No Wonder, Executives Want More Bread

According to early reports about the Hostess bankruptcy, the well known brands – Twinkies, Ring Dings and the well known bread substitute Wonder Bread – were to be sold off to raise money to pay off creditors.

This would have happened if everything had proceeded according to the bankruptcy plan filed by the owners. However the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) have called the deal into question. The BCTGM takes exception to management’s proposal to pay senior executives a bonus of up to 75 percent of their annual pay so they will stay on and help wind-down the bankrupt business.

The Washington Post’s Plum-line blog reports that labor and Hostess management will be going into last-ditch mediation in hopes of saving 18,000 jobs and 33 manufacturing plants. The unions hope to turn the entire affair into a teachable moment.

The AFL-CIO will be following the lead of the union that represents the Hostess workers, but it has offered to lend any assistance it can, and will separately use this story to draw national attention to labor issues in general.

Whatever the health of organized labor overall, the Twinkie story seems like another good opportunity for unions to counterprogram conservative messaging with their own story about the scapegoating of supposedly greedy union workers for corporate failings, even as “vulture funds” make a killing – and more broadly about the real causes of middle class economic insecurity.

Hostess’ debt is owned by a series of hedge funds and “without large union concessions – what some would say, total union capitulation – the hedge funds decided Hostess would have to die,” according to Business Insider.

So as you see, it’s no Wonder: it’s the union workers’ fault for not being as soft and squishy as the company’s famous spitball raw material.

4 thoughts on “No Wonder, Executives Want More Bread

  1. You missed this part:

    BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256.

    Over the past 15 months, Hostess workers have seen the company unilaterally end contractually-obligated payments to their pension plan.

    http://americablog.com/2012/11

    The Executives and their hedge fund managers ‘investors’ are looting the company, stealing the worker’s hard-earned pension, raising their own salaries and then claiming there’s no money left.  Yeah, there’s no money, the CEOs stole it all!

  2. Happy Thanksgiving for Hostess CEO’s and hedge funders

    Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies Ding Dongs and other snacks, has received approval from a bankruptcy court judge to wind down its business and sell all of its assets.

    The ruling came Wednesday after Hostess failed in last-ditch negotiations to end a strike by its second-largest union.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50

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