It is so easy to forget how old that company was and how mismanaged. It is part of life the old die off and the younger, stronger take their place. Hostess rotted from within. Management and union greed did her in.
The company tried to cut costs by reducing benefits and salary up to 30% for the workers.
All while giving raises to management.
Let me ask you this;
If your boss went to you and said "Hey, we need to save money so i'm cutting your pay by a 3rd and you no longer get dental. But i'm going to raise my own already ridiculously high salary.." what would you do? And don't give me that tired love-it-or-leave-it speech about finding a new job, because for alot of these people that is not an option. People who are already for the most part living paycheck-to-paycheck do not have the luxury of "taking time off" to look for work because they have to put food on the table.
There are plenty of examples of greedy, lazy, stupid people who work for unions i'm sure. Sitting there running off your personal experiences with them like that one guy did, does about as much good as trying to pick thorns off a cactus. And i'm also sure there are many many more examples of evil, coniving, profit whoring companies trying to fuck over their workforce and being stopped in their tracks because of regulations that were put in place in-part by people who have busted their asses on picketlines refusing to laydown and take it. You don't get to hear about those times so much because the people who pay for your news have a vested interest in making sure the cause of the unions' seem "radical and greedy".
Anyone who tries to deny a worker their pension at the end of the day is a crook. Plain and simple. Don't get caught up in the fancy New Jersey Mafioso Trashman schpeal that they want you to hear, these guys are not rich by anymeans and are not trying to buy goldrims for their Caddies. They want what's owed to them UNDER CONTRACT by management.
You don't let someone work their whole lives under the impression that all they're saving, striving, and struggling for is going to be rewarded in the end and then tell them "Hey pal, that's business!". That is an evil and warped way to conduct ones self and it should not be something we allow as consumers'.