Many Hostess Bakery Union Strikers are OK with Liquidation ... Would They Be OK with No Unemployment and Other Taxpayer/Government Provided Benefits, Including Subsidized Pensions, Too?

Hostess is liquidating. Bakers union employees say that's ok with them.

They'll just draw unemployment or collect government guaranteed pensions or find another job, presumably a better paying one than the one they have forfeited.

As a fellow American and a taxpayer, I'm all for free choice. If people don't want to work for the pay offered by an employer, they are free to not work. That's America.

But why should I pay them not to work? You see, I'm a taxpayer.

Striking Hostess workers express no regret over looming liquidation has the story:

"“Anything is better than nothing,” the old saying goes, but try telling that to the striking bakery workers at Hostess, who are being blamed by some for pushing the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread to shut down operations by refusing to accept a cut in wages.

In a story published by Reuters, several members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) said they couldn’t make any more concessions to Hostess and have no regrets about launching the strike that the company said was the final straw that led to its demise this week.

After a last effort at mediation broke down, Hostess won a court approval to wind down operations, which is likely to result in 18,500 workers losing their jobs.

But, according to Reuters, Hostess employees are saying they don’t regret going out on strike, and would rather be out of work rather than concede any more to a company that they say sought to reduce benefits along with wages.

One worker, Kenneth Johnson, told Reuters: “I’d rather go work somewhere else or draw unemployment” than take another pay cut from Hostess, which he said had lowered his salary, with overtime, to $35,000 last year from about $45,000 five years ago.

Said Johnson, who’d worked for Hostess for 23 years: “They’re just taking from us.”"

SUMMING UP

As a taxpayer and fellow American, I would ask Mr. Johnson and others who feel as he does the following questions:

When you apply for and receive unemployment compensation and other government subsidies, including pension guarantees, aren't you just taking from your fellow Americans, citizens and taxpayers?"

Is getting something for nothing, especially when you have another option which is to work for pay and benefits, what you believe is the American way?

Why couldn't you have kept working for Hostess, and then looked for and found a better job, and then resigned, instead of closing down the company and forcing lots of people out of work?

Wouldn't we all have been better off had you taken that approach?.

Isn't that really the American way?

Making our own way where possible instead of quitting and then living off our fellow Americans?

Thanks. Bob.