Goodbye Hostess - Hello Little Debbie Cloud cakes and a much better company

[scootrd]

Excerpts....


American business in the TwentyFirst Century is NOT about job creation.  It's not about employer-employee symbiotic relationships and mutual respect.  Twenty-first  Century American business is all about the rich and powerful screwing over the less rich and not powerful to squeeze out all the money they can to make themselves richer at the expense of everyone else. 
While the Ripplewood honchos in charge of Hostess were demanding a new round of deep cuts in workers’ pay, health care, and pensions, they quietly jacked up their own pay. By a lot! The CEO’s paycheck, for example, rocketed from $750,000 a year to $2.5 million.
So, the Twinkie is dead, not because of The Unions as so many conservative-leaning "job creator" liars would want you to believe.  The Hostess Company was executed on the Alter of Greed by the Gordon Gekkos of Vulture Capitalism.
_____________________________________________________________________________


But all companies in America are not like that. In fact, there is at least one company, that makes a product almost exactly like The Twinkie and nearly the full line of other Hostess snack products, and they can do it while respecting their employees at the same time as they make and sell their products. That company is The McKee Company, maker of, among other things, Little Debbie Cloud Cakes which are exactly like Twinkies in almost every respect.


The McKee Family Statement
The McKee family acknowledges the providence of God in our continued success. We plan to remain privately owned, to continue our growth, and to give job security to those who work with us.
The McKee Company Mission Statement
We take pride in working together to provide great-tasting snack foods of outstanding value to delight customers throughout all of North America.
Vision Statement
To be the preeminent privately owned snack-food company in North America where employees:
 

• Know they are valued.
• Are trusted to make decisions.
• Enjoy their work.
• Strive for personal growth.
• Work together as a team.

and then there is this....
 

The McKee family is deeply committed to the company’s employees, and each year all eligible full-time and part-time employees receive a share of the company's profits.

They live the belief that A Better Way … Begins with Me and expect it to be applied at every level of our organization. Our history of family ownership is one significant way we’re different from so many companies doing business today.
Rest In Peace Hostess and Twinkies!  Rest In Peace!  Your company and your products are dead.  The Vulture Capitalists have picked your bones clean.  There is nothing left to salvage.  The Hostess Company is gone.  Twinkie The Kid is Dead.  Let him rest in peace.


and welcome Little Debbie , a much better company anyways!!!




full article here - http://bruce-1628250.newsvine.com/_news/2012/12/02/15622906-goodbye-twinkies-hello-cloud-cakes-its-all-about-corporate-integrity-not-junk-food-video-live-poll

[Conan The Librarian]

Twenty-first  Century American business is all about the rich and powerful screwing over the less rich and not powerful to squeeze out all the money they can to make themselves richer at the expense of everyone else. 

 
I don't see how that is any different from 18th, 19th, or 20th century business.

[SHOOTALL]

You may wish to reconsider your post as I know only two people that worked with the little debbie product. One everytime he built his route up where he could make a good living the company would take part away . The last time it upset him so much he had a heart attack. The other had health issues so they found a way to get rid of him.

[BUGEYE]

Excerpts from what?

[scootrd]

Excerpts from what?

link at bottom of OP

Not a valid youtube URL

[BUGEYE]

Excerpts from what?

link at bottom of OP

Not a valid youtube URL

I prefer 1st hand accounts.
my career was with a great company (non-union).

[Cuts Crooked]

Hmmm? I didn't see any mention of Lil Debbie "Union employees" and I know the age old "profit sharing" routine.......make em think they got a stake and they'll work harder.

[scootrd]

Hmmm? I didn't see any mention of Lil Debbie "Union employees" and I know the age old "profit sharing" routine.......make em think they got a stake and they'll work harder.

Don't LEO's have a unions?. (I believe you mentioned at one time you were an LEO).
IUPA. NAPO, PBA, FOP probably just to name a few ....

You seem to bring unions up a lot in your posts.
Companies that treat workers right usually don't require a union.  Companies that don't open the door to unions to come in and try and protect workers rights from unethical Mgmt practices. Unions go where needed when a majority of workers want union representation.
 

Semper Fi

[mechanic]

The CEO who took over to lead them out of (2nd) bankruptcy, cut all executive salaries to $1.00, to be restored the following year.  Unions were requested to make wage concessions so the company could continue to maintain the pension plans, which had become the main obstacle to growth.  Like many companies, they had agreed to union demands over the years, that left them with no means to meet obligations after the economic downturn.
 
You will note the same happened to GM, after it was aquired by the govenment. 
 
Ben

[scootrd]

The CEO who took over to lead them out of (2nd) bankruptcy, cut all executive salaries to $1.00, to be restored the following year.  Unions were requested to make wage concessions so the company could continue to maintain the pension plans, which had become the main obstacle to growth.  Like many companies, they had agreed to union demands over the years, that left them with no means to meet obligations after the economic downturn.
 
You will note the same happened to GM, after it was aquired by the govenment. 
 
Ben

He reduced their salaries to offset the massive bonuses they didn't deserve.

After failed Twinkies-maker Hostess filed for bankruptcy in November, acting chief executive Gregory Rayburn imposed an 8 percent across-the-board pay cut on the company’s workers. Despite those cuts, Rayburn, who took the company over after its second bankruptcy filing in March, will not be subject to the pay cut because he is not technically a company employee, the Huffington Post’s Bonnie Kavoussi reports:

Though he imposed an 8 percent pay cut for all Hostess workers, Gregory Rayburn’s monthly $125,000 pay — or $1.5 million a year — will remain unchanged, a company spokesman told The Huffington Post on Monday. Rayburn is not on the Hostess payroll and therefore isn’t subject to the imposed pay cut, the spokesman explained.

Earlier this year, Hostess’ former CEO received a pay increase from $750,000 to nearly $2.5 million even as the company was struggling. The pay package was later reduced to $1.5 million, and Rayburn reduced the salaries of four other senior executives who received bonuses to just $1 until the company emerges from bankruptcy, according to a company spokesperson. Four other executives who received raises, the spokesperson said, had their salaries reduced to pre-raise levels.

Still, the company asked a judge to approve $1.75 million in bonuses for 19 executives after it filed for bankruptcy in November. The judge approved the bonuses this week, making Hostess the latest company to dole out big pay packages to executives even as their firms were failing.

gotta love the corporate reward system. Lets reward leaders based on poor performance at the helm.

Thats the way ya do it. Money for nothing and your chicks for free.

[Cuts Crooked]

Hmmm? I didn't see any mention of Lil Debbie "Union employees" and I know the age old "profit sharing" routine.......make em think they got a stake and they'll work harder.

Don't LEO's have a unions?. (I believe you mentioned at one time you were an LEO).
IUPA. NAPO, PBA, FOP probably just to name a few ....

You seem to bring unions up a lot in your posts.
Companies that treat workers right usually don't require a union.  Companies that don't open the door to unions to come in and try and protect workers rights from unethical Mgmt practices. Unions go where needed when a majority of workers want union representation.
 

Semper Fi

Yes they do Scooter. And I'm not a member. You also seem to bring up a lot about unions, mostly trying to defend them.....I'm not asking YOU to justify that. 

Again, I see no mention of the Lil Debbie union anywhere....wonder why?

[scootrd]

Hmmm? I didn't see any mention of Lil Debbie "Union employees" and I know the age old "profit sharing" routine.......make em think they got a stake and they'll work harder.

Don't LEO's have a unions?. (I believe you mentioned at one time you were an LEO).
IUPA. NAPO, PBA, FOP probably just to name a few ....

You seem to bring unions up a lot in your posts.
Companies that treat workers right usually don't require a union.  Companies that don't open the door to unions to come in and try and protect workers rights from unethical Mgmt practices. Unions go where needed when a majority of workers want union representation.
 

Semper Fi

Yes they do Scooter. And I'm not a member. You also seem to bring up a lot about unions, mostly trying to defend them.....I'm not asking YOU to justify that. 

Yep your not a member , pay no dues , but benefit personally from them representing your brethren.
When they help implement positive changes you benefit. Money for nothing , and your chicks for free.

Again, I see no mention of the Lil Debbie union anywhere....wonder why?

Because they appear to be very christian in their business approach towards treatment of employees.
Ie: when company does well , all do well.

VS the hostess approach and most other corps approach nowadays. Non christian , low wages , when company does well , squeeze labor and award only top execs.

That would be my guess. 

[Cuts Crooked]

Yep your not a member , pay no dues , but benefit personally from them representing your brethren.
When they help implement positive changes you benefit. Money for nothing , and your chicks for free. 

ROFLMDO!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only union available to me is AFGE!  You do know who they supported for President, and what he did to them afterwards, don't you? Then tell me why I should pay them, only to get #%&*ed by their politics and lousy representation? They are powerless, not having right to use the ultimate tool of the unions. And when the government says they are going to cut our wages, what exactly do you think they will do?

[SHOOTALL]

how about the people not working due to unions causing shops to close ?

[scootrd]

Yep your not a member , pay no dues , but benefit personally from them representing your brethren.
When they help implement positive changes you benefit. Money for nothing , and your chicks for free. 

ROFLMDO!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only union available to me is AFGE!  You do know who they supported for President, and what he did to them afterwards, don't you? Then tell me why I should pay them, only to get #%&*ed by their politics and lousy representation? They are powerless, not having right to use the ultimate tool of the unions. And when the government says they are going to cut our wages, what exactly do you think they will do?

So are you LEO or GS ? or LEO working for Feds? Just curious. Share if you want

[Cuts Crooked]

I'm a LEO who works for the fed.

[scootrd]

I'm a LEO who works for the fed.

Suffice to say you and I will always disagree about the need for unions anytime corps are operating unethically That's ok.

But I am also of the opinion until corps clean up their act, stop tax dodging and screwing the American tax payer and workers by unethical means there will always be a need for unions and I will always stand on the side of labor when their grievances and their requests are just.

I am not anti corp and I have no problem with corps who play by the rules and operate ethically.
But the fact is - in 2012 it's out of control

True tax reform would be a good start.

JMHO - Others Mileage may vary

Semper Fi

[BUGEYE]

Unions go where needed when a majority of workers want union representation.
 

Hogwash.  delta airlines had better benefits and higher pay than all the union airlines.
delta made profits while the rest of them were going bankrupt and reorganizing or going out of business.
hardly anyone there wanted a union but they kept on trying to get us to vote them in where they were not wanted or needed.
they started offering food at their pitches to the employees, so a bunch of guys would show up, eat all their food, and leave.
the union saw delta as a large group of people who were potential dues payers, nothing more.

[Cuts Crooked]

Suffice to say you and I will always disagree about the need for unions anytime corps are operating unethically That's ok.

Semper Fi

Understood.

Before I got into the law enforcement trade I worked for a few corporations in my day. The best of them to work for were non union shops. And they are still in business 30 years later. The union shops I worked for are.......well.....they don't exist anymore.

[Conan The Librarian]

Ditto. I work in a building that used to house a union shop. Very powerful union and major company too. Now both the union and the company are gone.

[Conan The Librarian]

Here's an update of the numbers:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
 
In the cases I've dealt with the reasons for decline had nothing to do with management per se. They were related to business climate. One company couldn't compete in a global market because of their burdens, so they reorg'ed and are now competitive again. Another company was about to become unionized so they closed all operations in that state permanently. Some Minnesota school districts don't have enough money in their pension plans to pay the pensioners. Going farther back, I remember the collapse of the railroads in the north east and how everyone was screwed out of their pensions.

[Conan The Librarian]

I agree with you on that.  But they're not doing it because they're evil. They're doing it because they have to to keep the company alive.
 
I remember several years ago a family business that made high quality fishing rods. They looked at the competition and the business landscape and they ended up firing all of their workers in the US and now get rods of the same or better quality, shipped, for one third the cost. There's no getting away from that kind of reality.
 
It's already happened in the service sector too. You may not have heard of Phillippine labor, but American workers are simply not able to compete with them in a lot of areas. Unlike Indians, for example, they are highly Americanized, and projects tend to get done right.