Now they will probably all be without a job! Way to go unions!
Hostess Brands, the company better known as the maker of Butternut, Ding Dongs, Dolly Madison, Drake's, Home Pride, Ho Hos, Hostess, Merita, Nature's Pride, and of course Wonder Bread and Twinkies, and which previously survived one multi-year Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, when it operated as Interstate Bakeries, has just made a splash at the NY Southern Bankruptcy court, for the last time, with a liquidation filing. The reason: insurmountable (and unfundable) difference in the firm's collective bargaining agreements and pension obligations, which resulted in a crippling strike that basically shut down the company. In other words, Twinkies may well survive the nuclear apocalypse, but there was one weakest link: the company making them, was unable to survive empowered labor unions who thought they had all the negotiating leverage... until the led their bankrupt employer right off liquidation cliff. Will attention now turn to that another broke government entity, the PBGC, which will have to step in if the firm's 18,000 workers are to have any chance of preserving all those pensions they thought they had set for life, until they literally liquidated their employer.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-16/twinkies-ding-dongs-maker-hostess-liquidates-following-failure-resolve-labor-union-a
Gee.......What the hell did they expect?
ReplyDeleteI guess that these employees thought that their Unions were going to protect them and deliver the impossible.
Now....Go straight to the unemployment line,and maybe the government will let you pick up your pensions later,maybe?
In my opinion, the unions are just as greedy as the Wall Street bankers. What ever happened to laying in the bed you make? They shouldn't even be able to collect unemployment since they essentially quit their job by striking instead of being laid off. As far as the government backing their pensions, hell no, they should have thought about their pensions before they striked the company over greed.
DeleteFor anyone interested in a somewhat more balanced presentation, this is an excellent article http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/
ReplyDeleteI have a love/hate relationship with unions. I have never enjoyed working in a union shop whether in the grocery store or as a nurse. But, when you work in a job where your labor is essentially just a commodity, I see a need for unions. I like the idea that as a nurse, I can make more money then my cooworkers if I am smarter or more motivated then they are. It's not realistic. I loathe the reality my pay is now determined solely by years of seniority, but I accept that nursing is not a job that lends itself to individual negotiations.
Blaming the unions in this case as you are doing Gotta is not quite honest. But, the sensational headline fits your agenda, why let details get in the way of that?
The sad part for you, Max is that you may be the best nurse that the hospital has ever had, and when a layoff is needed, you will be out because some lazy slob has more seniority than you. Think about that for a while.
Delete"Think about that for a while. "
DeleteThink about it and do what? From a business standpoint, the way nurses are treated is ideal. They know what their labor costs will be, there is no uncertainty. If census drops and they don't need me for a day, they tell me to stay home and they don't pay me. The reality Gotta is that millions of people work in jobs where what they do cannot be directly quantified to the bottom line. When I was a broker, I had a 50/50 deal with the firm I worked with, we split every cost right down the middle. Sales jobs are like that.
The idea that we should all be independent contractors is simply not practical. An ICU nurse is a high specialized are of nursing. Some hospitals pay a premium for that, the vast majority do not. From the hospital perspective, it is not practical to think they can sign 300 individual contracts wherein each nurse negotiates their pay, benefits and so forth. I don't like this reality, but as an honest question, what in your view is a better alternative?
In my years in sales, I found many claims of employee overcompensation to be a scapegoat for lack of good management and lack of innovation.
Max There is no hiding the fact that "Hostess Brands" was not a very well run company and your comment about 300 individual contracts applies to Hostess.
DeleteThere is a lot of blame for all parties to share,and some of the old contracts with the Teamsters did come back to haunt this mess. I fault management for not correcting all their union problems the first go around.
The union contract issue this time was just the final straw,not to worry,Bimbo or another competitor will pick up the sweetest pieces of this mess.
Many jobs will be lost but not forever.
As far as ICU nurses are concerned they are not paid all that much more. The lady of this house worked ICU for 5 years while getting her masters to become an FNP.The ICU was about experience not pay,today in her role that experience was major.
Interestingly enough, that is exactly my experience. I spent five years in the ICU and I just applied for an FNP program. Nursing compensation, to me, is a very flawed system. From the hospital perspective, a nurse is a nurse is a nurse. They know full well that nurses in high acuity ares have enormous responsibility and enormous contributions to good or bad outcomes. But, for purposes of cost control, the generic skill of "nurse" is treated as a commodity. I don't like it, but I can't think of a better system.
DeleteThe critical issue in the bankruptcy is legacy pensions. Hostess has roughly $2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities to its various unions' workers -
DeleteEveryone would like a pension. They virtually do not exist in the private sector today. When faced with changes in compensation, pension plans, or liquidation, the union chose liquidation.
Should another company buy the assets, the people are out and new people will be hired. Probably with no union.
A sad end for 18.5K people as 5K people hold the company hostage. Guess the company should have taken the route of invalidating all union contracts instead of trying to work with them.