They can spin it all they like, but the 18,500 jobs are gone and many of these people - especially the union guys - will never find a job that pays half as much.

I worked for them until April this year, it was the teamsters.

The usual pro-union and anti-union factions are spitting poison at each other in the press, but it just may be that Americans aren´d buying this junk food like they used to. When was the last time you bought Twinkies? Or Wonder Bread? It´s been years, if not decades for me. When I have the serious munchies, I go for the chips or the Hagen Dats, and I´ve even stopped by the corner bakery for a pie, when pie is the sugar fix needed.

Trumka is right about this part of it: ´´What´s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what´s wrong with America...´´

However, it is the unions, not management or investors, who are the problem. The uninformed union members forget that the actions of management and investors create and maintain the jobs. Management and investors have a vested interest in success of the company. Union officials only have a vested interest in collecting dues from members. Those officials won´t be losing their jobs.

If it is really a profitable business just poorly managed as the striking union workers insist, why hasn´t someone bought Hostess for pennies on the dollar already?

Easy. Unions.

Union greed killed Hostess. No doubt.

#3, a well run business can scale up or scale back as needed and remain a player. There is not a supermarket around that did not carry this. Everything if fine in moderation. Personally, I still enjoy an occasional lemon pie or chocolate cupcake. They are delicious and inexpensive. Call me crazy, but alot of people think like me. No, you don´t want them constantly, but you don´t want the finest pastries in the world constantly either.

Please don´t buy into the excuse that "tastes change". We´re still an obese country, and candy bars fly off the shelves. The union broke the company, deal with it.

What happened to Hostess is what union thugs do best.

They wanted the money in their pockets (NOT the workers) and sit back and enjoy the thuggery that they create.

Their propaganda machine will now tell all of those unemployed union and non-union workers that the fat cats did this (they will not tell them that the union is the fat cats). They will then tell the sheep that are still part of the union mafia that they are better off because of it.

You just can´t fix this much stupid

I though it was because I voted for Romney?

You´ll recall: If you vote for Romney, people will loose jobs.

I´ve been discussing this in detail with the friends of mine on Facebook and the fact is that being a Twinkie Baker is a dead end job. No one should ever be happy to be a retired Twinkie Baker because it is simply not a job that requires a very advanced skill set.

Retired Twinkie bakers are people who don´t expect much out of themselves. It never occurred to them that Twinkie baking is a stepping stone job...a job to fill in the gaps of the family budget, or a job you work while going to school and gaining a more complex skill set that demands higher pay somewhere else.

Unions have done a tremendous disservice for people by making them think that their inflated wage and benefits for Twinkie baking is in their best interests. So, when the job goes belly up, and you are no where near retirement, where else can you use that specific skill set and make a living?

Nowhere.

This is how the unions "help" you.

Both sides of Hostess are to blame. The company did what GM did. They approved every contract that was ratified. It`s called kicking the can down the road. Our govn has been doing it for decades and so has business with regards to union contracts. When a company cannot put cupcakes and bread on the same truck for delivery that ought to tell you something.

Gephardt!!

There´s a rancid blast from the past.
Unable to get the Dem nomination for POTUS or grow eyebrows, leading the parade of ´Rat congressclowns in support of lecher Bubba, on a one name basis with every "old friend" who has a made up anecdote of epic demagoguery, yes, the same Richard Gephardt I was expected to work free for when I was part of a union.

He smells as bad now as when he was freshly squeezed.

Very interesting article. I know a former negotiator with the union. He was good, he wouldn´t have let this happen (the inflated contracts)

Unions are like a junk yard dog, you can never give them enough. That along with taxation will put most companies out of business.

As long as you can buy Twinkies with an EBT card, they would have sold, so it´s not the economy.

In answer to #5, with this administration, there´s every chance that the Govt. will immediately handcuff a new owner to the old union contract, thus making success impossible.

#11--Now aren´t you just precious?

#12 is absolutely correct. Previous management allowed the work rules and pay programs to get out of whack.

I remember Gephardt when he proved a law of 100% tax on inheritance, in the Rose Garden after forcing Bush I to capitulate on higher taxes, saying in front of the cameras, "From each according to his abilities..." at which point he caught himself before completing the Communist Mantra revealing his complete and true nature. True, believe it or not.

Let me try that one more time w/o the IPad taking over-

I remember Gephardt when he proposed a law of 100% tax on inheritance, and in the Rose Garden after forcing Bush I to capitulate on higher taxes, saying in front of the cameras, "From each according to his abilities..." at which point he caught himself before completing the Communist Mantra revealing his complete and true nature. True, believe it or not.