Hostess workers strike may kill company

[jhunter1163]

Plenty of blame to go around on both sides, really.

 

[Fudbucker]

I'm a union negotiator, but when we sit down with management to negotiate, it's very collaborative. We saw the company was in trouble and both sides ended up taking the same percentage cut. We got some grumbling from it from our members, but the cuts passed overwhelmingly because everyone had skin in the game and no one wanted the company to fail.

But that's a small company and union. Probably atypical. I live in California and see the damage caused by unfettered union power.

 

[Vermonter]

Talks fell through, so farewell Hostess! Buy up Twinkies and sell them on eBay or CL for inflated prices.

 

[bit_pattern]

You're going to educate me on a topic you admit you know nothing about?

Perhaps you should educate yourself, and read up on the actual case at hand.

No. You asked a general question about how liquidisation strategies turn s profit and you got an answer. Now you want to talk specifics after you got your ass handed to you on a plate?

 

[geni]

This was a great labor-saving device. Now you didn't need a 4-man crew on every garbage truck to do the same route. You really only needed a one or 2 man crew,

Doubtful. Most cases I've seen with wheelie bins are 3 man. Means that the truck doesn't have to stop much which means trucks can cover a larger area.

 

[psionl0]

Doubtful. Most cases I've seen with wheelie bins are 3 man. Means that the truck doesn't have to stop much which means trucks can cover a larger area.

Driver only in my area. Householders must make sure their bin is correctly placed next to the kerb if they want their bin emptied.

 

[jj]

No. You asked a general question about how liquidisation strategies turn s profit and you got an answer. Now you want to talk specifics after you got your ass handed to you on a plate?

Many libertoonian types can not deal with any sort of evidence for how their free-market strategies can be heavily abused.

This is a common problem, along with the obviously dishonest tactic of insisting that "the tragedy of the commons" only applies to Victorian England, which is called "deliberately missing the point just to have an argument" at its very best.

 

[jj]

Driver only in my area. Householders must make sure their bin is correctly placed next to the kerb if they want their bin emptied.

Ditto - One person, efficient pickup. No gripe, really.

 

[geni]

Ditto - One person, efficient pickup. No gripe, really.

The problem with that it that you can only clear one side of the street at a time and the lower lorry speed means you need more lorries to cover the same area which is expensive.

 

[psionl0]

The problem with that it that you can only clear one side of the street at a time and the lower lorry speed means you need more lorries to cover the same area which is expensive.

I don't know about your area but the wheelie bins in my area are too big for garbos to pick up and empty into the truck.

The only thing a ground crew could do is position the wheelie bins so they can be picked up by the truck and it is cheaper to make this the responsibility of the householder (not to mention that you would still be doing one side of the street at a time).

 

[joobie]

How do union work rules that require separate trucks for Twinkies and Wonder Bread make any sense at all? Would someone care to explain that to me?

i work in a supermarket. the same guy delivers wonder bread and twinkies, etc, in the same truck.

 

[balrog666]

i work in a supermarket. the same guy delivers wonder bread and twinkies, etc, in the same truck.

Lucky you, I guess?!

Do you work in a right-to-work state? Or are the local Teamsters there just wimps?

 

[The Don]

I don't know about your area but the wheelie bins in my area are too big for garbos to pick up and empty into the truck.

The only thing a ground crew could do is position the wheelie bins so they can be picked up by the truck and it is cheaper to make this the responsibility of the householder (not to mention that you would still be doing one side of the street at a time).

Maybe it's a different design of truck. Here (well actually in Bristol, we're too rural for wheelie bins) the trucks are loaded from the rear two bins at a time. The crew position the bins and return the empties as the truck moves sowly along the street.

It may also come down to the street and parking. Streets are so parked up that the truck could not get access to the kerb - there may not even be drop kerbs - so the crews move the bins from the front of houses, off the pavement, past the parked cars to the truck. Streets are so narrow that the truck would also block the street all the time it's in there. Where I lived in Bristol this would be a nightmare because it would block a bus route.

 

[joobie]

Lucky you, I guess?!

Do you work in a right-to-work state? Or are the local Teamsters there just wimps?

derpity-derp derp? herpa derpa?

 

[joobie]

derpity-derp derp? Herpa derpa?

herp derp derpa. Derpity derp.

 

[WildCat]

No, jj wasn't wrong. WildCat's Strawman of jj was wrong, but we're not surprised about that since NO ONE said that all the money they got from the infusion of new capital and the concessions of the unions "went to the management bonuses and increases".

I can only coment on what jj actually wrote, I don't have the ability you have that allows you to read minds.

What we have said, and you seem to be missing out on, is that it's a tad unseemly for them to have squeezed a hundred mil in concessions out of the union, stopped paying into the pension fund (which is their legal obligation under their own collective bargaining agreement), laid off thousands of hourly and salaried employees, and then write themselves fat bonuses and large increases in salary.

You think the management gave themselves a pay raise, not the owners? How does that work?

You disagree. We get it. But rather than inventing strawmen to tear down, you could just keep repeating that you think it's swell for them to earn all that money and take huge bonuses while convincing the peons to "take one for the team".

You own your own company, correct? Do your employees decide their own pay, or do you the owner decide their pay? Why do you think it worked any different at Hostess?

Same strawman. No one is claiming that they're making a profit, trying to make a profit or even capable of making a profit. What they seem to be very good at doing is remunerating themselves handsomely, wouldn't you say?

And still you confuse the people granting the pay raises with the people getting the pay raises. They are not the same people.

Apparently. I suspect that's been the problem throughout the thread. But just to refresh your memory, said trustee was cited in a link provided by jj and even quoted in his post. Here it is again...

Apparently the grown-ups thought differently, since the final OK to proceed with the liquidation was given yesterday.

That trustee. The one who says he's not comfortable with the bonus and remuneration plan Hostess had to file with the court.

Yes, and apparently his musings had little weight on the bankruptcy judge who heard the case.

 

[WildCat]

The management are essentially "free agents." Do you really think they're beholden to the company in any way?

When Hostess fails, they'll just collect their enormous severance packages, blame the entire debacle on the unions and move along to their next 7-figure executive position. They're in charge of doling out the bonuses and salaries, so of course they pay themselves huge raises and millions of dollars in bonuses regardless of company profit or lack thereof.

I see you and foolmewunz live in the same alternate universe where employees decide their own pay scales.

 

[psionl0]

You think the management gave themselves a pay raise, not the owners? How does that work?

Funnily enough, that's exactly how it works under Australian company law. The directors have all the power and the shareholders have none (bar the right to remove a director).

There was a situation several years ago when Telstra shareholders voted to deny the CEO a pay rise. (Who can blame them? Telstra shares lost half their value after Sol Trujillo took over). However, the law doesn't give shareholders that right so the CEO thumbed his nose at them and awarded himself a massive pay rise.

 

[John Albert]

I see you and foolmewunz live in the same alternate universe where employees decide their own pay scales.

"Alternate universe"? I suppose you could call it that. It's called "talent acquisition at the chief executive level."

You didn't know that it's become commonplace nowadays for top executives to negotiate their own salaries, benefits and job "perks," even such traditionally merit-oriented compensations as bonuses and severance packages, prior to the time of hire?

You think the management gave themselves a pay raise, not the owners? How does that work?

It's standard operating procedure in large corporations. I'm frankly surprised that this is the first you're hearing about these matters.

You own your own company, correct? Do your employees decide their own pay, or do you the owner decide their pay? Why do you think it worked any different at Hostess?

How do you expect the "owners" of a publicly-traded company to determine the salaries of all employees?

 

[Foolmewunz]

"Alternate universe"? I suppose you could call it that. It's called "talent acquisition at the chief executive level."

You didn't know that it's become commonplace nowadays for top executives to negotiate their own salaries, benefits and job "perks," even such traditionally merit-oriented compensations as bonuses and severance packages, prior to the time of hire?





It's standard operating procedure in large corporations. I'm frankly surprised that this is the first you're hearing about these matters.





How do you expect the "owners" of a publicly-traded company to determine the salaries of all employees?

Well, HB is owned by a private equity firm, but the mechanism is/was the same. As you noted in your other comments, this is standard stuff. The management was hired and part of the terms of any good CEO is that he has control over the budget and profit/loss. So the owners/shareholders have little to say on the remuneration package. Management in this case, though, had to submit it to the bankruptcy judge/panel, so it became known. If they weren't coming out of Bankruptcy I, it might've gone unnoticed. This is the same reason that there was a preliminary report on the 2012/13 bonuses they wanted to award themselves. (I believe they temporarily withheld that request because of the forced arbitration day earlier in the week. I assume they'll resubmit it now that they're going ahead with the break-up and sell-off plan.)