[quote=ocrenter]the typical battle of pro-union vs pro-business is once again playing out, we’ll probably see another 100 posts back and forth.
bottom line, sales have been declining for years, everyone proclaim love for it, but how many would eat it? The company was in bankruptcy 5 of the last 8 years! yes it makes for a great headline–“union strike leads to company’s death, killing jobs for 18000 workers,” but essentially we are looking at a fast quick death vs a few more months on artificial life support.
face it, the stuff is simply not fit for human consumption.[/quote]
Exactly, OCR.
This isn’t about unions bankrupting the company, it’s about a product that too few people want to buy. Back when we were kids, I’ll bet most of us (those of us over ~35) had a Hostess product in our lunchboxes at least once a week. These days, I’ll bet very, very few kids eat these, at least not nearly as often. I would feel guilty for years if my kids ate like I did back in the day.
Anyway, there’s another possible angle to the story, IMHO. This might be a way for the unions/employees to force the company into liquidation so that they can buy it out (maybe just the profitable parts). If the Teamsters were one of the primary bidders during the last BK, it’s entirely possible that they (and the bakers’ union) are eying an opportunity to buy the profitable lines at an even lower price than the first BK.
If this isn’t what they’re doing, then I’d agree that the baker’s union members are complete idiots.
