Twinkies Return, Hostess Unions Won't

[Eek_the_cook]

Rumpelstiltskin IX

Dude. Hostess puts, what, billions (true - I should have just said "metric shitton" wink 18,000 of people out of work during a recession after exploiting them every way possible, and declares bankruptcy to union bust (which is ILLEGAL, by the way), thus declaring this a perfectly reasonable way for corporations to counter employees demanding living wages and schedules that don't consume your whole damned life at their whim... and you guys actually buy this s**t? All while riding out on a massive profit due to stock finagling, while their employees, who couldn't make it without tax payer support due to the exploitative practices, are still in the ditch?

Come on. I know there's got to be some sane people here.

I'm boycotting.

Edit: 18,000.

Yep. Little Debbie Cakes taste better anyway.

Thank you for being one of, like, two people pointing out the union busting wrongness of all of this instead of going all " 4laugh OMG TWINKIES!!! 4laugh "

[Commander Sigma]

Ratttking

Super Fightin Prototype

Ratttking

Super Fightin Prototype

I can't think of any domestic examples but given the cost of ingredients are constantly changing, I'm sure it is happening. My mother used to love Tasty Kakes and now she won't touch the stuff, but I don't think the manufacturer has changed within the last decade so it was simply an issue of the recipe changing rather than a recipe change as a result of switching companies.

The last major change I noticed in Tastykakes was when they switched from wax paper wrapping to plastic. I think it was for the better, because it made them taste fresher. If they also changed the recipe...well, I still like them better now. Except didn't Jelly Krimpets used to be bigger?

I don't know - my mom bought the Butterscotch Krimpets and the chocolate muffins with the cream filling and white frosting with a brown stripe on 'em. Wouldn't surprise me if they made the Jelly Krimpets smaller though since lately a lot of companies have been either making their products smaller or making them smaller while simultaneously increasing the price.

If the only real difference is that it tastes fresher, she might just have bad taste in junk food, heh.

LOL. Back in the day, the chocolate cupcakes were very... firm within a few days of buying the box, and you could have chipped your teeth on the week-old frosting.

Yeah, it sucks that companies both raise the price and make the serving smaller. Sometimes I wondered how they could manage to keep the same amount at the same price for so long though.

Oh wow I don't think I remember that. Maybe my mom consumed them too quickly, though - she's a pretty notorious binge eater. gonk

[Pessimist]

Eek_the_cook

OtakuJeannie

Poor workers, screwed over one last time while management still has their golden parachutes.

As seen here

But let's cheer the sweets and ignore the bigger story.

I am so relieved someone said that.

And so depressed it took until page two.

Oh my cupcakes, people are talking about food rather then the injustices of life that they can't control. Call the cops, this generation's clearly wrecked. All you twinkie-eaters should feel unspeakable shame because we aren't discussing how people are sadly out of work and how much that sucks. Don't you all feel terrible now?

Little Debbies are totes better, anyways*. cool


*Little Debbies may not actually be any better, but Pess wanted to make a really controversial post.

[Opera Phantomess]

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

I could care less, honestly. Most of the ingredients used to make these prepackaged pastries are chemically processed to the point where they inhibit normal bodily function and are known to cause mental disabilities, cancer, organ failures, cell destruction, brain deterioration, and so much more. If you have a very difficult time saying the name of an ingredient and are looking at a list of ingredients so large that you need a microscope to read the words, then it is no longer food and is just pure poison.

Besides, I can make homemade "Twinkies" with a tiny handful of vegetarian ingredients and it still will taste a crap load better.

As for the worker issue, I feel bad for anyone that will now be employed under the mother company. Just look at Walmart for how poorly those employees are paid and treated, not even considering what it is like working under conditions that mirror what goes on in other countries like China.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

[Rumpelstiltskin IX]

Eek_the_cook

Rumpelstiltskin IX

Dude. Hostess puts, what, billions (true - I should have just said "metric shitton" wink 18,000 of people out of work during a recession after exploiting them every way possible, and declares bankruptcy to union bust (which is ILLEGAL, by the way), thus declaring this a perfectly reasonable way for corporations to counter employees demanding living wages and schedules that don't consume your whole damned life at their whim... and you guys actually buy this s**t? All while riding out on a massive profit due to stock finagling, while their employees, who couldn't make it without tax payer support due to the exploitative practices, are still in the ditch?

Come on. I know there's got to be some sane people here.

I'm boycotting.

Edit: 18,000.

Yep. Little Debbie Cakes taste better anyway.

Thank you for being one of, like, two people pointing out the union busting wrongness of all of this instead of going all " 4laugh OMG TWINKIES!!! 4laugh "

Eh, there's a good chance the majority of people reading this thread haven't really ever had to think about the wider scale yet.

And/or haven't discovered how to cook. (WARNING: food porn.)

[Rumpelstiltskin IX]

Opera Phantomess

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

I could care less, honestly. Most of the ingredients used to make these prepackaged pastries are chemically processed to the point where they inhibit normal bodily function and are known to cause mental disabilities, cancer, organ failures, cell destruction, brain deterioration, and so much more. If you have a very difficult time saying the name of an ingredient and are looking at a list of ingredients so large that you need a microscope to read the words, then it is no longer food and is just pure poison.

Besides, I can make homemade "Twinkies" with a tiny handful of vegetarian ingredients and it still will taste a crap load better.

As for the worker issue, I feel bad for anyone that will now be employed under the mother company. Just look at Walmart for how poorly those employees are paid and treated, not even considering what it is like working under conditions that mirror what goes on in other countries like China.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

Hear hear!

[VirginianRanger]

kay_elizabeth_marie

VirginianRanger

YAY!!! Love Twinkies!! Good to see them come back and glad to know the bakers that brought about their temporary demise won't be back.

not allot are aware of this or probably don't care but I'm gonna say it anyway.hostess was owned by hedge funds that wanted to get bankrupt and get rid of the union so they could sell whatever was left for millions of dollars . the hedge funds also stole all their worker's pensions ,over a 108 million dollars were stolen from the workers.And you wonder why they were on strike...
The media didn't do a good job covering that part.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/03/1176039/-Hostess-Union-Workers-Streaming-Interview-Tonight-at-6pm

Actually, the media did what the media always does: tell one side of the story and the facts be damned. Hostess was losing money, that was no secret. The "hedge fund" that took over had to trim back some expenditures. The economy wasn't as rosey as the media made it out to be back then. The minority of hold-outs that ultimately put Hostess out of business were demanding more money and benefits for less work. We're not talking about coal miners here. These are guys that make and ship pastries. Even the Teamsters agreed the package proposed to the workers prior to the company folding was a great deal, and the Teamsters are notorious for getting not just a slice of the pie but the whole thing and the plate, too! Sorry, but I don't feel any sympathy for those few people that put all those other people(and their families) on the unemployment lines. It was an "all or nothing" kind of deal; all the workers had to agree to it. No hold outs. They knew it and look where it got them. But that's ok, because you know what the say about Karma?

[Eek_the_cook]

Pessimist

Oh my cupcakes, people are talking about food rather then the injustices of life that they can't control. Call the cops, this generation's clearly wrecked. All you twinkie-eaters should feel unspeakable shame because we aren't discussing how people are sadly out of work and how much that sucks. Don't you all feel terrible now?

I realize you're probably young, but this is a news forum, and the big news in that article was not that Twinkies are coming back, but that the bankruptcy had a union busting effect. The Hostess workers were already just barely getting by after making concessions to keep Hostess in business. The additional concessions Hostess was asking of them would have made their wages unlivable.

All so y'all could keep eating your snack cakes?

And there is something you can do.

Don't buy Twinkies. It's called a boycott. And they've been known to work.

Simple as that. Buy snack cakes made by people paid a fair wage, or just make your own. It's not like it's difficult.

[Commander Sigma]

Eek_the_cook

Pessimist

Oh my cupcakes, people are talking about food rather then the injustices of life that they can't control. Call the cops, this generation's clearly wrecked. All you twinkie-eaters should feel unspeakable shame because we aren't discussing how people are sadly out of work and how much that sucks. Don't you all feel terrible now?

I realize you're probably young, but this is a news forum, and the big news in that article was not that Twinkies are coming back, but that the bankruptcy had a union busting effect. The Hostess workers were already just barely getting by after making concessions to keep Hostess in business. The additional concessions Hostess was asking of them would have made their wages unlivable.

All so y'all could keep eating your snack cakes?

And there is something you can do.

Don't buy Twinkies. It's called a boycott. And they've been known to work.

Simple as that. Buy snack cakes made by people paid a fair wage, or just make your own. It's not like it's difficult.

I thought boycotts usually _don't_ work because the people boycotting usually can't get enough people to agree or even care about the cause. It might work for small companies but not for behemoth outfits like say, Wal Mart.

[Commander Sigma]

Opera Phantomess

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

I could care less, honestly. Most of the ingredients used to make these prepackaged pastries are chemically processed to the point where they inhibit normal bodily function and are known to cause mental disabilities, cancer, organ failures, cell destruction, brain deterioration, and so much more. If you have a very difficult time saying the name of an ingredient and are looking at a list of ingredients so large that you need a microscope to read the words, then it is no longer food and is just pure poison.

Besides, I can make homemade "Twinkies" with a tiny handful of vegetarian ingredients and it still will taste a crap load better.

As for the worker issue, I feel bad for anyone that will now be employed under the mother company. Just look at Walmart for how poorly those employees are paid and treated, not even considering what it is like working under conditions that mirror what goes on in other countries like China.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

That's not really true. Everything is made up of chemicals - ever heard the dihydrogen monoxide joke? What matters is what said chemicals do to our body.

Plus there are some chemicals that have "real names" in addition to the names commonly used in the industry. In some places, Sodium Benzoate is referred to as Sodium Benzoic Acid or Benzoate of Soda. The last one sounds the most benign but all three of them are the same compound.

I hope I didn't misinterpret what you said too harshly. There have been a couple of brands that use the "no chemical names you can't pronounce" as part of their marketing campaign and it drives me crazy just as much as ambiguous use of the word 'toxins' and its related ilk.

[Pessimist]

Eek_the_cook

Pessimist

Oh my cupcakes, people are talking about food rather then the injustices of life that they can't control. Call the cops, this generation's clearly wrecked. All you twinkie-eaters should feel unspeakable shame because we aren't discussing how people are sadly out of work and how much that sucks. Don't you all feel terrible now?

I realize you're probably young, but this is a news forum, and the big news in that article was not that Twinkies are coming back, but that the bankruptcy had a union busting effect. The Hostess workers were already just barely getting by after making concessions to keep Hostess in business. The additional concessions Hostess was asking of them would have made their wages unlivable.

All so y'all could keep eating your snack cakes?

And there is something you can do.

Don't buy Twinkies. It's called a boycott. And they've been known to work.

Simple as that. Buy snack cakes made by people paid a fair wage, or just make your own. It's not like it's difficult.

I'm sorry, are you attempting to bring up my age in an attempt to be... condescending? Ow. I can just feel that burn.

And, yep, boycotts totally work. That's why Chick-Fil-A and Oreos are out of business.

[Eek_the_cook]

Pessimist

I'm sorry, are you attempting to bring up my age in an attempt to be... condescending? Ow. I can just feel that burn.

And, yep, boycotts totally work. That's why Chick-Fil-A and Oreos are out of business.

Not to be condescending, no. I bring up your age because it actually excuses your flippant and shallow sarcasm to a degree and explains why I'm bothering to answer rather than ignoring you.

Chick-Fil-A, I will point out, did change some of its donation practices under pressure of boycott and bad publicity. Coors, as well, changed its practices after a 90s boycott. They were infamous for their anti-gay activity; now they sponsor gay events and have a 100% rating on the corporate equality index. Not every boycott works, but some do. Some are only boycotts of conscience. Some boycotts are easily shrugged off, like the recent anti-gay boycott of the Disney company.

The union boycott and picketing of Fresh & Easy played a large role in driving Tesco out of the American market, though it did not shut down the F&E chain (yet).

My point in all of this was, and is, that I find it sad, in a news forum, when people are gushing over the return of snack cakes that cost 18,000 people their jobs with benefits. You all have your right to gush over Twinkies. I have my right to find the whole thing rather depressing.

[Opera Phantomess]

Super Fightin Prototype

Opera Phantomess

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

I could care less, honestly. Most of the ingredients used to make these prepackaged pastries are chemically processed to the point where they inhibit normal bodily function and are known to cause mental disabilities, cancer, organ failures, cell destruction, brain deterioration, and so much more. If you have a very difficult time saying the name of an ingredient and are looking at a list of ingredients so large that you need a microscope to read the words, then it is no longer food and is just pure poison.

Besides, I can make homemade "Twinkies" with a tiny handful of vegetarian ingredients and it still will taste a crap load better.

As for the worker issue, I feel bad for anyone that will now be employed under the mother company. Just look at Walmart for how poorly those employees are paid and treated, not even considering what it is like working under conditions that mirror what goes on in other countries like China.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

That's not really true. Everything is made up of chemicals - ever heard the dihydrogen monoxide joke? What matters is what said chemicals do to our body.

Plus there are some chemicals that have "real names" in addition to the names commonly used in the industry. In some places, Sodium Benzoate is referred to as Sodium Benzoic Acid or Benzoate of Soda. The last one sounds the most benign but all three of them are the same compound.

I hope I didn't misinterpret what you said too harshly. There have been a couple of brands that use the "no chemical names you can't pronounce" as part of their marketing campaign and it drives me crazy just as much as ambiguous use of the word 'toxins' and its related ilk.

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

When I say chemicals, I mean the chemicals that are not found naturally and have to produced through multiple processes in a laboratory, like High Fructose Corn Syrup, Aspartame, and the ones that leave you so tongue tied you just quit attempting to pronounce them.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

[Commander Sigma]

Opera Phantomess

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade. Masquerade!

When I say chemicals, I mean the chemicals that are not found naturally and have to produced through multiple processes in a laboratory, like High Fructose Corn Syrup, Aspartame, and the ones that leave you so tongue tied you just quit attempting to pronounce them.

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

Oh all right, that makes more sense now.