Union kills the Twinkie

[Broncojohnny]

Company wouldn't be in deep shit if they had capable talented managers to begin with. During the no Carb craze when they lost tons of sales their answer was to come out with a banana flavored twinkie. Doesn't seem like such a good idea. I'm sure the guy sweeping the floor made that decision though so lets blame the union.

Truth is we can argue this shit day and night and nothing will change. It all comes down to this. There is only so much bullshit a man can take in life. Before he just says fuck it all and burns his house down. That's what happend at Hostess. They've given up so much in past years and watched management just take and take. It's not like these folks were making a killing. 30k to 40k a year if they were lucky. They could have given the company everything they asked for and it wouldn't of matter. To many years of piss poor management.

You don't know if it was piss poor management or not. Neither do I. I just pointed out the fact that you need to pay for talented people. These people don't work for what you pay the guy who makes the fruit pies.

[Broncojohnny]

In a manner of speaking, yes. The execs hired were brought in to restructure and rebuild the company. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. One of the safeguards built in is for the venture firms to pay the execs: makes it easier to fire them if they suck and it prevents them from sloughing off money. The notion that the execs are going to kill a business is purely speculative.

However, a group of workers unionizing and refusing to work will DEFINITIVELY kill a business. You say the execs were slowing killing it over 20 years: I say the stupid buttfucking bakers effectively killed it in one week.

Oh come on Don, you know they wanted it to fail. It makes complete sense, they probably hate money. I hope this place I am at goes under, I hate getting huge incentive comp checks based solely on performance.

[bcoop]

Depends. Are you good with the 1% of the workforce aka management running the company into the ground for the last 20 years.

You know execs don't work for peanuts, right? Taking salary out of the equation, what basis do you have in saying they "ran the company into the ground"?

[CJ]

One thing I always hear from union guys is how insigificant executives are. You don't become an executive because you're an idiot, you have a strong resume of successes and you work your way up. There's considerably more responsibility with executives, and considerably less people able to do it. If a train mechanic screws up an engine, the train is delayed. If an executive screws up a cost analysis or earnings projection thousands of people can lose their jobs. That kind of responsibility and competence costs a lot of money. If you don't pay them enough money, or give them enough bonuses they will leave to a company that will pay what they want. You don't want incompetent people running your company. They wouldn't be paid it if they weren't worth it.

[bcoop]

They wouldn't be paid it if they weren't worth it.

There are a few exceptions, but generally, I agree. Especially when it's a situation like this, where outsiders are brought in to right the ship. 99% of them are WELL worth the money they earn.

[DON SVO]

One thing I always hear from union guys is how insigificant executives are. You don't become an executive because you're an idiot, you have a strong resume of successes and you work your way up. There's considerably more responsibility with executives, and considerably less people able to do it. If a train mechanic screws up an engine, the train is delayed. If an executive screws up a cost analysis or earnings projection thousands of people can lose their jobs. That kind of responsibility and competence costs a lot of money. If you don't pay them enough money, or give them enough bonuses they will leave to a company that will pay what they want. You don't want incompetent people running your company. They wouldn't be paid it if they weren't worth it.

Oddly enough, based on that watered-down example (which is spot-on, I'm not insulting you) football players are a lot like executives. Everyone loves them when things are good. "Paying T.O. 10MM a year? GREAT! We went 13-3!!!" When things suck their pay grade, contract length and general humanity are called into question.

[CJ]

Oddly enough, based on that watered-down example (which is spot-on, I'm not insulting you) football players are a lot like executives. Everyone loves them when things are good. "Paying T.O. 10MM a year? GREAT! We went 13-3!!!" When things suck their pay grade, contract length and general humanity are called into question.

haha, interesting comparison.

[FreightTrain]

You know execs don't work for peanuts, right? Taking salary out of the equation, what basis do you have in saying they "ran the company into the ground"?

Lets see they had over 800 million in debt. ( I know damn unions fault)
They had declared bankruptcy several times. They even held the award for the longest bankruptcy in history at one point and the icing on the cake is where the executives doubled their salary while asking the workers to take pay cuts. Way to lead by example guys. The best is where they had a stock price of over $32 a share at one point and ran it all the way down to $2. Yea I'll say they ran that fucker into the ground.

[CJ]

Lets see they had over 800 million in debt. ( I know damn unions fault)
They had declared bankruptcy several times. They even held the award for the longest bankruptcy in history at one point and the icing on the cake is where the executives doubled their salary while asking the workers to take pay cuts. Way to lead by example guys. The best is where they had a stock price of over $32 a share at one point and ran it all the way down to $2. Yea I'll say they ran that fucker into the ground.

If you don't pay them enough, they will leave. You can't get competent people unless you pay them. You can get away with a few incompetent line workers. You can't have incompetent executives. Those bonuses are almost always performance goals, which are set by the shareholders or higher ups. It's part of their contract. If you want to make yourself and other union guys feel better, and take away those bonuses you're jealous over, the executives will leave. And the ones you replace them with will be less qualified. The quickest way to save a company is install considerably more experienced/expensive executives to turn things around. You can't simply apply blue collar workforce mentality to executives, they work entirely different.

[bcoop]

If you don't pay them enough, they will leave. You can't get competent people unless you pay them. You can get away with a few incompetent line workers. You can't have incompetent executives. Those bonuses are almost always performance goals, which are set by the shareholders or higher ups. It's part of their contract. If you want to make yourself and other union guys feel better, and take away those bonuses you're jealous over, the executives will leave. And the ones you replace them with will be less qualified. The quickest way to save a company is install considerably more experienced/expensive executives to turn things around. You can't simply apply blue collar workforce mentality to executives, they work entirely differently.

Grunts will never understand, or even try to understand why the big boys do what they do.

[DON SVO]

Lets see they had over 800 million in debt. ( I know damn unions fault)
They had declared bankruptcy several times. They even held the award for the longest bankruptcy in history at one point and the icing on the cake is where the executives doubled their salary while asking the workers to take pay cuts. Way to lead by example guys. The best is where they had a stock price of over $32 a share at one point and ran it all the way down to $2. Yea I'll say they ran that fucker into the ground.

Venture firms paid the salary, not Hostess. Next?

[CJ]

Grunts will never understand, or even try to understand why the big boys do what they do.

I think anyone that's logical will understand it. The problem I have with unions is they are socialist/communist microcosms. Yeah, I said it - take a breath. The capitalist system works on a very simple and proven concept, the most basic premise of life as we know it - survival of the fittest. It works, it's always worked. In the capitalist system if you do not work hard, you do not succeed. You're passed over for promotions, and you make shit money. If you feel that you've been wronged, you switch companies and get paid what you're worth. The problem with unions is they force employers to pay them more than they are worth. If you have to band together with every other worker and take the company hostage (which is exactly what you are doing) to force them to pay you more money then the market will sustain you are exercising a communist/socialist premise and undermining the free market system.

Now, I don't think everyone in a union is some piece of shit. However, do I believe every union is a piece of shit. It is exploiting and undermining the capitalist system. When you fuck with capitalism and free market you destroy it. It must be 100% free market, or 100% communism - socialism is just the road to communism. Unions weaken our economy. They force companies like Hostess and GM to pay their workforce more than they are worth. It causes budget problems, excessive unit costs, and eventually bankruptcy. Notice how union workers blame this on "incompetent executives." It's always the executives or the evil big rich men, always. The unfortunate part is the majority of union members are just irrelevant to the discussion, they are unable to remain impartial enough to see the damage they cause. When large corporations are exploited by unions, they fail. When large corporations fail they hurt our economy. When large corporations are about to fail, jackass politicians are influenced by unions to bail them out. When we bail them out we are intervening yet again to prevent natural selection from occurring. Do you see how slippery the slope is with unions? Sure, it sounds good to get more pay, but the end result is our entire country is damaged by it.

The free market system weeds out the failures from the performers. It always does. Some people find a problem with that. And generally this percentage of the population has a natural predisposition to want to care for these people. The problem is this percentage of people (liberals) feel it is the responsibility of all to care for these incompetent workers. And from this you get unions, social programs, single payer systems, etc. to prevent this natural process from taking place.

[FreightTrain]

If you don't pay them enough, they will leave. You can't get competent people unless you pay them. You can get away with a few incompetent line workers. You can't have incompetent executives. Those bonuses are almost always performance goals, which are set by the shareholders or higher ups. It's part of their contract. If you want to make yourself and other union guys feel better, and take away those bonuses you're jealous over, the executives will leave. And the ones you replace them with will be less qualified. The quickest way to save a company is install considerably more experienced/expensive executives to turn things around. You can't simply apply blue collar workforce mentality to executives, they work entirely different.

History has shown there are plenty of incompetent executives. Hence all the business that go bankrupt just like Hostess. Those guys knew it was a sinking ship and partied all the way down. I don't give two shits about that. What pisses me off is when they try to blame the workers for all the problems the company had.

[FreightTrain]

Grunts will never understand, or even try to understand why the big boys do what they do.

LOL and you know what the big boys do because of how? That's what I love about this site. Everyone is an expert on everything.


Please tell me how many CEO's, CFO's, COO, or just a low level executive of a publicly traded company are on this site. This place is over run with low level management that think they call the shots.

[DON SVO]

LOL and you know what the big boys do because of how? That's what I love about this site. Everyone is an expert on everything.


Please tell me how many CEO's, CFO's, COO, or just a low level executive of a publicly traded company are on this site. This place is over run with low level managment that think they call the shots.

How many Hostess employees were paying the execs out of pocket ???