On the bright side the laid off workers will now get a "free" ObamaPhone with 250 monthly minutes. They can use the phone to look for even more government benefits.

If I remember correctly the 99 weeks of unemployment ends 1-1-13, if so they are in for a rude shock.

Someday, Union slugs (labor leaders) might realize actions have consequences.

The union sure showed them!

hope those non working union members who follow thier labor bosses pay their union dues...after all, mr.trumpka has to get paid for his leadership...in the amount of $800,000 a year...while all the little union people are out of a job...
sad part is those little union members think mr.trumpka is doing all this leading, for them...ha

Black Knight:

"it´s only a flesh wound"

Of course the rank and file will hold their union leaders responsible for their epic fail bad judgement.

Right?

Yeah unions are great!!!

The f---en unions are the cause of must of our problems.

And whatever became of James R. "Jimmy" Hoffa of White Lake, Michigan?

My husband *was* a plant manager at the Hostess owned Merita bread plant in Rocky Mount, NC. I am stunned at all of the lies I have been reading over the past few days. A local union leader is quoted as saying the company took away their pension, when in reality, Hostess was no longer going to contribute to the pension. Hostess had been paying into pension funds of companies it no longer owned, and some it never did own. Food companies have a very slim profit margin as it is. The pension funding, and union wages, killed this company. To be fair, there had been poor management in the past as well, but those folks are gone.

Some employees did cross the picket line. My husband and I respect that, and our prayers are with them. They were the smart ones who did the right thing. Who strikes a company in bankruptcy? Idiots.

Barring federal nationalization of the company, as currently circulating liberal petitions suggest, the Hostess story is over.

Time for the AFL-CIO to move onto the next story. This week, it´s either WalMart or a walkout by LAX airport employees on Black Friday.

Pride goeth before a cupcake fall.

Trumpka has a larger salary than the POTUS! He (Trumpka) makes $800,000 a year. I wish I made 10% of his salary

FTA:"When are unions going to start caring about real jobs and real workers?"

Answer: Never. It´s all about power to these union thugs like Trumpka - they only want the dues to continue. Well, Trmpka and his cronies pushed too hard, and now the dues of 18,500 workers or however many really are union workers at Hostess will dry up. Ha, ha, ha.

Poetic justice would be that some day Trumpka and his buddies will have to file bankruptcy. I have no sympathy for unions. They are long past being necessary for workers´ safety (which supposedly was the original intent of unions.)

Another union mess that they try to cover-up with Trumpka lies. Makes me shutter to think they intend to unionize 71 million Obamacare workers.

Hey, Michelle couldn´t MAKE kids eat their broccoli, so she just got her black marxist union pals to kill the maker of the Twinkies she so despises. Coke and Pepsi better watch out.

American Airlines mechanics did the same thing, striking against a company in bankruptcy. So far, they are still employed, but it won´t be long now.

The 18,500 should camp out on the lawn(s) of their illustrious union leaders and demand "stuff". Kind of like Occupy Union Leaders. Trumka has a lot of stuff I´m sure he´d be willing to share with his fellow communists. Forward, Comrade.

This is another fine disaster that Usurper Barry Soetoro did build.

I doubt Barry will ever take any credit for what he has done.

$800,000 for demagoguing not a bad gig if you have no soul.

Substitute government for unions...

Substitute taxpayers for Hostess....

See our future.

Things are moving along nicely for Obama and his unions, as these evil white rich guys were forced to fall, leaving the unemployed ones behind them. Stay tuned, as this is just the first of many. The Obama plan calls for erasing the American Dream, which will be replaced with government obeisance
.... I wonder how many of these employees voted for Obama.

At least they can celebrate their glorious victory over the evil corporation. /s

Now that you mention it, GM union workers haven´t had a raise in a while. Come on, people, are you going to let that evil GM management keep food out of the mouths of your kids? Walk out and show ´em.

"Mr. Trumpka, Sir. Why don´t you and your union thugs buy the company?"

"Uh, you think we´re nuts. That wreck can´t make no profit. Have to pay too many bene..., er. Lousy management for too long."

I think that our Twinkie President welcomed the shut down of Hostess. Sends a clear message to companies that unions are powerful enough to put them out of business, so you better give in. President Twinkie set the NLRB loose on Boeing over a new plant in right to work South Carolina. President T was ready to keep the plant and its 2,500 well paid workers from opening to appease the union. Unlike a Hostess Twinkie with white inside, President Twinkie has red filling oozing inside.

The union is telling members Obama will use taxpayer $$ to buy the company & give it to the union... like GM. Gov´t Ho-Ho´s...

In Lakeland FL a video showed a black Hostess worker well over 40 yrs old screaming at the slick union rep for screwing up. More members need to get mad.

Read another article where Union leaders and some members are bragging about closing Hostess. They claim this will scare all corporate investors and make them do the bidding of unions. Is that not the most stupid, insane bit of spin? I agree with one thing..it will scare corporate investors and keep them from investing in union run states. Come on down to Mississippi and other Right to Work states. We love business and industry here.

I confidently bet that scumbama will issue an executive order forbidding companies from declaring bankruptcy during union strikes.

All of the traditional "steel mill towns" along the Monongalia and Allegheny rivers around Pittsburgh are populated with long term unemployed steelworkers today because the union told them their demands would be met. Towns filled with steelworkers with no factory to report to.

All together now brothers and sisters, let´s sing our union song " The Union makes us strong ".

and of course all of these unions workers will not a problem finding work with their vast array of job skills.....what job skills you may ask...answer: NONE.

But when you buy the union lines then you´ll suffer the consequences unlike Trumka ( a round of golf today at the union country club followed by dinner with Zippy and Mooch followed by a serenade by Beyonce and Jay-Z) Life is good in the union world....err, unless you are a worker.

#10 - I´m so sorry your husband lost his job at Hostess. The 5,000 strikers lost another innocent 13,000 their jobs.

Hostess has some great brands. Let´s hope that another venture cap will buy their brands and move production to right to work states and hire non-union labor.

So the Teamsters officials actually warned the striking workers that Hostess´s financial status was so precarious, that the company´s position was NOT a bluff.

But the strikers ignored their own leaders´ information. Clearly these workers are Obama-voting fools, so I´m not surprised.

And look what they gave up: Jobs that paid "as much as $22 an hour ... plus medical benefits ... nine weeks of paid leave and a company pension." Not bad for unskilled work.

But there we have in a nutshell the reason our country has lost so many manufacturing jobs to other countries:
Our lazy, greedy, ignorant union workers.

them "chickens are come´n home to roost"

some years back Schlitz had the same problem and the workers didn´t believe the plant would close shop. Schlitz kept their word and the plant closed.

You see, ignorance allows for the repetition
of stupid.

It would be interesting if Bain came in and rescued the company, and threw out the unions. Just desserts.

Union Ho Hos bite the big Ding Dong.

I think this is a conflated story of good ole fashioned capitalism at work on the one hand and greedy evil bastid labor unions simply making it happen a little sooner than it would have otherwise on the other.

I mean, who´s eating this stuff now? The folks made verklempt by childhood memories of eating Twinkies and Ding Dongs are the same people who now have to sort and load up their pill trays every morning with Lipitor and Avandia and Cardizem, et al. I haven´t had a Twinkie in 40 years, and it´s just not the sort of thing worth going Chick-Fil-A over.

There are gazillions of other options available in the supermarket now that moms can buy for their kids - and they are.

Capitalism put the Ding Dong on life support . . . the A-Effin-L & the See-I-Owe pulled the plug.

Fox reported this morning on some of the peculiar contract clauses. One was that a truck could not deliver twinkes and bread on the same run. That sort of thing is a leftover from the golden days of the 1940s.
I also suspect that the various union contracts contain strong successor clauses. that is, unless a bankruptcy judge nullifies the union contracts completely, whoever buys a part or all of Hostess is legally obligated to keep the contracts in place.
Finally, on Trumka´s pay - I suspect there is some hidden, deferred compensation tucked away for him. (The United Mineworkers constitution, by the way, requires that only a coal miner can be president of the UMWA. Trumka was never really a coal miner. His daddy got him a summer job in a mine while Trumka was in law school.)

The 19,000 jobless workers have only themselves to blame: none of them would cross the picket lines even after they received an order to go back to work, and a plea from the Teamsters Union yet.

Comrade Joe Trumka and the dummy that heads up the Bakers´ Union apparently were clueless as to what being in Chapter 11 (reorganization in bankruptcy) actually signifies. It means there´s no money, you fools. It means that Hostess was already in the hole, and has no money to pay for extra goodies for workers. Now they´ll be going into Chapter 7 (liquidation). Nice work, workers of the world!

One really enjoyable thing about this is that the evil "Bain-type investors" were actually all big Democrats, headed up by Dem totem Dick Gephardt -- remember him?

With unemployment compensation, food stamps, medicaid, Section 8 housing assistance, unearned income tax credit, etc., the laid-off Hostess employees will do quite well. They will also have plenty of time to sharpen their skiing, tennis, and golfing skills.

33, the Teamos warned the OTHER union members not to strike.They had actually seen the books and knew the corporation wasn´t lying. Their own people (drivers) did not join the strike. Didn´t matter - the bakers etc etc etc union called the strike anyway...

Big Labor is toxic to job creation.

Up to $22 an hour, nine paid weeks off and medical benefits.

Poof!

All other union employee`s who fall under the Trumpka Tower curtain can expect an increase in their dues next year to make up for the 18500 who lost their jobs. Unfortunately, the other fallout to this companies demise is taxpayers have to fork over millions in support for the laid off workers.

Second post apologies, but a needed legal clarification -
In the private sector, under Wagner/Taft Hartley Acts, if an employer claims to be unable to pay as much as the union wants, the unions have a right to go to federal court, to get an order requiring the employer to open up their books. The Teamsters looked at the books, and saw that the employer was being truthful. The other union must not have looked...
During baseball players association negotiations, back in the 1990s, George Steinbrenner, owner of the NY Yankees, but not even on the negotiating committee, said that the baseball owners could not afford to meet the demands of the players association.
The players association immediately went to federal court, and obtained an order for the owners to open their books. (The proud hispanic woman now on the U.S. supreme court issued the order.)
The dispute settled the next day. There are interesting accounting practices with professional sports teams, and there was no way the owners wanted to let the players association see those accounting practices.

No. 4, as with the communists in the unions some are more equal then others." Look for the union lable".

Atlas Shrugged.

You made your own bed, now sleep in it.

People, people, people... this is nothing. Expect much more of this in the coming years as the socialism the self-loathing white liberals, blacks, and Hispanics have supported becomes reality. Dear fools, wait until you fully see what you´ve created!

Unions kill jobs.