If your idea of weekend fun is a spliff and some Twinkies for the post-smoke munchies, get to the store right now and stock up. Hostess is in trouble, and a strike that could shut the company down for good is looming.
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Dallas-based Hostess Brands, Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time, and is asking for serious cost-cutting measures from the Teamsters and its bakers' unions. Hostess wants concessions on workload, changes to the retirement savings plans, and they want the ability to outsource deliveries.
The unions, not surprisingly, responded negatively to these ideas, and so Hostess has given them one last chance to alter the collective-bargaining agreements before going to court to ask that they be thrown out.
The Teamsters have responded that if the court kills off the collective bargaining agreements, their workers will strike; the bakers' unions haven't said whether they'll strike, but have promised not to cross the Teamsters' picket lines. Without the bakers, the company would no longer be able to produce enough goods to keep afloat and, according to management, would have to pack it in. The company is carrying more than $1 billion in debt.
Time to head out to stock up on those Ho-Hos. Don't worry–even if this is all resolved without a shutdown of the company, their products last forever on the shelf; you'll get through them.
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