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The real 1%ers wouldn't give you an option.
Sounds like the NBA
The real 1%ers wouldn't give you an option.
Hostess seeks bonuses for 'key managers' in liquidation
The 82-year-old Hostess wants permission to pay senior management a bonus of up to 75 percent of their annual pay so they will stay on and help wind-down the business.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#sectio.../p2p-73377920/
iow, gotta retain the (p/e-installed) "talent" to suck out extract every last $ of wealth as the ship goes down. Wealth extraction, not corporate success, was always the objective, through 6 p/e flippings.
seems like the bonuses total $1.75M
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-19-2012 at 02:21 PM.
judge forces hostess + union into arbitration
The Wall Street Journal described the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union as “The union that brought the 85-year-old baker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread to its knees.”
Over at RedState, a headline tried to mix anti-union sentiment with conservative humor: “The Demise of Twinkies? Yes, It’s True. Parasitic Unions Kill Their Hosts (or, in this case, Hostess).”
Criticism of the Hostess workers seems to be manifested by a more subtle form of union bashing. It’s not that unions are greedy, it’s that they are outmoded, and the Hostess crisis is emblematic of organized labor’s precipitous decline. They are dying because workers don’t like them anymore (so this argument goes), precisely because of situations akin to what is unfolding at Hostess. As Diana Reese noted in the Washington Post, quoting the writer Donna Trussell, “Unions clung to an organizational model more suited to a 19th-century economy than the one we have now. That’s why they’ve lost so many members. When unions protect only their own, and leave over 90 percent of the workforce twisting in the wind, they will inspire more envy than support. Adapt or die.”
The labor economist for the Heritage Foundation makes a similar argument at the National Review: “A unionized firm takes longer to respond to changing market conditions … Over time they wither away. This is why union membership hit a record low in 2012.”
As these conditions lingered the workforce agreed to massive pay and benefit cuts in an attempt to keep the company afloat. One 14-year veteran of the company describes the $150 million annual givebacks the union agreed to: “In 2005, before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000.” Pensions and healthcare were cut as well, with labor’s total loss equaling $110 million annually.
But as we’ve seen, it wasn’t the unions who were inflexible or unwilling to make sacrifices for the good of the company. “In effect, the union, should they give more concessions, is becoming a major investor without representation,” says Shaiken. “Unless they get seats on the board or some other form of input.” (The most recent deal included a minority stake in the company; it remains to be seen if the company is willing to offer greater control to the workers in exchange for more givebacks.)
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...killed-twinkie
Blaming unions EXCLUSIVELY and VOCIFEROUSLY for the Hostess' decline while not even mentioning the mismanagement by several well-paid p/e predators is nothing but VRWC propaganda in the extremely successful War on Employees.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-20-2012 at 10:26 AM.
yawn
Always asking for more dough
Doyou not feel there is any culpability on management side? The company failed only because they could not meet union demands?
"Doyou not feel there is any culpability on management side"
obvioiusly not. Just another employer biased against all employees.
You are so full of . I never said there was no management culpability, but they had a failing union based business model with a product line that is under attack from all sides (sugary snacks). It was change or die.
"union based business model"
wtf is that?
Their business model was selling a stagnant, ancient line of junk food-like substances, worsened by p/e predators flipping them to extract $Ms.
This is quite true. The growing push for healthier eating had to have a great impact on their business.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,966735.columnHostess first entered bankruptcy in 2004, when it was known as Interstate Bakeries. During its five years in Chapter 11, the firm obtained concessions from its unions worth $110 million a year. The unions accepted layoffs that brought the workforce down to about 19,000 from more than 30,000. There were cuts in wages, pension and health benefits. The Teamsters committed to negotiations over changes in antiquated work rules. The givebacks helped reduce Hostess' labor costs to the point where they were roughly equal to or even lower than some of its major compe ors'.
But the firm emerged from bankruptcy with more debt than when it went in — in with $575 million, out with $774 million, all secured by company assets. That's pretty much the opposite of what's supposed to happen in bankruptcy. By the end, there was barely a spare distributor cap in the motor pool that wasn't mortgaged to the private equity firms and hedge funds holding the notes (and also appointing management).
As management experts such as Peter Drucker have observed, the goal of a successful business must be to find and serve customers. Do that, and the numbers take care of themselves. The Hostess approach was entirely backward — meeting the numbers became Job One, and figuring out how to grow the business became Job None.
The post-bankruptcy leadership never executed a growth strategy. It failed to introduce a significant new product or acquire a single new brand. It lagged on bakery automation and product R&D, while rivals such as Bimbo Bakeries USA built research facilities and hired food scientists to keep their product lines fresh. At the time of the 2004 bankruptcy, Hostess was three times the size of Bimbo. Today it's less than half Bimbo's size. (Bimbo, which has been acquiring bakeries such as Sara Lee and Entenmann's right and left, might well end up with Hostess' brands.)
Hostess contended its biggest burden came from the multi-employer pension plans covering its unionized employees. Its contention is that these plans are designed so that when any employer goes out of business or otherwise withdraws, its obligations to its former workers are inherited by the companies that remain.
Consequently, Hostess says, a large portion of its required pension contributions benefit employees of other long-departed firms. This claim has been swallowed whole by Hostess' mourners, but it's fishy.
For one thing, many Hostess compe ors contribute to similar plans, some at an even higher rate than Hostess. For another, the real problem is that for years the employers allowed the pension plan to become underfunded, either by skipping required contributions while they were in business or raiding the fund to pocket supposedly excess assets that proved to be not so excess. Hostess is guilty of the same practice.
In any event, the $989 million in pension liabilities Hostess ended up owing various union funds, according to its bankruptcy filing, didn't ac ulate in secret, like termite damage. It accrued because Hostess and its sister bakeries judged their retirement obligations to be relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Now that the bill has come due, Hostess blames the workers for demanding what they were promised.
sameJust before declaring bankruptcy for the second time in eight years Jan. 11, Hostess trebled the compensation of then-Chief Executive Brian Driscoll and raised other executives' pay up to twofold.At the same time, the company was demanding lower wages from workers and stiffing employee pension funds of $8 million a month in payment obligations.
Hostess management hasn't been able entirely to erase the paper trail pointing to its own derelictions. Consider a 163-page affidavit filed as part of the second bankruptcy pe ion.
There Driscoll outlined a "Turnaround Plan" to get the firm back on its feet. The steps included closing outmoded plants and improving the efficiency of those that remain; upgrading the company's "aging vehicle fleet" and merging its distribution warehouses for efficiency; installing software at the warehouses to allow it to track inventory; and closing unprofitable retail stores. It also proposed to restore its advertising budget and establish an R&D program to develop new products to "maintain existing customers and attract new ones."
None of these steps, Driscoll attested, required consultation with the unions. That raises the following question: You mean to tell me that as of January 2012, Hostess still hadn't gotten around to any of this?
Not really…Their salaries were cut from 55k to 35k and management wanted another pay cut…Yet the executives voted themselves pay raises, better pension and health benefits….
"failing union based business model"
their business model was no new products to update their joke of a junk-food, pathogenic garbage product line, while p/e vultures sucked the company dry. Had NOTHING to do with WTF is "failing union based business model"
employees had already taken a pay cut of $100M+/year, while the p/e puppet execs got and still get $Ms more in compensation, to "retain the mgmt talent during their mgmt-inflicted bankruptcy wind-down".
typical p/e screw job, just like Bishop Gecko's BAIN does.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-29-2012 at 12:03 PM.
This: "None of these steps, Driscoll attested, required consultation with the unions. That raises the following question: You mean to tell me that as of January 2012, Hostess still hadn't gotten around to any of this?"
Seriously, if your business is having issues, and you're asking employees to take a pay cut, then giving your CEOs and managers raises at the same time probably isn't good business strategy.
"good business strategy."
p/e business strategy is to suck wealth out of a takeover target. The viability of the company is simply not their priority.
Richer screws the poorer again.....
Hostess Workers' Pension Money Diverted For Other Uses: Report
More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2271868.htmlHostess Brands acknowledged for the first time in a news report Monday that the company diverted workers' pension money for other company uses.
The bankrupt baker told The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks, intended for their retirement funds, was used for company operations instead. Hostess, which was under different management at the time the diversions began in August 2011, said it does not know how much money it took.
"It's not a good situation to have," Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn told the WSJ.
"Whatever the cir stances were, whatever those decisions were, I wasn't there," Rayburn added. As the founder and owner of Kobi Partners, a restructuring advisory firm, Rayburn was appointed acting CEO in March 2012.
Some say this is capitalism at its best!
We have known for decades that no pension fund is safe.
What's the news here?
stealing employee pension funds is just another way p/e hyenas destroy companies while sucking out a maximum of wealth.
Federal pensions aren't funded at all.
Yet another reason why unions, not companies, need to be the ones responsible for running pension programs for union members.
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