More than 15,000 workers will be out of a job after Twinkie maker Hostess received permission from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin the liquidation process.
More than 15,000 workers will be out of a job after Twinkie maker Hostess received permission from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin the liquidation process.
“Roughly 15,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs immediately, and most of the remaining 3,200 would be let go within four months,” says a Reuters report.
The remaining 3,200 staff will work on selling the remaining assets, which include 30 brands (Twinkie and Wonderbread among them) and 36 plants, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The decision followed a last-ditch attempt at mediation with members of the striking bakers union.
The strike was mainly over imposed pay cuts for union members, which Hostess said were needed as sales slumped.
But, can the union be blamed for its own demise? Maybe, writes Mark Hendrickson at Forbes: “The money for the compensation that the bakery union wanted simply wasn’t there,” he writes, before going on to compare the situation at Hostess to the situation in Washington.
“Maybe, just maybe, it will dawn on Americans that the same stubborn and ultimately destructive denial of reality that brought down Hostess and possibly killed the innocent Twinkie is the same willful madness that we see in Washington, where ALF-CIO boss Richard Trumka flatly opposes government spending cuts and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuses even to consider Social Security reform.”