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...employees said they had worked at the plant that makes Hostess cakes and Nature’s Pride and Wonder breads for decades but were honoring the picket line to protest cuts to their salaries and other benefits.

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The union, which represents more than 80,000 industry workers, maintains that the company's policies will bring its members back to workplace standards of the 1950s

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This whole Hostess closing makes me sick. People blaming the unions, has everyone gone insane!!! Hostees is owned by two Hedge Fund companies and has been in and out of bankruptcies. Each time they restructure at a cost to all of us tax payers. In return they screw their workers. Forcing lower wages and benefits on them. Hostees brought in 2 Billion a year and could not make a profit??? Perhaps they should change their business model. Some businesses can not grow every year and bring in more and more profits. There is a limit to everything except greed. My hat is off to the workers who stood their ground not only for themselves but for all workers in the US!!!

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Moron #1 - This whole Hostess closing makes me sick. People blaming the unions, has everyone gone insane!!! Hostees is owned by two Hedge Fund companies and has been in and out of bankruptcies. Each time they restructure at a cost to all of us tax payers. In return they screw their workers. Forcing lower wages and benefits on them. Hostees brought in 2 Billion a year and could not make a profit??? Perhaps they should change their business model. Some businesses can not grow every year and bring in more and more profits. There is a limit to everything except greed. My hat is off to the workers who stood their ground not only for themselves but for all workers in the US!!!

Random Commenter - No more twinkies or day old bread sales?

Guy in a union #1 - There will always be twinkies, they will have different name owned by the same people. That is how US businessman roll. People are quick to blame Unions when they don't even know all the facts.

Brother of Moron #1 - The problem is good old greed. It used to be that companies respected workers who did their job and were loyal. Now companies only want to use their employees as long as it is making them more profit. When they find a way to cheat people and take more for themselves forget the worker.


Guy in a union #1 - I guess that is what happens when businesses put Walmart on a pedestal and benchmark them trying to accomplish their business model.

Brother of Moron #1 - Sorry for some reason my comment posted twice. Thanks facebook. Lol

Sarah Lynn Tipton *pedestal - for some reason my (Toledoan!) ex-husband always said peda-stool! ;-)
53 minutes ago via mobile · Like · 1

Moron #1 - "Our members are on strike because they have had enough," bakers' union president Frank Hurt said in a statement on Tuesday. "They are not willing to take draconian wage and benefit cuts on top of the significant concessions they made in 2004 and give up their pension so that the Wall Street vulture capitalists in control of this company can walk away with millions of dollars."

Moron #2 - What is really great is that the International guaranteed that their Union would band together in solidarity to support the Hostess Workers! Frank Hurt - "we take care of our own and will guarantee our members, from this despicable company, a living wage until we can find them work."

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one of the Company's largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM)...

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Sounds like they have nobody to blame but themselves. I'm for unions in theory, but too often modern unions seem to forget that the long term health of the company they work for is in their best interest as well. Of course it's not just unions, shortsightedness is a huge problem in our society.

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Mike Hummell, a receiving clerk and a member of the Bakers' union working in Lenexa, Kan., said he was making about $48,000 in 2005 before the company's first trip through bankruptcy. Concessions during that reorganization cut his pay to $34,000 last year, earning $16.12 an hour. He said the latest contract demands would have cut his pay to about $25,000, with significantly higher out-of-pocket expenses for insurance.

"The point is the jobs they're offering us aren't worth saving," he said Friday. "It instantly casts me into poverty. I wouldn't be able to make my house payment. My take-home would be less than unemployment benefits. Being on unemployment while we search for a new job, that's a better choice than working these hours for poverty wages."