Union Greed Killed The Twinkie

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Black & Right


Hostess Brands is Closed.
Hostess, maker of Twinkies, to go out of business; strike cited
I’ve always thought if I owned a business and gave people jobs; if they ever started to tell me how much I should pay them, I’d go out of business. I hope the union thugs are happy now that 18,500 brothers and sisters are out of work because they decided to dictate instead of compromise.

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  • Iron Mike

    It was nearly half my life ago – I dealt with the BC&T in Greenwich, CT – their now-VP Thibodeau was their New England head goon.

    The union was quite willing to put our bakery out of business, except most of our hourly folks had such minimal transferable skills or English abilities that in the end reason prevailed.

    I’ve got a hunch that Thibodeau was expecting Obama to come flying in with a ‘Twinkies are too big to fail bailout‘.  Bubba would have – he loved Twinkies.  O might have been tempted but Menu-Mistress Michelle surely stopped him – her personal war on Twinkies.

    Union suicide.  Now they’ll be on 99 weeks of unemployment – and be an issue in the 2014 mid-terms.

    • Igor

      I laugh (at t he Union decisions), I cry (at the loss of the local manufacture of twinkies, although “fresh twinkie” is an oxymoron), I hurl (at the writeups in the Seattle rags).

      They get what they deserve.

  • Tallyman

    Why must someone else pay for their wants?      Will their messiah, Barack, now provide as much or more?

  • ecotim

    Add this to the list of great union demands.

    TWA, Pan-am, and many others. Stand for your demands regardless of the feasibility of it and see what happens.

    • Igor

      I personally knew a guy here in Spokane that told his workers if they unionized, he was closing up shop.  They did, and so did he.

      We have Kaiser Aluminum here, a reducing plant and a rolling mill.  The IBEW tried strong-arming the company, and they folded.  The plant(s) were bought out by a holding company, and the Union was told to play ball or hit the highway.  They caved, and the plants are still alive (barely!), but thanks to foreign competition they are a skeleton of their former selves.  I live right across the road from them, it just ain’t the same as it was 20-30 years ago!

  • JP Kalishek

    ” I hope the union thugs are happy now that 18,500 brothers and sisters are out of work”

    I’m sure they are. Back when Bear Archery was in Gaylord Michigan, the unions decided to go to the mat with Bear. Bear eventually got fed up and folded shop to move to the right to work state of Florida. The union and many of the hardcore members considered this a victory. They lost the jobs, the dues and their retirements, but hey … they “won”.

    • PB-in-AL

      That’s the thing that has continually confounded me about unions and union membership. The line worker is the one who has paid the dues, supported the union, and is now out on the street, while the beneficiaries of this effort are still in their fat-cat cars, houses, etc.!? Do the members not see this? Are they so blinded by the propaganda that “winning” is worth being unemployed along with 18,500 of their closest friends?

      My dad worked for GM his entire career, starting on the line and making his way up to upper-middle management. Thanks to Barky and the unions, his retirement benefits and plan are GONE! His GM supplemental medical insurance, gone; the value of his retirement portfolio, much in GM stock, gone. I remember the ’70s watching the unions hammering on GM and my dad just ranting about the insanity of their demands.

      I remember the huge coal miner strike in the early ’80s. I knew guys who were on strike for nearly 2 years. They didn’t necessarily want to be, but they were obligated as members of the union to not cross picket lines. Many of them ended up unemployed after all that time.

      In each of these cases, the union bosses never feared for their jobs, never had to wonder whether they’d be able to keep their lights on, or keep food on the table. Seems to me this baker’s union needs to member-up and boot out their “leaders”. I wouldn’t want 18,500 people pissed off at me, with time on their hands, showing up on my front lawn, but that’s what ought to happen.

      • n.n

        Dissociation of risk sponsors corruption.

        • Igor

          Until the sauce for the Goose is also the sauce used on the Gander, we’ll still see this crap.

          Fatcat union bosses want to strike?  Fine!  Let ‘em starve along with the rank-and-file.