Twinkies' Final Death Rattle While Atlas Shrugging

They didn't build Hostess,
So they Destroyed it

On Tuesday, November 20, 2012, Hostess, 82, died due to unnatural, Marxist clauses.

I guess this means that Lara Ferroni may have to update her book Real Snacks By Ferroni, Lara .

Bankruptcy court ordered Hostess and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union to return for a final attempt for contract mediation before allowing Hostess to begin liquidation.

Hostess had crunched the numbers. The new contract called for a pay cut up to 8% for some of the workers for one year. After approximately one year, the cut would have become a raise as the restructuring efforts turned the business around. The union declined.

The union also refused to budge on certain inefficient clauses of the contract, such as mandating that those workers who load Twinkies onto trucks can load only Twinkies, not loafs of bread. The inefficient clauses also included ones that stated that bread and Twinkies could not be loaded onto the same truck and would require two trucks, two drivers, and two different loaders in order to deliver the baked goods from the same plant to the same store.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union refused any concessions. The union represents just under 1/3 of the company's workers. The workers took an open, oral ballot to not accept any of the conditions. They voted to kill all 18,500 jobs. In contrast, the infamous Teamsters took a secret ballot, and voted to accept concessions and conditions of the new contract. This begs the question on how much intimidation, peer pressure, and outright lies the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union used on its workers. Then again, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union is proud that it mills grain and works with tobacco. Its name should make any food-producing company wary of the union in the first place.

Hostess filed for bankruptcy in January 2012 after it announced it could not meet the obligations to union pension funds outlined in its previous bankruptcy agreement. 

Hostess returned to bankruptcy court and informed the judge and the appointed trustees that mediation failed. Hostess is to liquidate its assets and go out of business. Big labor has killed the Twinkie. This may just be the beginning as other businesses collapse under the weight of Marxist unions. The PPACA has already led to many businesses cutting employees or reducing allowable work-hours. How long will it be before Obama issues executive orders forbidding businesses to close or fire any laborers? Atlas is shrugging.

Flower Foods, Inc, and the Tasty Baking Company, makers of Tasty Kakes,  are among the companies vying for Hostess's recipes.