What!?!?....Are you sure your numbers are correct, what lying Union Official did you get this information from?

I work for a company that is feeling the hit from Hostess closing the doors, I am also a member of the same Union that some of the Hostess employees had (not happy about that at all), your numbers are quite a bit slanted/inflated, as most Union "Kooll-Aid" drinkers do.

A small example: the state of Texas has an average workers earned income at $39,000 (not household), Texas Hostess employees averaged $54,000-$72,000...you decide!
(I passed this information on from what I think is a good source, not my own research, it too can be off some?)

Not at all attacking you sir, I just think you were given some misinformation is all?...

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2012 DL650A
2010 Triumph Speed Triple 1050
2003 SV1000S (track only)

Trobe you are correct I was a delivery driver and made 60,000 on average.

Total frickin' bummer to make more than the average wage................
No to worry, when they sell it off and move to a right to work state there will be plenty of people working for dirt wages.

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Joe S.
'12 Concours
'11 DL650
'10 Tiger1050
'01 HD FXD
'09 HD XR1200
'79 BMW R100

Written by a Hostess worker on another forum:
Wonder Bread runs deep in my family. I started at Interstate Bakeries in 1999 in Waterloo, Ia after the birth of my first daughter. I asked my father in law who to talk to for an interview. He had spent his entire adult life there, eventually retiring in 2007. His father drew retirement from the very same bakery......I love Wonder Bread. It has supported our family financially and medically for the last 14 years. When my wife wanted to attend graduate school we found a university near a bakery and moved to Lawrence, KS, home of the greatest basketball team in the history of ever. I will miss the overwhelming smell of baking bread and the friendships I built at both bakeries. Including with engineers, truck drivers, supervisors and managers who have also lost their jobs.

Many of them likely blame the Bakers Union, me. Most understand that this was inevitable. There has been no confidence in the leadership of this company at any level of any department for years. We have watched 6 CEO's come and go since 2002 and all of them left the company worse than when they took over. All of them got paid, not just the salaries they agreed to, but bonuses and increases all along the way. Including the current joker, who announced he was leaving with less than a year on the job, before he even submitted this last contract offer to us....When I received my first paycheck from then Interstate Bakeries in 1999 it had a memo stapled to it. The memo announced that Wonder had just had the most productive quarter in baking history. It stated that the health of the company and brand had never been better. The break room was buzzing with excitement because our contract was soon to be up for renegotiation and this would surely mean smooth sailing. A few weeks later we got the 'oops' letter. Turns out it was all an 'accounting' error and the company was failing miserably.

Conveniently though, CEO Charles Sullivan and the board managed to sell their stock before word got out about the bad news. No jail time of course. In fact, Sullivan was brought back as a consultant after his resignation. ...The company of course used it's 'oops' letter to justify asking for concessions from the Union. We gave nothing and gained nothing that year after a 45 minute strike. The status quo continued and I proudly joined the middle class for the first time in my life. I made $14 an hour and had insurance. I even went on vacations for the first time. I had great pride in my job, and the products....In 2005 it was another contract year and this time there was no way out of concessions. The Union negotiated a deal that would save the company $150 million a year in labor. It was a tough internal battle to get people to vote for it. We turned it down twice. Finally the Union told us it was in our best interest and something had to give. So many of us, including myself, changed our votes and took the offer. Remember that next time you see CEO Rayburn on tv stating that we haven't sacrificed for this company. The company then emerged from bankruptcy. In 2005 before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. My pay changed dramatically but at least I was still contributing to my self-funded pension.

In July of 2011 we received a letter from the company. It said that the $3+ per hour that we as a Union contribute to the pension was going to be 'borrowed' by the company until they could be profitable again. Then they would pay it all back. The Union was notified of this the same time and method as the individual members. No contact from the company to the Union on a national level.

This money will never be paid back. The company filed for bankruptcy and the judge ruled that the $3+ per hour was a debt the company couldn't repay. The Union continued to work despite this theft of our self-funded pension contributions for over a year. I consider this money stolen. ...After securing our hourly cash from the bankruptcy judge they set out on getting approval to force a new contract on us. They had already refused to negotiate outside of court. They received approval from the judge to impose the contract then turned it over to the Union for a vote. You read that right, they got it approved by the judge before ever showing to the Union.

What was this last/best/final offer? You'd never know by watching the main stream media tell the story. So here you go...
1) 8% hourly pay cut in year 1 with additional cuts totaling 27% over 5 years. Currently, I make $16.12 an hour at TOP rate of pay in the bakery. I would drop to $11.26 in 5 years.
2) They get to keep our $3+ an hour forever.
3) Doubling of weekly insurance premium.
4) Lowering of overall quality of insurance plan.
5) TOTAL withdrawal from ALL pensions. If you don't have it now then you never will.

Remember how I said I made $48,000 in 2005 and $34,000 last year? I would make $25,000 in 5 years if I took their offer.
It will be hard to replace the job I had, but it will be easy to replace the job they were trying to give me.
That $3+ per hour they stole totaled $50 million last year that they never paid us. They sold $2.5 BILLION in product last year.

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2007 DL650A Whee! (SV cam transplant)

Manage the unavoidable.
Avoid the unmanageable.

Unless something changes the future.... at least for the middle class.... does not look very comforting. Thanks for posting.

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09 DL650abs, 03 DR650, 95 DR350

I grew up on Little Debbie... never really got into the Hostess thing. Those Nutty Bars were awesome.

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I'd be curious to see the rest of the balance sheet - like the company's costs for pension, retirement, health insurance, payroll, etc.

I was briefly a union member but my generation doesn't quite understand how promotion by virtue of longevity is efficient, productive, or a justification for restraint of trade (preferential government contracts for union businesses) is viable in a market-based economy. Likewise, tenure in the educational institutions defies logic and similarly seems to be a disincentive for initiative, innovation, and personal achievement.

I get it, up to a point: I hated my boss so I made myself useful and learned new skills and applied for a different job within the company - skills which I can also transfer to other companies/jobs. When I can no longer stomach the mission of the business or I get tired of giving up unpaid (salary) overtime weekends and nights to implement some wild-eyed grand vision of a project by the VP/GM who is spending time with his/her children or out on the golf course, then it’s time to take my 401k and find another job.

Yeah, really, I do ...



Sent from my iPhone using Motorcycle.com Free App

Fixed it for you...^^^

No disrespect intended toward the Workers and Families of Hostess, my thoughts go out to all of you!!!

__________________
2012 DL650A
2010 Triumph Speed Triple 1050
2003 SV1000S (track only)

Of course there is a chance that perhaps you were given some misinformation. Or perhaps both sides put a little spin on their position eh?

__________________
Joe S.
'12 Concours
'11 DL650
'10 Tiger1050
'01 HD FXD
'09 HD XR1200
'79 BMW R100

I thought I read President Lincoln abolished slavery. I guess no one told Hostess they weren't allowed to own their employees and they hid that emancipation news from their workforce.

That makes Hostess pretty evil in my book. Not letting their workforce know they were free to look for better employment elsewhere if they didn't like the terms they were getting from their current employer. Bad, bad Hostess. You're just pure evil putting profit (yuck) ahead of of staying in business. You should have been more altruistic like all the labor bosses.

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2012 XT1200Z Blue, 2012 XT1200Z Black