This a sad story of corporate greed, incompetence and outright theft by the management of the Hostess Bakery. This is the sad first person account from the view of the Union workers at Hostess Bakery.
Wonder Bread runs deep in my family. I started at Interstate Bakeries
in 1999 in Waterloo, Ia after the birth of my first daughter. I asked
my father in law who to talk to for an interview. He had spent his
entire adult life there, eventually retiring in 2007. His father drew
retirement from the very same bakery. My wife and her sisters
experienced a truly middle class Midwestern upbringing, complete with a
safe home environment, college educations, and health insurance. He went
to work everyday knowing he would be able to retire and draw his
pension. He was even able to pass the job down to his son in law.
I love Wonder Bread. It has supported our family financially and
medically for the last 14 years. When my wife wanted to attend graduate
school we found a university near a bakery and moved to Lawrence, KS,
home of the greatest basketball team in the history of ever. I will miss
the overwhelming smell of baking bread and the friendships I built at
both bakeries. Including with engineers, truck drivers, supervisors and
managers who have also lost their jobs.
Many of them likely blame the Bakers Union, me.Most understand that
this was inevitable. There has been no confidence in the leadership of
this company at any level of any department for years. We have watched 6
CEO's come and go since 2002 and all of them left the company worse
than when they took over. All of them got paid, not just the salaries
they agreed to, but bonuses and increases all along the way. Including
the current joker, who announced he was leaving with less than a year on
the job, before he even submitted this last contract offer to us.
When I received my first paycheck from then Interstate Bakeries in
1999 it had a memo stapled to it. The memo announced that Wonder had
just had the most productive quarter in baking history. It stated that
the health of the company and brand had never been better. The break
room was buzzing with excitement because our contract was soon to be up
for renegotiation and this would surely mean smooth sailing. A few weeks
later we got the 'oops' letter. Turns out it was all an 'accounting'
error and the company was failing miserably.
Conveniently though, CEO Charles Sullivan and the board managed to
sell their stock before word got out about the bad news. No jail time of
course. In fact, Sullivan was brought back as a consultant after his
resignation. Enron happened a few years later and at the bakery we were
amazed how much attention they got compared to us.
The company of course used it's 'oops' letter to justify asking for
concessions from the Union. We gave nothing and gained nothing that year
after a 45 minute strike. The status quo continued and I proudly joined
the middle class for the first time in my life. I made $14 an hour and
had insurance. I even went on vacations for the first time. I had great
pride in my job, and the products. We bought a new car for the first and
only time in my life. In 2003 I transferred to the Lenexa, KS bakery.
In 2005 it was another contract year and this time there was no way
out of concessions. The Union negotiated a deal that would save the
company $150 million a year in labor. It was a tough internal battle to
get people to vote for it. We turned it down twice. Finally the Union
told us it was in our best interest and something had to give. So many
of us, including myself, changed our votes and took the offer. Remember
that next time you see CEO Rayburn on tv stating that we haven't
sacrificed for this company. The company then emerged from bankruptcy.
In 2005 before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. My
pay changed dramatically but at least I was still contributing to my
self-funded pension.
In July of 2011 we received a letter from the company. It said that
the $3+ per hour that we as a Union contribute to the pension was going
to be 'borrowed' by the company until they could be profitable again.
Then they would pay it all back. The Union was notified of this the same
time and method as the individual members. No contact from the company
to the Union on a national level.
This money will never be paid back. The company filed for bankruptcy
and the judge ruled that the $3+ per hour was a debt the company
couldn't repay. The Union continued to work despite this theft of our
self-funded pension contributions for over a year. I consider this money
stolen. No other word in the English language describes what they have
done to this money.
After securing our hourly cash from the bankruptcy judge they set out
on getting approval to force a new contract on us. They had already
refused to negotiate outside of court. They received approval from the
judge to impose the contract then turned it over to the Union for a
vote. You read that right, they got it approved by the judge before ever
showing to the Union.
What was this last/best/final offer? You'd never know by watching the main stream media tell the story. So here you go...
1) 8% hourly pay cut in year 1 with additional cuts totaling 27% over 5
years. Currently, I make $16.12 an hour at TOP rate of pay in the
bakery. I would drop to $11.26 in 5 years.
2) They get to keep our $3+ an hour forever.
3) Doubling of weekly insurance premium.
4) Lowering of overall quality of insurance plan.
5) TOTAL withdrawal from ALL pensions. If you don't have it now then you never will.
Remember how I said I made $48,000 in 2005 and $34,000 last year? I would make $25,000 in 5 years if I took their offer.It will be hard to replace the job I had, but it will be easy to replace the job they were trying to give me.That $3+ per hour they steal totaled $50 million last year that they
never paid us. They sold $2.5 BILLION in product last year. If they
can't make this profitable without stealing my money then good riddance.
I keep hearing how this strike forced them to liquidate. How we
should just take it and be glad to have a job. What an unpatriotic view
point. The reason these jobs provided me with a middle class opportunity
is because people like my father in law and his father fought for my
Union rights. I received that pay and those benefits because previous
Union members fought for them. I won't sell them, or my coworkers, out.
We may have forced the companies hand but they were going to smack us with it anyway.
