now. Watch them go Galt in the coming years. We can argue, and curse each other as much as we want, but the evil rich will not be bled dry...sure as the sun rises in the east.

The shelves at the Wonder Hostess Bakery Thrift Shop in Glendale on Friday were nearly bare as customers made runs on Twinkies, Ho Hos and Ding Dongs ...

At Hostess brand retail bakery outlets in San Bernardino and Riverside, the tasty treats were flying off store shelves, along with Ding Dongs, and Honey Buns. Apparently, it was the same story at all 570 outlets across the country, reported CBS2's Greg Mills.

Twinkies top the best-sellers list   A box on eBay was selling for $25, according to Mills.

Hostess Products fly off the shelves in Chicago area...

Twinkies are flying off the shelves as grocery stores nationwide.. many people plan on freezing their favorite Hostess products for future indulging!

Shoppers were snapping up Hostess products off of shelves across Supervalu grocery stores nationwide, including Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, Acme and Shaw's.

Twinkies sales were also on fire on Amazon ..In the last 24 hours, Twinkies sales jumped over 31,000% on the retailer's "Movers & Shakers" sales ranking.

 On Friday, Hostess products accounted for 10 of the top 11 bestsellers in the grocery and gourmet food category. The 10-count box of Twinkies is No. 1, while the box of the orange cupcakes is No. 2 and a 6-pack of Hostess Sno Balls is in the 6th spot.

But, by some of the comments in this thread Ding Dongs appear to rate higher than Twinkies..

Hostess reached a deal with the Teamsters on a package of pay and benefit cuts. The bakers’ union, the company’s second largest, largely stayed out of the talks and voted to reject the contract.

Hostess won the right in bankruptcy court to impose the contract on all its workers. Nonetheless, the company in recent weeks has offered the bakers the chance to enter mediation, a source said, but they have refused.....they would rather take a 100% cut in pay,than reach a deal like the Teamsters did...

The reason why sales are down--Twinkies are the food equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig.

Ingredients: Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow #5, red #40.

Blame the workers. That's hilarious. It's obvious that this camel's back needed to be broken. More correctly, it was already broken. 

Managment is scapegoating workers to cover the company's own failures to perform successfully in the marketplace. Wages is just one of the many market factors at work here. 

Management had a product that was out of favor with the public, a marketing strategy that hadn't worked in some time and a business model that was unsustainable. Blaming the workers for saying, "We'd rather work for somebody else than at low wages for these jerks" is like taking England's side when Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty or give me death!"  Workers--unionized or not--have the right to reject an offer. It's just business.

A 5000 member labor Union puts 18,500 workers in the unemployment line.. and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (who didn't lose his job) blames it on a 'Bain-style' killing of Twinkie... (Romney's fault) ...

The Teamsters Union looked at the company's books and realized the dire straits of the fianical situation Hotess was in and ignored the strike by Trumpka's Union thugs  (the bakery union is an AFL-CIO member) and crossed the picket-line in an attempt to save the company ..

Someone will probably buy Hostess.. re-tool and produce great products in “right to work” states or non-Union facilities...

Elsewhere:

Governor Chris Christie today, refused to react to the news that Hostess – the parent company of Twinkies – had announced that they were closing their doors.....

"Really? Seriously? You're not asking me about Hostess Twinkies, are ya?" Christie said from the podium.

"No, no, no, no, no. It's bad that I even said the word ‘Twinkie’ from behind this microphone.”

"And don't go to Devil Dogs," he joked. "Don't try it."