Hostess rips off workers pension

Lakhota

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Jul 14, 2011
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By Bonnie Kavoussi

Hostess Brands acknowledged for the first time in a news report Monday that the company diverted workers' pension money for other company uses.

The bankrupt baker told The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks, intended for their retirement funds, was used for company operations instead. Hostess, which was under different management at the time the diversions began in August 2011, said it does not know how much money it took.

"It's not a good situation to have," Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn told the WSJ.

"Whatever the circumstances were, whatever those decisions were, I wasn't there," Rayburn added. As the founder and owner of Kobi Partners, a restructuring advisory firm, Rayburn was appointed acting CEO in March 2012.

Hostess Brands, which filed for bankruptcy for a second time in January, started liquidating its operations in November after the bakers' union refused to take another pay cut and went on strike. The liquidation will leave about 18,000 workers without jobs.

More: Hostess Workers' Pension Money Diverted For Other Uses: Report
 
They should hire Elizabeth Warren for their defense.

A rep to the first person who explains why I said that.

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Of all the outrages Hostess has committed against its workers, this may take the cake. In August, 2011, the company just stopped contributing to its workers' pensions, and is now acknowledging that it instead used the money for operational expenses. The money that didn't go into pension funds was money that the workers had bargained for and chosen to take as pension instead of wages. But that doesn't mean there's anything they can do about it:

The maneuver probably doesn't violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn't come directly from employees, experts said.

"It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy," said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn't involved in the Hostess case. "It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately."​

CEO crooks screw the workers.

Pay attention Teabags. This is why we need sensible regulation.
 
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They kept the doors open. That was stupid. They should gave gone out of business then and canned all their asses.
 
Of all the outrages Hostess has committed against its workers, this may take the cake. In August, 2011, the company just stopped contributing to its workers' pensions, and is now acknowledging that it instead used the money for operational expenses. The money that didn't go into pension funds was money that the workers had bargained for and chosen to take as pension instead of wages. But that doesn't mean there's anything they can do about it:

The maneuver probably doesn't violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn't come directly from employees, experts said.

"It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy," said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn't involved in the Hostess case. "It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately."​

CEO crooks screw the workers.

Pay attention Teabags. This is why we need sensible regulation.

tissue?
 
They kept the doors open. That was stupid. They should gave gone out of business then and canned all their asses.


I guess I'm not surprised the obvious didn't occur to you.



Here's a better idea: FIRE THE INCOMPETENT CEOs



How bad is upper management when they run a major American brand like Twinkie into the ground? I mean, you'd have to be the worst businessmen in history to destroy this brand...

And they wanted a bonus!!
 
They kept the doors open. That was stupid. They should gave gone out of business then and canned all their asses.


I guess I'm not surprised the obvious didn't occur to you.



Here's a better idea: FIRE THE INCOMPETENT CEOs



How bad is upper management when they run a major American brand like Twinkie into the ground? I mean, you'd have to be the worst businessmen in history to destroy this brand...

And they wanted a bonus!!

AIG got bonuses, even after obama made a big deal of it:lol:


and while you are ruminating on that go check on the pension balances of SEIU's unions.....:rolleyes:
 
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Who Killed Hostess Brands and Twinkies?

Get better informed, TeaPods, it wasn't the Union.

Time for a reality check.

Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly, began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake. (100 calorie Twinkie Bites? When was the last time you entered Magnolia Bakery and asked about the calorie count?)

As if all this were not enough, Hostess Brands’ management gave themselves several raises, all the while complaining that the workers who actually produced the products that made the firm what money it did earn were grossly overpaid relative to the company’s increasingly dismal financial position.


Another example of CEO incompetence and greed devastating the middle class workers.
 
Greedy corporations and greedy unions causing mutual destruction. Idiots on both sides.
 
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The maneuver probably doesn't violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn't come directly from employees, experts said.

"It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy," said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn't involved in the Hostess case. "It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately." ~ Laura Clawson



And yet-----and yet some twinkie-ass judge approved Hostess' plan to give beaucoup bonuses to the executive team/thieves---WTF?



Mon Dec 10, 2012 at 01:39 PM PST​


Hostess took workers' pension money to fund itself


Hostess-Twinkies.jpg

Of all the outrages Hostess has committed against its workers, this may take the cake. In August, 2011, the company just stopped contributing to its workers' pensions, and is now acknowledging that it instead used the money for operational expenses. The money that didn't go into pension funds was money that the workers had bargained for and chosen to take as pension instead of wages. But that doesn't mean there's anything they can do about it:
The maneuver probably doesn't violate federal law because the money Hostess failed to put into the pension didn't come directly from employees, experts said.
"It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy," said James P. Baker, a partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP who specializes in employee benefits and isn't involved in the Hostess case. "It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately."
It's a little more than sad. It's infuriating, at a minimum. And the fact that "that stuff does happen" as often as it does is a sign of a diseased economy.
This was how these workers were saving for their retirement over decades at Hostess. They were being responsible, planning and saving like we're told we should all do, making that decision at a local level as they bargained their contracts:
For example, John Jordan, a union official and former Hostess employee, said workers at a Hostess factory in Biddeford, Maine, agreed to plow 28 cents of their 30-cents-an-hour wage increase in November 2010 into the pension plan.
Hostess was supposed to take the additional 28 cents an hour and contribute it to the workers' pension plan.

"This local was very aggressive about saving for the future," he said.
And in the end, Hostess was very aggressive about stealing those savings, hour by hour, from the workers. While there may not be a remedy because the 28 cents an hour didn't first go to the workers and then into the pension fund, morally, it's no less stealing, adding up to tens of millions of dollars.

<snip>

You do not want to be the next person to say in my hearing that Hostess went bankrupt because of those greedy union workers.

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So, has anyone here ever run a company with a union work force? Responsible for meeting a payroll? How about representing a company during contract negotiations? Apparently there are several here that have extensive business experience and all the answers, bring it on.
 

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