No more Twinkies or wonderbread?

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Unions certainly arn't perfect but if we didn't have them (or the threat of them) we would still be putting kids up chimneys.

Entirely depends on the job. For highly skilled workers there's simply a price for labour that's well above subsistance. For low skilled work (which I believe these bakers fall under the purview of), then there's definately a reason to be unionized to keep from being exploited.

If you were running the numbers for Hostess, labour is simply a cost of production where the more or less you pay people, the impact on productivity and the end product is negligible, hence the incentive to drive down costs, hence potential for worker exploitation. The problem most people have with unions is that a good lot of them are run by idiots and their activities end up distorting and displacing investment (Afterall if they knew better how to run a business and make Hostess profitable then wouldn't they be working in management making the big bucks and not the union?). At the end of the day in certain times and places they can have a positive impact.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by valo403

They've agreed to mediation, so those jobs might not be gone.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,2355592.story

The U.S. Trustee, an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice who oversees bankruptcy cases, said in court documents it is opposed to the wind-down plan because Hostess plans improper bonuses to company insiders.

This makes it look like that the company insiders have an agenda that the company does go bankrupt.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

This makes it look like that the company insiders have an agenda that the company does go bankrupt.

I don't think that's surprising to anyone. They can probably find numbers that work to keep the company alive, but they can find better numbers by spinning the whole thing off.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

With the increase in parody of the Canadian dollar to the US dollar

I don't find there to be much parody between the Canadian and US Dollar.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I don't find there to be much parody between the Canadian and US Dollar.

I like the loony, it appeals to my sense of humour but isn't it a bit of a parody, especially when it was worth 65 cents?

[Ice]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Unions certainly arn't perfect but if we didn't have them (or the threat of them) we would still be putting kids up chimneys.

Wrong. There are employment laws that prevent abuse of minors and all legal employees. Unions have morphed in to groups of people lead to believe the six figure earning leaders will do what is best for the membership. Like when these leaders collect their paychecks while at the same time convincing their membership that being out of work for five months to save 15.00 per paycheck on increased medical premiums is best for them. Unions have power because membership doesn't question their leaders but keeps giving them money. I'm constantly amazed at what I hear from union people while they are working age and how they change their opinion upon retirement.

[Montana Moe]

Curious, how/why do you think those employment laws came to be?

As others have said, all unions are not created equal. To say that my union doesn't question their leadership is simply untrue. Lumping unions into one big blood sucking entity is like saying that all corporations are evil, neither is necessarily the case.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Well the workers agreed to an all for one, one for all system. Maybe it didn't work out this one time, so it's news but if you check your history, it works way more than not.

Well, now all they need to do is find the nearest cruiser ship to shoot a signal from, and it will work 100 % of the time, everytime.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Montana Moe

Curious, how/why do you think those employment laws came to be?

As others have said, all unions are not created equal. To say that my union doesn't question their leadership is simply untrue. Lumping unions into one big blood sucking entity is like saying that all corporations are evil, neither is necessarily the case.

Unions breed fear and intimidation that curbs the questioning of the leadership. Back in 1997 Calgary Safeway workers went on strike. A week into the strike a gal on the negotiating comittee went to all the picket lines telling workers they wouldn't get a better deal from the company. Another vote was held and workers decided to continue the strike. She ended up crossing the picket line and went back to work. The response of the union leadership was to oragnise a rally at the store she worked at. A memo was sent to all picket captains to get thier members to show up for this. It was an attempt to intimidate her to come back to the picket line. Thankfully she stood her ground. She was also right as the workers accepted the same deal they were offered 2 1/2 monts earlier.

[Byrns]

^^^It wasn't the same deal, but not much better.... (Ex Safeway Employee, and I never heard this story while I was out on strike)

I spent my time on the picket line bbqing and studying, so I didn't care. But the lifers suffered.

[Montana Moe]

Originally Posted by Dion

Unions breed fear and intimidation that curbs the questioning of the leadership. Back in 1997 Calgary Safeway workers went on strike. A week into the strike a gal on the negotiating comittee went to all the picket lines telling workers they wouldn't get a better deal from the company. Another vote was held and workers decided to continue the strike. She ended up crossing the picket line and went back to work. The response of the union leadership was to oragnise a rally at the store she worked at. A memo was sent to all picket captains to get thier members to show up for this. It was an attempt to intimidate her to come back to the picket line. Thankfully she stood her ground. She was also right as the workers accepted the same deal they were offered 2 1/2 monts earlier.

OK. So in your estimation, that's how they ALL are?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Byrns

^^^It wasn't the same deal, but not much better.... (Ex Safeway Employee, and I never heard this story while I was out on strike)

I spent my time on the picket line bbqing and studying, so I didn't care. But the lifers suffered.

I'm surprised you didn't hear the story. From what I heard that huge rally happened at a store in the SW. I knew the gal on the negotiating comittee as she used to work in the store I worked at (Southcentre). There was also an incident at my store where picketers surrounded an old gals car and started to rock it back and forth. Said gal had come to pick up a perscription and was scared half to death after that incident. IIRC it made the news also.

I had a friend who crossed on day one and would toss quarters at the picketers who were taunting him when he left work. He was hoping someone would try to start a fight as he had a black belt in karate.

I was one of the lifers. I thought the strike was an insanely stupid idea as we were very well paid for what we did. I ended up working with a friend of the family while the strike went on and took a little vacation. Quit a year afterwards.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Montana Moe

OK. So in your estimation, that's how they ALL are?

When it comes to strikes, yes. Fear, intimidation and vandalism pretty much go hand in hand.

[afc wimbledon]

Management tends to get the union it deserves in my experiance, I was a BCGEU shop steward in a non profit agency with good managers who we cooperated with us in order to keep things running smothly, the executive director was of the opinion that the union was an essential part of management and we pretty well handled all of the details when it came to explaning the CBA to members etc.
Same union at a local goverment institution where the managers were little short of stone age endlessly looking to catch workers out and give them grief, generally for no appreciable reason I could see, union and management never cooperated and the place was endlessly caught up in labor unrest.

The basis of Germanys excellent productivity has always been its cooperative approach to union management, it embraced full unionised industries after ww2

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Dion

I was one of the lifers. I thought the strike was an insanely stupid idea as we were very well paid for what we did. I ended up working with a friend of the family while the strike went on and took a little vacation. Quit a year afterwards.

I worked at Safeway from 2001-2006 as I went to High School and University. I started at courtesy clerk and worked my way to cashier and then to customer service supervisor. While I was there, the CBA went up for renewal and we had to vote on the company's offer. I remembered how the lifer's were all against it and wanted to go on strike while the people like me just wanted to continue working because ultimately it wasn't our career or battle.

I can honestly see both sides of the coin. I think the UFCW had won pretty good wages for its employees in the 1980s where there wasn't much competition in the grocery industry (pretty much a two store race between CO-OP and Safeway) and therefore the company was able to pay $20/hour (In 1980s dollars) for what amounted to low-skilled work.

This probably lured a lot of people into trying to make a career out of stocking shelves or cashing. When the competition increased in the 90s and 2000s, as a business Safeway had to rely more on employees like me who worked 24-30 hours a week at less than top rate and with less benefits. The reality of the business changed but yet there were legions of lifers who were at stages in their life where they couldn't easily re-train and do something else so they were prepared to dig in and fight for every nickel with the union cheerleading them the whole way.

I remember convincing a 10 year employee at this time that the reality of the industry was that their wages/benefits/pensions would be stagnate and be ground down overtime by inflation and to take that moment (2004-2005 Calgary economy was red hot) to find a new career while they still could. She ended up being an office manager somewhere making double her cashier wages with good benefits. She was lucky, but there were plenty of broken down old grocery clerks who really couldn't do anything else.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Dion

When it comes to strikes, yes. Fear, intimidation and vandalism pretty much go hand in hand.

But you've only been involved in one labour stoppage and from that you are saying they are all the same.

[Deegee]

All I know is in every union labour job I had, people who had been there some time came up to me and asked me why I was working so hard and to take it easy.

Efficiency of the organization was the least of anyone's concern.

Non-union jobs I have worked at, I have been moved along the chain of command fairly quickly and have received significant compensation increases I wouldn't receive in a union environment.

People can give their two cents all they want, but from what I have experienced makes me never want to work a union job again and makes me believe that union workers are paid above market value for their labour and they don't even output at maximum efficiency.

[ernie]

I work at a chemical facility where we are doing a large capital project right now to essentially double capacity. On our several acre site yesterday we had a very minor release of a chemical into the air (far far far below a reportable quantity and something that is essentially innocuous to begin with) but because the chemical fumes in air it was obvious. Two contracting groups noticed it from the other side of the facility they were working at and reported it. No contacts and no damage no nothing as it was a minor poof of stuff.

The workers for the contractor with unionized workers put on a big display about how we were endangering them etc etc and how they wouldn't show up to work here again (one of there union reps was on site working and he of course stirred it all up). So today rolls around and they workers didn't show up (much to the disgust of their owner and managers). So what happened about 30 minutes after they didn't show up? The contract was cancelled and handed over to the contractor without unionized workers. They can also be assured that any commercial facility with any chemicals in the area they service will never hire their company again. Well done union well done. There is a good chance you just put yourselves out of a job and killed a company.

[Pizza]

Twinkies are back in the states!

Twinkies are back, but they may be a bit smaller than you remember.

The new boxes hitting shelves this week list the spongy yellow cakes as having 270 calories and a weight of 77 grams for two cakes, or 135 calories and 38.5 grams for one cake.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...er-before.html