The twinkie thread

[NickS VR4]

How about the executives and upper management giving themselves 80% raises with the money earmarked for updating equipment and replenishing retirement funds? How about in the bankruptcy papers, they are asking for $5 million for the CEO? How about during the last negotiations, the hedge funds and management wanted the employees to completely relinquish $2 million of their own retirement benefits---just so executives could keep their pay. They are always 2 sides, folks. Easy to blame the unions (hate them, personally) but in this instance, there is more to the story.

Like I said, if they updated the equipment, would they need that many workers? Perhaps there was no need for new machines if their work force wouldn't shrink. Then they'd have twice as many workers making twice as much necessary to operate. Just a possibility.

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[IPD]

How about the executives and upper management giving themselves 80% raises with the money earmarked for updating equipment and replenishing retirement funds? How about in the bankruptcy papers, they are asking for $5 million for the CEO? How about during the last negotiations, the hedge funds and management wanted the employees to completely relinquish $2 million of their own retirement benefits---just so executives could keep their pay. They are always 2 sides, folks. Easy to blame the unions (hate them, personally) but in this instance, there is more to the story.

no, i don't have sympathy for the unions. if corporate fatf**ks want to be greedy snots and underpay the grunts--then the grunts can leave. the whole idea of a sustainable business model revolves around paying a wage which will get people to do the work you ask of them. if the bigwigs want to pad their wallets and make the model unsustainable in the process--let them. corporations are born and die off all the time. i'm not going to cry about it. when you no longer offer a product in demand, or you don't have a sustainable business model--or both--then bye-bye.

p.s.
this isn't a politics thread, but i will submit that replacing minimum wage with the 50x rule would probably have fixed this.

[green-lantern]

How about the executives and upper management giving themselves 80% raises with the money earmarked for updating equipment and replenishing retirement funds? How about in the bankruptcy papers, they are asking for $5 million for the CEO? How about during the last negotiations, the hedge funds and management wanted the employees to completely relinquish $2 million of their own retirement benefits---just so executives could keep their pay. They are always 2 sides, folks. Easy to blame the unions (hate them, personally) but in this instance, there is more to the story.

I think it was more like 300% for some.

[IPD]

I think it was more like 300% for some.

so hostess has bad management and goes belly-up. meanwhile, little debbies continues to make all of the same products with a different name. why people are crying over it is retarded. if there needs to be more jobs making super-saturated-fat prepackaged-foods, then lil debbies will be hiring. otherwise, the market will shrink to adjust.

jobs that serve an extinct construct aren't legitimate jobs. if you're worried about being replaced by a robot, perhaps you should repair robots for a living.

[bluefox1081]

I'm so shocked to see the as expected people placing all the blame on the low-wage workers that do the actual work manufacturing the product, and none of the blame on the wealthy executives that fleeced the company for all its available cash 5 months prior to filing for chapter 11. They totally deserve those bonuses they're asking the court's permission to pay out.

[j2k4]

I'm so shocked to see the as expected people placing all the blame on the low-wage workers that do the actual work manufacturing the product, and none of the blame on the wealthy executives that fleeced the company for all its available cash 5 months prior to filing for chapter 11. They totally deserve those bonuses they're asking the court's permission to pay out.

Absolutely agreed as to any fleecing that took place - the perpetrators should be shot and kicked for dying.

That money should have gone to the stockholders.

Hey, I heard too about the union stipulations that bread and Twinkies couldn't share space on the same truck, so there was a lot of redundancy in delivery routes.

Sound dumb to you, too?

[NickS VR4]

Absolutely agreed as to any fleecing that took place - the perpetrators should be shot and kicked for dying.

That money should have gone to the stockholders.

Hey, I heard too about the union stipulations that bread and Twinkies couldn't share space on the same truck, so there was a lot of redundancy in delivery routes.

Sound dumb to you, too?

Maybe unions wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Keep work force, but invest in efficiency. If more efficient, and output has same requirement, than a smaller work force is called for. Instead of laying off, looks like they tried to lower salaries. Stuff like not mixing products on trucks just goes to show they had too many workers and weren't being efficient.

[j2k4]

Stuff like not mixing products on trucks just goes to show they had too many workers and weren't being efficient.

Uh, yeah.

[green-lantern]

so hostess has bad management and goes belly-up. meanwhile, little debbies continues to make all of the same products with a different name. why people are crying over it is retarded. if there needs to be more jobs making super-saturated-fat prepackaged-foods, then lil debbies will be hiring. otherwise, the market will shrink to adjust.

jobs that serve an extinct construct aren't legitimate jobs. if you're worried about being replaced by a robot, perhaps you should repair robots for a living.

It's the perfect model of the issues with American business. Fucked up union, fucked up management. This was a group effort, exactly the way to kill a once thriving business. If somebody thinks the company is all to blame then they are wrong. If somebody thinks the union is all to blame then they are wrong. I will say I worked for a company that the situation was very similar. After a while they grew weary of the union BS and pretty much let the place die. They warned the union over and over until they closed the doors and the workers were like "oh shit! they weren't kidding".

Like I said though, this is the perfect example of the reasons unions can suck and the reason the workers have the right to be pissed. We can't afford to pay you guys but we just paid the idiot in charge a million bucks to fuck the place up.

[IPD]

paul, that is why i favor the 50x rule and abolishing the minimum wage. 50x was the ratio of CEO/top-exec pay to the wages of the lowest-paid employees back as recently as 1980. Clearly it's not an unreasonable ratio for the top management. Recently though, the fortune 500 has been averaging 380x ratio:

Average Fortune 500 CEO Now Paid 380 Times As Much As The Average Worker | ThinkProgress

By eliminating minimum wage, you allow small businesses to pay virtually whatever wages they desire--because the Owner can't possibly be collecting 50x that in in annual income; but they still have to offer something of market-value, or no one will work for them. On the other hand, by tying total CEO compensation to 50x, any CEO who wants a raise has to improve the bottom line for his company employees. This means that Wal-Mart will have to pay more than $7.25/hr. if it wants to pay it's CEO over $725,000 in TOTAL compensation annually (2000 working hours). By contrast, Michael Duke took home over 18 MILLION last year--well over 20 times that amount.

Currently, the only "system" which maintains the 50x rule is the US government (at least theoretically), as the President's compensation is well below $725,000...even including his allowances.

Sorry if i'm ranting here, but to me these types of problems are very, very simple if we just eliminated the BS regulation and went with 50x. Max CEO pay on a grunt pay of 50k is 2.5 million annually. It's simple math, and there's relatively nothing left to quibble over. Superfluous funds either go towards employee benefits, infrastructure, or dividends.

/rant