The union's "leader" says the employees showed "incredible courage" by causing the closing of Hostess. He further adds that his members, ablbeit mostly without jobs, are as well or even better off because they now draw unemployment benefits and don't have to work for the money they receive. He 'forgets' to mention the source of the unemployment monies ---- taxpayers who continue to work and pay taxes from their wages and salaries.
So if he's right, why don't we all stop working and let government pick up the tab? Oh, I forgot. Government has to have workers from whom to get the money to pay the benefits to those who don't want to work for the pay they're being offered.
I have a better idea. Why don't people who cause their own unemployment for whatever reason NOT be eligible for unemployment compensation? Let the brilliant union leaders who so admire the employees' "incredible courage" support them financially while their members are between jobs?
Besides, as the union leader says, what's the big deal? When the Hostess carcass is eventually sold in pieces, all the union members will get their jobs back since they're the only people qualified to do the work.
Dream on, labor leader. And keep talking. Your total ignorance and lack of concern for those whose jobs you forefetied, while keeping your own, of course, becomes more clear with each sentence from your ignorant mouth. At least that's my take.
Union Still Sees a Future for Itself in Liquidating Hostess has the incredible and idiotic commentary from the union President:
- Striking bakery workers stand outside of a Hostess facility in Oakland, Calif., on Nov. 16, 2012.
David Durkee, the president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, whose November strike crippled Hostess’s operations, Thursday expressed confidence that his thousands of out-of-work members will find opportunity at the pieces of Hostess that are currently being sold at auction.
“From our perspective, the situation in 2012 comes off as a position of strength,” Durkee said, referencing the nationwide work stoppage. He said he thinks the union should be able to get a better deal from the new, still-to-be-decided owners of brands like Wonder bread and Twinkies as compared to the labor contracts that Hostess offered up during its second bankruptcy case.
“We’re just as confident as the day we struck,” he said.
Durkee called his members’ willingness to say “enough was enough” and launch the strike that preceded the company’s decision to liquidate, an act of “incredible courage.” And he described the workers as being nearly irreplaceable to the businesses that end up snatching up Hostess assets at auction.
“Only our members know how to get that equipment running,” Durkee said. “A workforce off the street will not be able to accomplish that.”
The only way for the brands to have a “seamless restart” is to hire back the unionized bakers, he said. Hiring new workers would be risky, he said, adding that that gives his group bargaining power.
Who exactly will end up owning the various pools of intellectual property, equipment and plants that make up Hostess’s carcass is currently unclear. . . . Some so-called stalking horse bidders, brought on to set a floor price for the assets, are food companies with no interest in buying Hostess plants, like McKee Foods Corp. The maker of Little Debbie snack cakes is bidding $27.5 million for Hostess’s Drake’s brand, which made treats like Devil Dogs, Ring Dings and Yodels, but Drake’s New Jersey plant isn’t included in the offer. Another potential buyer—Flowers Foods Inc., the lead bidder for a group of Hostess’s bread brands—is a traditionally non-union shop with few unionized workers. Flowers declined to comment.
Still, Durkee, himself a fourth-generation baker, is hopeful about the role the BCTGM will play in the next phase of Hostess’s existence.
“I think we’re in a much better position with new owners because of what we have to offer,” he said. “We have the workforce to get these plants online fast, efficiently, and get this product to market. We’re the only group of people who can do this. We think that adds very high value.”
Durkee said that while “hundreds” of Bakers members have gotten new jobs, the rest are receiving unemployment. Taking aim at what he sees as “horrendous, horrendous” concessions that Hostess won permission to impose on the BCTGM members during a bankruptcy labor trial, he said he thinks the unemployed BCTGM members are faring as well as they would have under the deal that was on the table.
“We’re not convinced that their income situation is any different than it would have been if they were working for the company,” he said."
Summing Up
This guy is either a complete fool or believes those listening to what he's saying are complete fools.
That said, there's no way the union members who lost their jobs will ever be made whole by new owners. And in all likelihood, even if some of them are rehired, they in all likelihood won't be union members who are again represented so poorly by Mr. Durkee.
I've met a lot of union officials over the years, but this one takes first place in the contest for all-time fool.
It's too bad the Hostess employees listened to him the first time. They won't make that mistake again.
That said, almost all of them won't even have a chance to get back to work with the new owners, whoever they may be.
And when the unemployment compensation runs out for those ex-Hostess employees that is currently provided courtesy of their fellow Americans who continue to work and pay their taxes, what then?
So now we have a crystal clear example of what unions frequently do for (or perhaps TO is a better chosen word) their members while they're working and paying dues --- spew forth pure B.S.
That's my take.
Thanks. Bob.
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