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Hostess, the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work, the company said.

“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” Hostess CEO Gregory F. Rayburn said in announcing that the firm had filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to shutter its business. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”

Hostess Brands Inc. had earlier warned employees that it would file to unwind its business and sell off assets if plant operations didn't return to normal levels by 5 p.m. Thursday. In announcing its decision, Hostess said its wind down would mean the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores in the United States.

Hostess suspended bakery operations at all its factories and said its stores will remain open for several days to sell already-baked products.

The Irving, Texas-based company had already reached a contract agreement with its largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But thousands of members in its second-biggest union went on strike late last week after rejecting in September a contract offer that cut wages and benefits. Officials for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union say the company stopped contributing to workers' pensions last year.

NBC's Savannah Guthrie read a statement on "Today" from the bakers' union that said: “Despite Greg Rayburn’s insulting and disingenuous statements of the last several months, the truth is that Hostess workers and the union have absolutely no responsibility for the failure of this company. That responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the company’s decision makers.”

Rayburn responded that he had been “pretty straightforward in all the town hall meetings I’ve done at our plants to say that in this situation I think there is blame that goes around for everyone.”

He denied that the decision to shut down could be a last ditch negotiation tactic to get the union back to the table.

“It’s over,” he said. “This is it.”

Rayburn, who first joined Hostess earlier this year as a restructuring expert, had earlier said that many workers crossed picket lines this week to go back to work despite warnings by union leadership that they'd be fined.

"The problem is we don't have enough crossing those lines to maintain normal production," Rayburn told Fox Business.

Hostess said that production at about a dozen of the company's 33 plants had been seriously affected by the strike. Three plants were closed earlier this week.

The privately held company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than a decade. The company cited increasing pension and medical costs for employees as one of the drivers behind its latest filing. Hostess had argued that workers must make concessions for it to exit bankruptcy and improve its financial position.

The company, founded in 1930, was fighting battles beyond labor costs, however. Competition is increasing in the snack space and Americans are increasingly conscious about healthy eating. Hostess also makes Dolly Madison, Drake's and Nature's Pride snacks.

If the motion is granted, Hostess would begin closing operations as early as Tuesday.

"Most employees who lose their jobs should be eligible for government-provided unemployment benefits," Hostess said.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/NATL-Twinkies-Maker-Hostess-Going-Out-of-Business-179643161.html

So 18,000 more people, who use to make the pie are now going to be demanding pie without making more.

Imagine that. Big Bird's a one-percenter (300K annual salary) so he can pay for insurance out of pocket.

Word is the employees would rather have taken a cut to preserve employment but the union was threatening them not to complain about it.

Quasimodo wrote:It wasn't the union that killed Hostess, it was the free market (something I thought you would applaud).

Quasimodo wrote:Hostess Twinkies and Cupcakes died because many fewer people eat them anymore (when was the last time you ate a Twinkie?). The union problem came up at the end of their multiple bankruptcy filings. It wasn't the union that killed Hostess, it was the free market (something I thought you would applaud).

Thankfully, the American populace is moving away from eating high calorie, low nutrient crud.

Hostess Brands, Inc., which bestowed the Twinkie upon mankind, filed for bankruptcy last week. They survived one previous brush with bankruptcy in 2009, but if this one puts them down for good, it will become much harder to find a Twinkie after the zombie apocalypse. (Warning: not-safe-for-work language in the video embedded below.)

There is no mystery surrounding the death of the Twinkie. In its bankruptcy filing, Hostess reported a net loss of $341 million last year. The company blamed reduced demand from a more health-conscious customer base, and rising costs for ingredients like sugar and flour… but above all, the cause of death was an overdose of collective bargaining. The Wall Street Journal reports that Hostess will use bankruptcy to “confront the ‘increasing burden’ of its giant union workforce,” a claim backed up by reviewing the company’s list of unsecured creditors:

The top unsecured creditor on the list, filed in bankruptcy court but which you can view here, is the pension fund for one of Hostess’s main unions. The Bakery & Confectionery Union & Industry International Pension Fund is owed $944.16 million.

Union benefit funds, including health and pensions, account for 16 of the 40 top unsecured claims. Some of those pension funds include Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Plan, owed $11.82 million; Twin Cities Bakery Drivers Pension Fund, owed $9.36 million; Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Plan, owed $7 million; and New England Teamsters & Trucking Industry Pension Fund, owed $4.77 million.

It wasn't the union that killed Hostess, it was the free market (something I thought you would applaud).

So, we can safely conclude that the Baker's Union leadership is stupid to negotiate/protest for higher wages when their market is declining?...and the members are just dumb for following them into unemployment?

subgenius wrote:

Quasimodo wrote:It wasn't the union that killed Hostess, it was the free market (something I thought you would applaud).

So, we can safely conclude that the Baker's Union leadership is stupid to negotiate/protest for higher wages when their market is declining?...and the members are just dumb for following them into unemployment?
(oh yeah, i forgot - it is better to be unemployed than not, while Obama is in office)

Droopy wrote:
Of course, you are dead wrong as usual.