Unions Killed the Twinkie

[Conan71]

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Hostess-Brands-Salary-E329177_P2.htm

Line workers are listed at $38K to $41K

$41K is about $19 per hour.

Not bad considering it's not highly skilled labor.  I sincerely hope they've got some skill sets which will apply elsewhere.  Not too much demand for re-loading bread bagging machines or re-stocking a few hundred pounds of yeast.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Will be interesting to see how big a bonus Greg Rayburn gets for running the company into the ground.


All those bakeries listed have overcapacity, it's boils down to what you can do with that room for expansion/new products/new markets/innovation, etc.  

Obviously, Rayburn and his cronies had no clue.

It always is a mild source of amazement around here that the guys who are SO into the idea of growing companies, growing jobs, growing this, that, and the other are also the ones who seem to have this myopic view that the only way to accomplish that is to get another tax cut.  Here is an industry, along with a LOT of them in this country that have significant overcapacity, and the only viable solution is to break up the company and sell the pieces.  Harvard School of Business right down the line.

It is the lazy CEO way out.  Actual thought and doing any kind of work themselves to come up with ways to utilize that capacity is way harder that selling and writing themselves a big bonus check.  Kind of like when a company does a stock buyback.  It is an admission that management has no clue about how to manage.  The best use of that money is to sit on it and do nothing - NO innovation.  No product development.  No market expansion.  No anything that requires a thought process.  And as a nod to those Harvard MBA Cultists - yeah, sometimes the price of the stock IS low enough that it can be the best investment at that time - which brings us to the NEXT failing of management - their performance is SO bad that the stock price is in the toilet bad enough to make it a good deal for the company to buy.  Wow... I mean just....WOW!


And yeah...I have a list of product development ideas that could utilize that kind of opportunity...and past record of coming up with stuff that is (still) successful in the market - to the tune of several $ millions per year over several products.  What a horrendously lost opportunity there.  Good work Greg Rayburn!  Enjoy the beach!!

[Townsend]

TW is tweeting that the sign carriers are still there.

[Townsend]

Never Forget

[heironymouspasparagus]

Bought two boxes of Hostess Cupcakes at Walmart Wednesday...for old times sake.

[Conan71]

Never Forget

Good riddance.

[Gaspar]

Good riddance.

Blasphemy!

[Townsend]

Good riddance.

They'll be back.  "Hecho en Mexico"

[swake]

They'll be back.  "Hecho en Mexico"

Hostess Cupcakes by Bimbo

Bimbo moving into the US more than anything is what killed Hostess, not Unions, and I will predict Bimbo will buy the brands. Likely they will move some part of the manufacturing to Mexico.

[nathanm]

Good riddance.

There's something addictive about Cherry Sweet Rolls. or at least there was when I was 16.

[guido911]

Blasphemy!

I'm with Gaspar on this one Conan.

[guido911]

I may drive the Hostess plant to laugh, um, shop at the store. Not really, just to maybe find out if Bain or Romney is to blame....

[Gaspar]

[RecycleMichael]

I may drive the Hostess plant to laugh, um, shop at the store. Not really, just to maybe find out if Bain or Romney is to blame....

Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital now run Hostess.

Silver Point Capital gave their Hostess CEO a $2 million salary and gave the executives an 80% bonus last year. They handled negotiations with the union demanding a 25% pay cut or they would close the plant.

No, Bain or Romney are not part of the blame. But venture capitalists like them are part of the blame for the plant closing.

[Townsend]

Free Market:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=twinkies