The End Of The Twinkie

[The Alex]

Hostess Brands Inc, the bankrupt maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread, is seeking a U.S. court's permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

The 82-year-old Hostess, which has about $2.5 billion in sales and is one of the largest wholesale bakers and distributors of breads and snack cakes in the United States, filed the request with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York early Friday morning. A hearing on the matter is set for Monday.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs. Hostess immediately suspended operations at all of its 33 plants across the United States as it moves to start selling assets.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8AF0OW20121117

Get your ass to your local supermarket and clear out the shelves. You can either:

1. Enjoy the last Hostess products ever made.
2. Sell them on eBay for insane prices and turn a massive profit:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twin...-/181026884722
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twin...-/170943801857
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twin...-/271105156085
http://www.ebay.com/itm/81-Hostess-T...-/300818238243
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hostess-Twin...-/190755863128

Also, I'll never look at Die Hard the same way again.

[niel89]

I've actually never had one yet. I have work to do tomorrow.

[Ness]

I heard about this earlier. I haven't had a twinkee in a long, long time. Those products were always so sweet and I could usually never finish one, and when I did I felt like I had eat a bomb. I did like Wonder Bread before I stopped eating white bread though. It is what it is. Those products might get picked up by another company still, so it might not be the end.

This news report reminded me of the entire twinkee epidemic in the film Zombieland, except now it's a reality in a sense.

[BloodBrother]

Now I really do hope we never have a Zombie apocalypse. What good is surviving a zombie apocalypse when there are no more goddamn twinkies!

[TitanHope]

Twinkies are being auctioned off for how much?

Damn this country. Damn it to hell.

[Brent]

1) they are going to sell that recipe, so it will be back
2) people still eat **** like this?

[BuckeyeDan17]

18000 jobs lost because of this. Way to go union!

Sorry fat people.

[StripedWalrus]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeDan17

18000 jobs lost because of this. Way to go union!

Sorry fat people.

Not the Unions fault. Bad management tactics and poor attempts at modernization are what caused Hostess to fail. If your manager came up to you and told you that you have to take an 8% pay cut, your medical insurance is going to rise 20% and we are taking away your pension, how would you feel about that?

[vidae]

Originally Posted by Brent

1) they are going to sell that recipe, so it will be back
2) people still eat **** like this?

This. They're selling the recipes off to other companies. Don't worry fatties, you'll still be able to eat all the unhealthy sugars you want.

[BuckeyeDan17]

I wouldn't like it, but I'd rather that occur than be told unemployment is better than a lower paying job.

[descendency]

Originally Posted by StripedWalrus

Not the Unions fault. Bad management tactics and poor attempts at modernization are what caused Hostess to fail. If your manager came up to you and told you that you have to take an 8% pay cut, your medical insurance is going to rise 20% and we are taking away your pension, how would you feel about that?

Better than the "you're getting a 100% pay cut, you're losing your medical insurance, and you're losing your pension" talk.

[StripedWalrus]

Originally Posted by descendency

Better than the "you're getting a 100% pay cut, you're losing your medical insurance, and you're losing your pension" talk.

That is a very poor way to look at it. If everyone looked at it that way there would be zero labor laws and everyone would be working in foul conditions with very little pay.

Hostess was not providing something for its employees. So the workers at some point unionized. There are many companies out there that have no unionized workers and treat their employees very well so they do not need to unionize. However in this case, Hostess failed in some areas and the workers unionized.

Now under one union they have a MEPP pension. This is something Hostess agreed to. Hostess didn't have to agree to it, and Hostess doesnt have to have unionized workers either. However Hostess did agree to it. In August of last year Hostess stopped paying towards the pension. This leaves a burden on other companies whom are unionized under the same MEPP. Thats something like $200 million dollars they owe to that pension fund. The grand total on the pension fund owed(which has been underfunded for years) is 2 billion dollars. On top of that 3-4 years ago Hostess almost went under but was bailed out by two loan companies and the unions. The workers took pay cuts and Health Care prices rose on them then. The CEO then abandoned his job, a new CEO was hired in and was payed what a CEO is payed and the company spent the next 3 years failing to improve anything. They continued to lose.

So after 3 years pass, your company had 100's of millions of dollars invested in it...you took a pay cut, your medical insurance prices rose, and a new CEO comes in, makes more than the last CEO (1.5 million a year with 2 million incentive and a 1.9 million dollar guarantee if Hostess goes bankrupt or he gets fired) , yet your company still fails to do anything to fix their current situation 3 years later other than lower your pay again, raise medical insurance burden by 20%, and then want to dissolve the pension. How would that make someone feel? They brought in a specialist and paid in $125,000 a month.