If Hostess can't get concessions from the union they will just move production to China or some other God forsaken country. That's just how it is! Management will NEVER give up their perks they will just fire all of the U.S. workers and move on! At this point I'd rather see a company stay in the U.S. and continue to employ U.S. workers. If that means it's the status quo, then so be it.

Oh, yeah, labor costs. Couldn't be that people have mostly stopped eating this crap. There's more nutrition in the wrappers of these products.

That's what I was thinking Hanke. If anyone misses their favorite Hostess treat, just eat a scoop of sugar, that should satisfied your cravings.

Will we bail-out ding dongs?

Ignorance, ignorance, and more ignorance.

Anothermick - Labor costs CAN still be a problem. And that doesn't apply to just the pay of the workers but some of the other "rules" put into effect by collective bargaining agreements. Management is certainly to blame though as you say. There obviously is a lack of leadership and from what I understand they can do a lot of cutting in this area as well. With nearly 50 bakeries all over the USA I don't think shipping them from China is ever on the radar. That is ignorant.

Mean Girl - As I mentioned to Anothermick, mentioning production in China is ridiculous. Do you know how many food items are produced in China and shipped to the USA? Get a grip.

HankE - I love when people apply their own views to the overall society. It is among the most ignorant and illogical things one can do. Your ignorance is proudly worn on your sleeve. People love hostess products and because you don't does not change this. Have potheads tossed aside raspberry zingers for flaxseed wafers?

McDonalds is booming HankE. People aren't eating healthier. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion but ignorance.

Now I get to say my peace: Look up the company's history and you'll see some key indicators of failure. It looks like a company that is running 30-40 years in the past. The top guys are so busy in trying to buy out the competition that they're neglecting their own operations. Union labor contracts are not 100% of the blame, but certainly part of the problem along with several other things. Poor leadership is the #1 problem. Bad business structure #2.

They failed in their last attempt to reorganize. They could easily fail again. Someone will pick up the pieces if that day ever happens.... Twinkies are a desirable product and someone will make money off the line of Hostess (and Hostess owned) products. They will not be "made in China" and shipped here EVER. That's the most ridiculous thing people can say.

Sammy Johns, ten yard penalty for injecting logic into this vine.

I beg to differ. Anything and everything can be made in China. Have you ever been to Wal-Mart?????

There you go, Sammy Johns, arguing with sound logic and thinking clearly. I suspect your reply won't be too popular around here.

Mean Girl, not many bakery items get made in China then shipped to the US. They would go stale just from the transport logistics.

Yea, anothermick. You're right. It's management's fault. Management failed to stand up to unreasonable demands of the union. That caused management to get behind in pension obligations. Management in American companies need to take a stronger stand against unreasonable demands of unions. So there you have it: management at fault for saying "yes" every time a union boss said "jump." So, should management have paid into the pension fund and not paid wages, suppliers, utilities, etc?

Will we bail-out ding dongs?

We already did: AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America... all the biggest ding dongs.

Rising labor cost? When was the last time the general employees got an increase and how much against when the coe got an increase and how much.

Blame it on organized labor. It couldn't have anything to do with feeding people garbage and making them so fat they explode.

If car companies made cars that killed people with the sort of efficiency Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Cup Cakes do, I would laugh just as hard at the argument that it was the union's fault.

C o n s e r v a t i v e R e s p o n s i b i l i t y is an oxymoron

move production to China

Wow, what a rocket scientist you must be. Transportation cost of a Twinkie will cost a thousand percent more than the product. Not to mention your loaf of bread will be three months old. As they sell poisoned dog food and treats, I just bet people will line up for Chinese snack foods.

Is this the level of intelligence in this country?

12 unions!!!! OMG. Isnt that one of Dante's circles of suffering?

To madison""""

No it's thanks to capitalism the price is to high ...and competition from much less expensive Little Debbies brand....

Sammy Johns - the article cited that lower consumer demand was also part of the problem.

So apparently, the market is shifting...maybe not becoming healthier, just onto other more delicious unhealthy options.

All good things must come to an end, even twinkies.

But, um...how exactly do you get 950 million in debt before a light bulb goes off in an owner or CEO's head that something has to change, things need to be fixed?

This isnt ALL the fault of unions, though no doubt their over-reaches likely did not help.

I am not anti-union, I think they can serve a purpose. But management has to act responsibly, they also have to make sound decisions...and you dont let a union force your company to run the business in an un-sound, and inefficient way...I dont care what BS excuses excutives or whoever get, the bucks stops on THEIR desk...period.

I wont pretend to know which decisions were wise, and which ones were not...and which side is more responsible...we dont work there, we cant possibly know what reality is.

What I do know, having worked only private sector jobs that have not been unionized...management manages to make a lot of horrible decisions all on their own...without the help of any union...so im hesitant to lay ALL THE BLAME at the unions feet.

Rarely do they see the big picture, or understand how their decisions affect the production side of things. Especially when coming at it from a "cost saving" perspective. It's hard for a CEO who spends most of their time on the golf course, to have a real good idea of how his corporation TRULY runs...just saying.

Lady Cat "Rising labor cost?" - aka, rising health care costs...via PRIVATE INSURANCE.

It's why auto makers went to china...the wages werent the problem, the health care for all the employees is what made it unbearable.

thats was in the 90's...long before Obama Care could be blamed for the rise in costs. go figure.

12 Unions isn't once the Dante's circles of suffering.

You are thinking of the Army of the 12 Unions. That's group that brings about the end of the world that Bruce Wills came back through time to stop!

Another pos company blaming the workers. Meanwhile Germany manages to pay it's auto workers an average of $67.00 an hour. I'm thinking we need to change the bankruptcy laws. If you're going to take away the benefits that workers have paid into forever you need to close the business completely down and sell off all the assets. This includes American Airline and every other union busting company pulling this crap. Welcome to TX the beginning of our new third world country.

Every product listed in the article is garbage to begin with. Move to China...kill them off.

Speaking of China....

Will someone PLEASE explain to me how this works....

Bought gizmo (2 inch adapter for back of computer) from ebay seller in China for $1.38.

It cost the seller $7.20 to send it. They have over 200,000 feedback (99.7 pos).

HOW THE HELL DOES THAT WORK ? They time and again, over and over, sell stuff for less, even way less, than the item cost.

And yes Jessica, most the problems is the healthcare costs. And pensions also. Pensions are a rarity in private business anymore. And soon to be in public sector also, if our local city is any indication (gives pensions with only 25 years service). That is NOT sustainable. Hell, steel mills started giving back their pensions over 30 years ago, in favor of that over-glorified thing called a 401..pffttt

Hostess needs to hire oompah loompahs instead. I hear they work cheap.

I just had a horrible vision of how an oompah might fill the snack cakes! Thanks Eric!

Oh, and Madison, very sorry they collapsed your comment. That's why the government functions like it does! Not only will we not consider your point of view; we will collapse your thoughts entirely because that's what we do! Now blah, blah, blah and don't try making your point of view public anymore!

If they move to China, no one will want to eat their snack cakes. Would you want to eat Twinkies with a nice dose of melamine?

Apparently when they filed bankruptcy the last time, they were unable to bring down costs enough to lower the cost of their product to gain market share. The company said they couldn't cut product prices to become more competitive because of agreed upon union demands. So I guess like American airlines, management should never have agreed to union demands in the first place. So yes, you can blame management and equally blame the many unions for being so short-sighted.

The problem is that unions are constantly associated with companies that eventually go bust. Equally states are in financial trouble because they too made bad management decisions by agreeing to union demands. So somebody is fooling somebody about the rosy future they are all pretending to see.

It is like CAT buying that Canadian facility that they insist are paying union workers considerably more than any of their competition both in the US and Canada. But CAT knew those wages and benefits were too high when they bought the company. Why buy it? Now they want to trim those wages and benefits by 50 percent because they are not competitive. Who asks employees to cut their wages by 50 percent? I fail to see how that is a PR success story? So now CAT will probably shut down that facility and move the production to the US. So those 500 workers that asked and got much better wages than competing companies, will ultimately get zero. I have lived in two town in the US that closed down mega operations when unions refused to face reality.

BTW, CAT employs 132,000 employees worldwide. If 13 million given to the CEO was instead distributed among employees each would get? Yup, 100 bucks?

Maybe the problem has something to do with people not buying their products?

Zero in on this and you will find that Twinkies leaves a chemical taste in the mouth and has ingredients that a chemist can not pronounce correctly. When was the last time any of you in this vine ever ate a HoHo? Wonder bread? Builds strong bodies 12 ways? Yeah but compared to the competition, it is tastless and has no body to it. It is just air wrapped up in graphic art and plastic. There is nothing of substance inside the wrapper.

Union agreements add to cost for sure, but if your products are not market worthy, then even without union pay scales you will have a hard time selling your products without steep discounts.

I see other brands of bread selling for $4 per loaf and more alongside Wonder bread that is selling at less than half that. Union labor? No. Hostess has no pricing power because of the level of quality Hostess builds into their products, and based on that level of quality, the market has assigned a selling price that is preventing Hostess from being viable. Twinkies vs. Entemann's? Entemann's wins on taste and costs a lot more yet sells well. People wanting more healthy food is a false argument. Twinkies is just an awful product in its current state.

Hostess is in financial trouble because no one in management is focused on bringing high quality to market. Fix that and you fix Hostess. Fail to fix that and the market will run Hostess out of business.

Twinkies, I know they are not health food, but i used to carry them in my glove box of the car, on trips, they were good, how come everything good is fattening, sugar, or bad for you.

Well, the Hostess stuff costs more, but in my opinion it tastes a lot better than the cheaper knock off brands. I'm not too thrilled with Wonder bread because I prefer a heartier, home made style bread even though it may not hold up as well for a sandwich. In that regard I usually like the local bakery bread better and it tends to be a little cheaper too.

I suppose none of this stuff is particularly good for you, but I don't think people eat this stuff in an effort to get healthy. They eat it because the like it. Maybe I am blessed, or cursed with sensitive taste buds, but I know that with a lot of foods I can discern a noticeable difference between "premium" brands and the knock offs. Not always, but in the majority of cases. A lot of people buy food based on pricing and I suppose I can understand that if you have a lot of mouths to feed, but if you really enjoy what you eat, it makes a difference. Maybe I'm in the minority in that regard.

Anyway you look at it, it is sad to see a long established company noted for quality products, fall to the wayside, regardless of the reasons. Whether it is labor costs, poor management, high raw materials costs, lousy marketing or too much competition, I hate to see it happen. Big, long time companies like Hostess provide a lot of jobs for a lot of people. When a big giant who has stayed true to their products dies, we all lose a little something in the process. I hope they can survive in the process and not have to change too radically. And I hope a lot of people don't end up losing their jobs because of it.

There was a joke about Twinkies and how they last forever. A guy eats a Twinkie after not having one in over twenty years and he comments that it's truly amazing because it tastes just like it did when he was a kid back in the 50's! His friend grabs the wrapper and then says, it tastes that way because this one was actually made in 1952!

I don't know...Little Debbies are pretty good. Apparently Little Debbie is beating the crap out of the Hostess. Even Little Debbie prices just about doubled in the recent past. They still go in lunch boxes. $1.50 is too much for a snack cake versus alternatives that are better for you.

And management approved the contracts with all the unions, so they share the blame. Also, who says that manufacturing has to go to China to save a buck. Our south of the border neighbors will work for cheap, too!

Yeah, the obesity problem is caused by better diet. I hear you there.

"Twinkie the Kid" was spotted out clubbing with, "Little Debbie" and "Dolly Madison". And then it started.....

Sammy Johns-

Anytime any of us can bring the love to you, we'll do it.

Just wondering -- again -- since "ignoran" is something you seem to have keyboarded a lot in both this post and #1.6, did you set up a macro to save time and just drop in a "ce" or "t" at the end or did you type out in full?

When consequences -- not just the positive ones -- accrue to the managers as well as the workers, it'll be a fairer world.

Ignorance? Maybe the Hostess customers have all gone to McDonald's?

McDonald's business is booming because it coincides with American lifestyle. A quick, prepared, inexpensive meal is highly attractive to people on the go. It's much easier to swing through a drive-through than to cook at home. And yes, we may be addicted to grease, fat and salt.

It's entirely possibly that Americans are making more healthful choices at the grocery store. Someone who has chosen to shop for dinner has already chosen not to eat at McDonald's and has a wide selection of more healthy alternatives available to them. They might also have a shopping list, a meal plan, and a budget they must stick to with no room for Twinkies.

Incidentally, the Hostess products at my local grocery are placed right next to the produce section.

Sammy Johns

Is that why McDonalds business is booming? LOL.

I love when people are ignorant.

At least McDonalds has introduced healthier choices for customers in an attempt to appear caring. Hostess? Never. And why would anyone love when people are ignorant? Could it be because calling others ignorant makes you feel smarter?

Hostess and McDonalds are completely different markets.........................

Might as well be comparing CPAP's and cheerios.

If you want to eat "junk food" bake it at home. Be like grandma and develop a special relationship with that rolling pin. $4.00 for a loaf of bread is too much anyway. Buy a bread machine and when you get home from work your bread is ready for you nice an warm.

Slave wages. That's funny. Bet the average wage there is $25 an hour because of unions. Tough to make a profit on a $2 item when 100 people at $25+ an hour pay, had to touch it, per union rules.

regular jones

Slave wages. That's funny. Bet the average wage there is $25 an hour because of unions. Tough to make a profit on a $2 item when 100 people at $25+ an hour pay, had to touch it, per union rules.

Even tougher when you're trying to get people to eat @!$%# that will cause your heart to explode. Just sayin'...

I'm fit and still eat them every once in awhile. ALMOST everything is o.k. in moderation. Gotta keep some around in case of a nuclear fallout too.

Reducing management compensation is ineffective and merely symbolic. The money saved would be just a drop in the barrel in contrast to the staggering wage and pension obligations.

regular jones.....I wish wages where $25. an hour. My husband has worked there 30 years, is a fleet mechanic and does not even make $18. an hour. Going hourly rate for mechanics is about $40-55 an hour. He buys his own tools also. No uniforms are provided and his get very greasy. He is on 24 hour call and gets called at all hours and on days off. The company keeps taking away from the people who do the work and upper management gets there big bounus even if the company is going under. The company's that get hired to so call fix things only make more money and want the little guy who is working his ass off on 30 year old trucks to keep product in the store to take more pay cuts. Why don't the top people come down and see how real people work. I personally DARN them to keep up with my husband on normal days work and do all the heavy lifting and work he does.

If companies can't make a reasonable profit they will simply close up shop and cease production. Companies are not formed to assist workers by spreading around the wealth despite Obama's concept.

Stockholders will not provide funds for companies to expand and continue to produce unless there is a payback for them.

Right on Joyce, too many folks think and want corporations to be just another welfare agency.

What is a 'reasonable profit'??? Making billions to be shared by the executive levels in their outlandish pay, bonuses and protected retirements? Walking away with the goods and leaving the shareholders an empty bag?

Companies are a welfare system for the '1%s'. Do nothing for your pay, make bad decisions and get rewarded for it all.

You need to check out their track record for OSHA fines $$$, go into bankruptcy, skip the fines. THIS IS HOW WE DO IT...

I can about gaurentee that the executives didn't cause the OSHA fines. Some idiot not doing his job correctly, while making too much, is the cause. The union should pay those fines. They are the ones with supervisors that didn't keep people in check.

What part of MAXIMIZING shareholder value don't people understand?

Nice "race to the bottom" argument.

Let's be Chinese!

Hostess cakes makes people fat. They make people fat. FAT. This is a society that is tired of being FAT. Blame unions all you want, but one might want to consider wiping the frosting from around one's mouth and swallowing that last Twinkie before voicing an opinon blaming organized labor.

Here is a concept. Let someone, who is doing an EASY job, get the pay that they deserve. Maybe if the salaries went down, the price of goods would go down........ There's a concept! UNIONS aren't needed any longer! the owner of a company deserves to make whatever profit he/she can. IT'S HIS/HER COMPANY!!!

regular jones

Maybe if the salaries went down, the price of goods would go down........ There's a concept!

As a business owner, I can tell you this. When businesses get this big, and salaries go down, the price of goods go up, not down. And they keep going up until the market won't bear it any longer. Then, just at the peak of ripeness, the company files for bankruptcy. They're protected from their creditors, and they sell off the company piece by piece; and dissolve the pensions and the benefits of the employees, some of whom may have worked for the company for years or even decades. Then the investors get out with a few hundred million bucks, and the former employees are left to find work that no longer exists, some at a point in their lives when there's no time left to save, and no pension which was promised.

That's not just a concept, that's a reality that's happening every single day across this country, and has been for decades. As those corporations get larger, they get more powerful. They are a lifeform all of their own. The Supreme Court calls them people. I wouldn't go so far.

When are people on the right going to wake up to what's going on? The candidate you're backing for President of the United States has been a successful businessman by doing those very things as described above. He's a dismantler, not a creator.

He's so hungry to do that same thing to America, he'll say anything to get control. Anything. And then he will sell us off, figuratively at best, literally at worst, until we are not even left with a history. Mitt Romney sees this as the greatest corporate conquest of his ill-driven career. The only interest Mitt Romney has in serving America is in serving it up to his corporate buddies. We need to vote Mr. Romney down at every single opportunity. It appears as if fewer and fewer opportunities are left.

The union will not allow any reduction in the pay level so the illegals would make the same wages. Unless they throw out the union the problem continues. And the NLRB will sue the company for unfair labor practices.

If you put illegals on the assembly line then very few Twinkies and Ding Dongs would make it out the door.

There are not 40 million "illegals" in this country. The number you are looking for is 11 million.

They'll probably send the entire Twinkie operation to China.

New improve Chinese Twinkies! They grow in the dark!

Joyce-4263422

If you put illegals on the assembly line then very few Twinkies and Ding Dongs would make it out the door.

Nice to see racism, hate and intolerace rear it's ugly head once again.

A friend of mine got fired for sticking his finger in the Twinkie filler. She didn't even get written up!

Maybe Michelle should talk to the President and convince him to add Twinkies and Ding Dongs to the approved list for food-stamps. Something like one out of six families are receiving food-stamps and as we all know junk food is one of their favorites.

The blame deserves to go to reckless management. Stop blaming employees.

Where is the 'responsibility' party - the Republican party ? Looking for government handouts !

Good point Kevin, unions talk about job security. No union can guarantee job security, if there is anything like job security it's in doing your job well. I was a union worker and I saw many members just "Slipping along." Tell one of them to get in gear and start working and he's running to the Steward. Well, I didn't stay union very long.

Typical corporate behavior....SHAMEFUL!!

Before you open your mouth, what is the pay scale for an experience baker? Watching the idiot cake boss they must be far and few between for people to line up for his stuff.

Wait a darn minute there Rick! California only does "organic" deep fried Twinkies at their fairs.

This will allow them to leave the US, and get cheap slave labor like the rest of American companies. Americans exploit Chinese workers.

http://news.yahoo.com/did-300-workers-xbox-360-factory-threaten-mass-181429338.html

Nikki, slave labor? Lol, people in China and other parts of the world certainly don't consider themselves slave labor, they're happy to working. There is no slave labor in America anymore. People are free to move on down the road and find a better paying job if they don't like the wage they're getting. Hell, lol, I've done that for as little as thirty cents more an hour. I've worked blue collar most of my life, starting out making fifty cents an hour in 1956. I've never felt like I was a slave to any company Master. Lol, unions like to call bosses "Masters." So, it seems to me that the real "Master/slave" mentality is in unions. Man, if folks want to see the real master/slave relationship just try going against a union program. The union will decide when a worker needs a raise and how much it will be. One company back home in Chicago that I started working for had a union, I.B.E.W. The starting wage was $2.05. After my 90 day trial period was up the foreman and steward came to me and told me I doing ok, I would be a permanent employee. At the new rate of $2.07, and, the steward made sure that I knew that the union had fought hard to get that increase for new employees. Lol, I walked out and in a week I had a job paying $2.75, and, non-union.

Yes, Slave labor. Well then maybe we need to send the Unions, over to China, and get the people better working conditions, and pay.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1635144,00.html

@Soop: I was wondering that myself. Perhaps it is this type of poor math that got them into trouble in the first place!

It a math word problem! Some of those bakeries straddle state borders.

Well, there are 3 types of people in the world - those who can count and those who can't.

And after reading all 4 of your comments, I think both of you are wrong.

LOL. I was wondering the same thing. That's hilarious.

Shelf life of the breads don't allow for multi-state transportation. The bakery in my area was a small operation.

You are a fraud.

The second you toke up, you'll be eating Raspberry Zingers like no tomorrow.

Aren't Zingers made by Dolly Madison? Someone one toke over the line?

Yeah we've done so much better since the decline in the strength of organized labor in the last 30 years. Wages are stagnet, upper management's pay is now many many times the pay of the guy on the factory floor, people are working till they die because management has cut retirements and health care. I 'd vote for that lets get rid of union's entirely. We could replace them with some company unions like they have in Mexico. Maybe get the opportunity to work 6 days a week again for same salary. If we were lucky they could pay us in script redeemable at the company store. And if we were really lucky we would have enough left over to buy a bottle of Corona at the end of the day and sit looking over our pallet house.

Do you really think corporations care about the workers. We are simply a cost to be minimized. The only thing that keeps any corporation in check at all is the fact that the workers can organize if necessary.

Study your history a litte bit, look at other countries. Organized labor created the middle class and therefore the USA as is exists today. Get rid of organized labor and we will quickly sink back to the conditions of the 1890's where workers worked for the company 6 days a week 12 hours a day, got paid in script, lived in a company house till the company no longer wanted them then died. Is that really the future of America you want to see for our children.

I have stood in the shadow of the Delphi plant in Juarez, Mexico and visited the pallet homes of the men that work in the plant, and I will fight to my last breath to keep that from becoming the reality for my children.

Hahahaha....maybe it was supposed to be 49 bakeries in 36 states? Yeah, well what do you expect? Everyone wants to go into "investigative journalism" today. What do actual facts matter?

I thought the same thing. Turns out the filing says they "operate 36 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores throughout the United States". That makes more sense!