How a Union Killed the Twinkie

Unionized labour in North America is strong. Too strong. So strong it’s putting the very employees its supposed to protect in harms way.

Thanks to the unions at Twinkie maker, Hostess, the American giant in the junk food industry is closing it’s doors – forever – putting the company’s employees out of work.

Hostess, founded as Interstate Bakeries Limited in 1930, is one of the largest bakeries in North America, baking up Wonder Bread, Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Ding-Dongs, Dolly Madison, and other well known baked goods.

Now these products may disappear off of store shelves, as the company was forced into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy today, because of an on-going dispute with the Bakery, Confectionery  Tobacco Workers and Grain Miller’s International Union (a Teamster’s Union) and company management.

The union represents most of the 6,600 Hostess employees, and was supposed to ultimately protect those employees from job loss.

However, as with all disputes involving terrorists, common sense doesn't prevail. And unions do act more like terrorist organizations of late, instead of collective bargaining units.

We've seen this with the auto industry and their unions. The world’s largest automaker, General Motors was almost put out of business because the unions kept insisting the employees deserve more money to build cars. If federal governments in Canada and the United States didn’t provide bail-out funding to General Motors, to offset the outrageous demands of the terrorists – we mean the union – then the world’s largest automaker would be no more, and thousands of people would be out of work.

Granted, the union movement grew out of a real need to protect employees from unsafe and even inhumane working conditions.

Early in the 1900’s, at the start of the industrial revolution, as companies grew richer, their power-hungry owners began making uncivilized demands on their staffs. From forcing them to work overtime without paying for that overtime, to providing unrealistic deadlines, even limiting the amount of bathroom breaks employees could take throughout the day.

Labour unions originally solved many of these problems in unionized shops around the world. 

Although in a consistently declining North American economy, many non-unionized office jobs are starting to revert back to the dark ages, as many crazy bosses are restricting employee bathroom and lunch breaks today.

Getting a job at a union shop meant getting a decent paying gig, with an employer that treated you right. The labour movement had succeeded in making these workplaces safe and secure.

However, now that the workplace was safe and secure, what could unions do? What role did a union have in the company?

It should be to advocate on behalf of employees, and ensure that the safe and secure workplace continues. And labour unions did this, but they took it upon themselves to push for constant increases in benefits, pay, and job security.

Job security always has – and always will be – a false notion which was conjured up by the labour movement.

No one’s job is any more or less secure – as we've seen with Hostess today. If a company can’t fiscally function any more, it doesn't matter what a bunch of thugs in the labour union say or do, once the company goes out of business, usually that means the jobs which were supposed to be secure forever, just don’t exist anymore.

Union battles to increase benefits and pay constantly over time drive away the potential for this fictitious notion of job security – which ironically they themselves created. The more benefits afforded employees, the greater the cost to the employer. The more pay given to workers, the greater cost to the employer.

Not that employees don’t deserve better pay and benefits – we all want to work for someone that cares enough about their staffs to pay them well, and treat them well.

But labour unions fight tooth and nail to secure more pay and benefits for the employees they represent, despite constant claims from companies that they can’t afford it, putting the company in danger.

Unions always claim the companies aren't telling the whole story, and say they don’t have the money for increased benefits and pay as a tactic to avoid doing it. They threaten to walk out and go on strike, which means the company can’t produce what it makes, and loses even more money.

So companies gave in to these outrageous demands – just like law enforcement has had to do with terrorists in some situations.

Eventually, if the business turns around, and the company starts to make more, it survives, and can absorb the outrageous costs the unions place on it’s operating budgets. OR, as we've seen today, things don’t get better for the company, and it’s forced out of business, because of increased operating costs – often brought about by the union.

Unions were once needed, to bring about better working conditions, which they did do. Then they got greedy, and today they are forcing companies to shut their doors, like Twinkie giant Hostess.

So, say good-bye to your Twinkies, thanks to the union.