Another recent thread blamed textile deaths in the recent fire on the absence of Unions.
Does anyone believe that the death of Hostess and the 18,000 jobs lost was the result of anything but Union greed?
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Another recent thread blamed textile deaths in the recent fire on the absence of Unions.
Does anyone believe that the death of Hostess and the 18,000 jobs lost was the result of anything but Union greed?
sir, you are opening up a can of worms. Brace youryour self, heated arguements are comeing
What about management greed in the form of giving themselves bonuses whilst declaring bankruptcy?
Cue the crickets chirping...
You're right. Damn that greedy union. Why I've been told those Union members earn around 200 grand a year and have a Cadillac health care plan and get 2 months vacation. Not only that they can retire after 20 years service with 150% of their pay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
.........Attachment 113317
I wondered if I would get any real facts in this discussion. Greedy management?Quote:
Originally Posted by thebigspendur
Ripplewood Holdings injected 150 million into Hostess as it went down. They lost every dollar.
The unions will say management had given itself millions in pay raises while demanding worker cuts. (True, but the raises were barely a rounding error at a company that had lost almost half a billion bucks in two years; and Rayburn rescinded the raises anyway, making the brass work for a dollar a year apiece.)
And here’s what you won't hear the unions ever talk about:
--Hostess paid out almost $100 million in health benefits for retirees last year, but over half of it covered workers who never had worked at Hostess. The Teamsters’ onerous and antiquated “multi-employer pension plan” foists the pension obligations of a bankrupt company on to the balance sheets of surviving rivals—ensuring a steady death spiral in any declining industry. A similar “MEPP” almost killed YRC, one of the largest trucking companies.
--Union rules forced Hostess to run separate truck fleets for delivering bread vs. sweets. A sweets driver, serving a 7-11 store, was forbidden from restocking shelves with breads already delivered and waiting in the back—he had to call for a bread driver to swing by and handle.
--The union restrictions on the 5,500 distribution routes at Hostess made it unprofitable to serve tiny outlets, yet Hostess was barred from using smaller, sleeker—and non-union—distributors.
--Workers were asked to take an 8% pay cut and pay 17% of their health-care costs instead of zero. Welcome to the club, guys. For this, they would have received 25% ownership of Hostess plus $100 million of Hostess debt to be paid back to the unions.
Read more: Death of Twinkies: A Union Contract Hit | Fox Business
I think if you actually read both sides of the story, I think the Union refused to believe that the company was actually going to close.
Did you hear about non-union rescue workers from Alabama not being allowed to do any cleanup work in New Jersey?
Let's be gentlemen here.
I think the union did thier members a great diservice,When the Cobra health insurance ends and the unemployment benifits run dry,The members will detest the union they stood behind.
Screw them all,I miss my wonderbread.
Wonderbread is garbage. It always has been. Chemicals and air and almost no nutritional value.
The brand has been going downhill for years. When Continental bakery folded it was for a reason and it wasn't unions. Demand has shrunk for their products. It's your fault. You needed to buy more twinkies and snowballs and drakes cakes and all the rest of those health foods.
Like I've always said go ahead and blame unions. lets just outlaw all of them period and decree all American workers have their salary cut in half. I bet that will sure improve the bottom line for corporations.
Wonderbread,the day after T'day,covered with breast meat and hot turkey gravy is a family tradition with us,will never be the same again:(
Have never ate a twinke a snowball or any of that crap in my life.Good ridance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vYj0E2Hr0
Hurry before Woody gets there.
Since I know NJ is a "right to work" state I would be from Missouri on that allegation. A buddy of mine drove for Wonderbread for quite a few years up in Jersey. For one thing the teamsters agreed to the contract ....... cuts.... the whole ball of wax. It was the bakers union who balked at more cuts. They had already given up quite a bit in previous years ...... as did the teamsters in years past.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
I don't know all of the gory details but I'm reasonably sure there is enough blame to go around ...... unless a person is just anti union like those at the battle of the overpass. In that case the union is always at fault and management has the milk of human kindness running through their veins.
Labor problems did not kill Hostess. Lack of a viable, modern product line did. When Hostess got into financial problems, they reacted like they always had, taking it to the union workers for more concessions. That well has run dry. They had what was essentially a 50's product.
Management sucked, union sucked, product sucked.
Mostly the union though. :p
Quoted for truth. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
And there you have it.Quote:
You may have heard that Hostess Bakery plants shut down due to a workers' strike. But you may not have heard how It was split up. The State Department hired all the Twinkies, the Secret Service hired all the HoHos, the generals are sleeping with the Cupcakes and the voters sent all the Ding Dongs to Congress.
The union should have brought donuts.
Yeah well ...... wait until the admins here find out that # 1. that is actually your head,Quote:
Originally Posted by HNSB
# 2. you do live in the middle of somewhere
and # 3. the invisible badge, that only those with permissions can see , shows you are a union organizer :deal: for the International Association Of Developer - Vendor- Moderators.
Don't worry, I won't say anything though, it is our secret. :angel:
I'm working on organizing a union, that unlike the ones I've dealt with, stands up for the little guy - instead of picking his pocket while telling him how lucky he is to have a union.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
I don't know what union you belonged to. The International Brotherhood Of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Ironworkers is one I am proud to have been a member of for 20 years of my life. It wasn't always easy and sometimes I didn't think it was fair but overall I am very grateful to have been associated with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by HNSB
Unions have their place. But I think they have forgotten just where that is. Union leadership all too often seems to be made up of people that seem to be more like politicians than anybody that has actually ever WORKED for a living.
Set up a booth at the Javitz Center in Manhattan. Need to plug that cash register into the outlet? dont do it yourself, you need a union electrician to do it, or you can be fined! :gaah:
The way I understood the issue: sales of twinkies have been in so much decline that the company was not profitable anymore. Management wanted the rest of the employees to take a drastic paycutQuote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
For many employees, taking a big paycut is not an option because they're already having problems keeping afloat.
Add to that that management didn't want to share the paycuts.
Add to that that management didn't even have a plan to make things better. So this was probably not going to be the last paycut either.
How is this exactly union greed?
The world doesn't really want twinkies anymore. Not as much as in the past.
The employees had to decide whether they wanted to keep management cushy while dying the death of a thousand paycuts. they decided management would go down with them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
Never happened, it was a bunch of crap. I would personally like to thank each and every worker who was sent to NJ from other States to help us through Sandy. They were away from their families in deplorable conditions working long hard hours in dangerous conditions. If any of you read this....THANK YOU!!!
Teamsters were OK with the contract, the bakers were not. Can't say what I would have done.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
Unions were caused by the abuse of the worker by the employer not the other way around. I've been in a union of 30 years and am glad to have been.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
I always look for the balance in life, some don't.
Trying to keep my lip buttoned here. Most who are against Union representation are more than likely a white collar manager of a Company that has a organized workforce or just don't know squat about Union representation.
I ask all who are against organized labor to look up the term "Morganism". This situation with Hostess is just another case of Morganism, makes you think JP Morgan is doing it again & he's been dead for almost a hundred years.
The death of the textile workers is mostly, if not the sole, fault of the employer who allowed substandard work conditions. The absence of unions only made it that much easier for them, the employer, to operate like that. The point is that had there been union involvement it just might have lead to better working conditions that would have at least allowed more workers to survive the fire. When was the last time some employer locked you in your workplace for the duration of your shift? Locked/blocked exits are a standard no no here by fire code usually. It is just accepted common sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
Bob
Whatever happened to a "Honest Wage for an Honest Days Work"? or "Pay a Man/Woman what they are Worth" or "I'll give you a Chicken for a Box of Twinkies"...
That appears to be SOP these days in companies. At least they waited to give bonuses to management until after they had secured concessions from the employees, in the company that used to work for, that was in bankruptcy protection. It always makes sense to reward the same people who managed a company into bankruptcy with bonuses. That is like praising a bus driver for not killing everyone in the bus he was driving when his incompetence caused him to go over a cliff.Quote:
Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus
Bob
I was in the UAW for Ford here in Norfolk (Notice i said WAS!) for 12 years. The day i got my first pay check i know i was 1, getting payed to much for the job i did 2, didn't see a way to move up becuase the old guys NEVER left (they didn't have to) and 3, know it was not going to last.
Then one week later I got a job with the ILA (Longshoreman) and there again 1, 2, and 3, same thing. After Three years, no job. Now i know that Va is right-to-work so the unions are here only because the state doesnt want to hear it, :rant: but still if this unions (Two among the largest in the world) have to tell the people that the plant is closing and that they dont have a job, then it should not take alot to see that managment is also losing, beside my brothers its not the union that closes a plant or managment its the company that owens it.It's stock holders that scream for profits. I lost both of those jobs as a direct result of economic down turn and i'm not mad its BUSINESS not personal.
I could have moved to Michigan to work for Ford but my wifes family is here, the kids are in school here and I HATE SNOW!!!!!!!!!
Rich
I worked for a crane rental company a number of years. I was a truck driver and therefore not union. The operators and oilers were union. When things got really busy for the operators, ofttimes they would send a qualified driver out as an operator. Funny part was when the union MADE them pay us "scale" rather than our normal hourly rate. Several times that cost me money as I would have been on OT at driver pay. Didn't make much difference to me as I enjoyed operating on an occasional basis.
We had a few super dedicated union operators that were want to bitch every time we showed up with truck load of their crane. One HOT afternoon, one of the operators told us drivers that helping build the crane that he was going to "file" on every damn one of us sorry, non-union, scab sobs because we were doing "union" work on a union job and we taking money from the union guys.
I was knocking pins into the boom with a 16lb hammer when he started that rant. He had his fat ass up on the boom and was yelling down at us. I handed the hammer handle up to him and he took it with a funny look on his face and asked me "WTF?"
I told him the A/C was really cold in my truck and to let me know when he got it unloaded. The other two drivers followed suit and we left that over fed a-hole standing in the sun begging us to come back and finish building the crane.
WE sat in our trucks and enjoyed being on the clock under the A/C while he whined to dispatch. Dispatch called me on the company radio so the operator could hear it too and told us that we were NOT to help build that crane under any circumstances. Mr Super Operator got swing that hammer the rest of the day while we watched TV in our trucks.
If he'd kept his mouth shut, we'd have had that rig hammered together in a few hours and he could have been boomin' and swingin' before dark without breaking a sweat.
When it came time to move the crane, he was REAL nice to us drivers. He'd brought donuts and junk out to the rig. We laughed and joked and ate his donuts and when the time came to start knocking it out, we thanked him for the donuts and told him we'd best sit on the sidelines and the let the union boys work. We sat on our trailers until the loads were ready. ;)
Wullie
Yea, there are enough mallet heads on both sides of the fence to make anybodies day. There is a time and a place to exercise company or union muscle, too bad the mallet heads don't know when that is. I think that crane operator has a clue about when that is now. Gotta love it.
Bob
Why do people question me this bluntly? Never happened?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mvcrash
Union Red Tape in N.J. Causes Alabama Recovery Crew to Head Home | Fox Business
You've never really steered away from picking fights on the conservative vs. liberal front on this board...bluntly, at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
But since you don't actually know from experiencing this, just posting politically biased media...think of it as the guy who lives in NJ is questioning Fox News moreso than you.
I don't believe that Crotalus is picking fights with liberals as much as, he feels strong about his view points. Maybe he has not realized that on any forum, converting an opposite opinion, is all but impossible; especially on religion, guns, government & now Unions, the latest battleground.
Remember Ryan, that "politically biased media" is just that to some & facts to others.
Ehh...but facts are facts...all media is worth questioning. Fox and MSNBC are both absolute rubbish...as far as I'm concerned they are only good to sometimes point you in the right direction to start looking for the facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hirlau
If you read the story, the repair crew was held up in Virginia and had to answer union questions before being allowed to do any work in NJ.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hirlau
What happened to Obama's pledge to cut through red tape in the time of crisis?
I just find it absurd that a union was involved at all in telling a repair crew what they could do. Wouldn't that be more a job for a utility?
"Politically biased media?" Find me ANY media that doesn't have a political bias. They all do. People just deny it when the bias agrees with their own viewpoint.
I heard the newscast where the gents from AL were called SCABS, amongst other things and rudely informed that they were taking food from the mouths of union members and their families. I do NOT think that was made up as theater for the masses.Quote:
Originally Posted by ryanjewell
My thoughts on this were that there were a LOT of people that had no power to cook any food they had left that wasn't already spoiled.
Yeah, I read it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Crotalus
"Decatur said in a separate statement following Hardin's comments that its crews were held in place in Virginia pending clarification of documents received from the IBEW that "implied a requirement of our employees to agree to union affiliation while working in the" New York and N.J. areas.
Decatur said that as it waited for clarification, "we became aware that Seaside Heights had received the assistance they needed from other sources. To be clear, at no time were our crews 'turned away' from the utility in Seaside Heights."
...
""There have been reports that a nonunion crew was turned away from work in New Jersey," Hill said. "At this stage, it is not clear who is alleged to have turned the crew away and the company that employs the affected workers has denied the claim."
Earlier reports indicated two other Alabama utilities -- Huntsville Utilities and Joe Wheeler Cooperative -- were turned away from New Jersey due to union discrimination. However, those utilities have since denied those reports."
Sounds like a whole bunch of conjecture there to me and just leaves me with a bunch of unanswered questions...but if you swallow it whole and already are predisposed think a certain way, I'm sure it looks like a real smoking gun...
I am hesitant to enter this fracas. There is so much bias here you can cut it with a knife (or a razor). As has been intimated before, neither side is going to convince the other that he is right and the other wrong. Who here has "first hand" knowledge of anything that has been posted? If none, then all evidence and all arguments one way or the other are based upon mere conjecture and hearsay.
This particular post reminds me of the forthcoming "fiscal cliff" which the United States is headed toward. We bemoan the men and women of Congress for being unable to compromise. Yet I see here the same inability.
Suggestions have been made there is fault enough to go around to each side and still have plenty left over. Is it possible a consensus can be built around that idea and everyone can be happy with it? There are no evil unions or dastardly corporations. Just people trying to do the best they can at what they do with what they have.
Randy
Forget who is at fault,the bottom line is:18K people have lost a job,the world(those of the fat and unhealthy),are without twinkies and ho hos and whatever.
I am without wonder bread:(
Life will go on.
The strange thing is, I never missed the Twinkies, until they took them away. :hmmm:
I don't know about where you live Pixel, but there are still plenty of ho ho's around here. :D
Do not eat that crap,all that stuff will Keel you.Fritos,cheetos,doritos,serve me well:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hirlau
