Say goodbye to Twinkies
Well I guess there's no arguing with that. You're talking about who was at fault for leaving the barn door open. I'm talking about what are you going to do now that the horse is speeding away.
No, I'm not. You're assuming these striking workers just unwittingly and greedily decided to strike without thinking about their future. Seriously, you're naive if you think these people haven't contemplated this move. You've known about this for about a day now and now you talk as if you have deeply considered how this is going to effect these people over the long term more than the people themselves. The striking workers know better than all of us what predicament Hostess was in. They made the decision to push Hostess to this point. I think its incredibly arrogant of you to think you understand the decision better than the workers that have been mulling over this.
But without even a second glance, you've decided that 92% of their pay is enough to continue. I'm curious as to what number would it have taken for you to think the strikers were justified? 90, 80, 70%? 50% is still better than nothing?
Honestly, you all are making determinations of these people's worth independently of knowing what the market dictates their worth would be given that they worked for a healthy company.
Hostess has plenty of competitors in the market place. Many of them were named in this thread. Your comment seems to imply that you excpect some other company to come in buy everything Hostess has, walk right in the next day and turn it all on with all these people getting their jobs back.
I don't see that happening and, even in the remote chance that it will happen like that, it isn't going to happen for quite some time.
More like of the scenarios is that a number of companies come in a buy up Hostess' machinery, recipes, etc. When people are buying things off piecemeal like that, they are unlikely to be restarting the factories.
I don't expect another company to come in and open the factory. Really? Stop patronizing me. I expect Hostess' share of the market to go elsewhere. I expect other companies to grab at that market share. I expect other companies to expand to meet the demand created by the void left when a company of 18,000 employees shut its doors.
The employees probably figured out that as long as Hostess is operating (meanwhile paying its employees 8% less), other bakery companies likely do not have as many openings because the market remains unchanged. The employees pushed Hostess to pay them, hire replacement, or close its doors. They turned down the last deal Hostess offered forcing the company to close its doors. I have a hard time believing that the employees didn't see this as an option. They were striking! They knew that they weren't getting paid. They knew the history of the company. They had to know what the alternative was going to be. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. They looked at how managment had been running the company and realized that unless Hostess dramatically changed its positions, the workers would be better off on strike. The evidence that they are likely right is overwhelming. Hostess closed its doors instead of hiring replacements. That doesn't send off alarms to you? They couldn't hire replacements at the wages they were offering, or worse still, couldn't afford to hire replacements.
Whats with this stance of keeping terribly run business open at all costs mentality? Let them die and let a better business enter the market or claim the market share.