How will the union supporters spin the Hostess situation?

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Originally Posted by Blackstone

Workers took wage and benefit concessions, and were forced into an ESOP. Poor management decisions are what led to the demise of Hostess, not the union.

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The workers were forced into ownership of the company, and that was a bad thing?

The unions were not the entire reason, but a contributing factor, to the demise of Hostess in its' current form. I could see not wanting to own part of a sinking ship. However, if I owned part of it I would be much more willing to bail faster.

Lowe's is an ESOP. While new hires are not going to make as much as some of the first employees did from the ESOP, they still have a stake in the company.

I work for a company that become an ESOP about the time I started. We are still in the process of buying out the owners of the company. We are at the point where the ESOP owns more of the company than the original owners. Stock value is increasing. People are starting to realize they have an impact on the bottom line. You can now look at someone and say that is costing all of us money.

Tom

ESOPs have hurt a many a worker....companies can borrow against the assets of the ESOP. When they fail the creditors get the assets in the ESOP instead of the workers they were intended for. Many a leverage buyout has been arranged by leveraging up the ESOP and then the company'd debt burden causes it to fail.

ESOPs are bad!!!!

Companies that go bottom up are the ones that write their own obituaries. Usually it places blame on someone else--environmentalists, unions, government, etc. How many times does the company obit say, "We, the management, screwed up"? You know the answer --zip. It isn't worth the effort to carry the dead company's propaganda line. It is so much Bull Roar.

Sitting in my News, Media, and Politics class right now... All my (extremely) liberal professor is saying about this is the management raided the pension fund and he hopes they hang. He will not listen to anything else, especially about the Union.

Is this true the management was taking from the pension fund to keep the company afloat?

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Originally Posted by youngblood

Sitting in my News, Media, and Politics class right now... All my (extremely) liberal professor is saying about this is the management raided the pension fund and he hopes they hang. He will not listen to anything else, especially about the Union.

Is this true the management was taking from the pension fund to keep the company afloat?

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Why don't you ask your professor where his information is coming from so you can look at it for yourself?

If management would just grant ALL of da unions demands, they would be soooo much better off!!!:D

yes they borrowed against the ESOP (pension plan) to keep the company going so they can pay theirselves. When a company gets in a distress situation, it becomes survival of the management. I use to work on the distressed desk at Merrill Lynch...my job was to determine where the value was and make recommendation as to how we were going to partcipate in the debt of these companies. Anything out of managements mouth at this point is a lie or denial, and I've seen company go to market and raise money before the world kwew thir fate, and have all this money to pay down debt but instead burn it away keeping their jobs.

Might want to listen to this liberal professor. He is right on this one. Best thing you can do is quit carring this political bias into the classroom and try to learn something.

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Originally Posted by menmon

yes they borrowed against the ESOP (pension plan) to keep the company going so they can pay theirselves. When a company gets in a distress situation, it becomes survival of the management. I use to work on the distressed desk at Merrill Lynch...my job was to determine where the value was and make recommendation as to how we were going to partcipate in the debt of these companies. Anything out of managements mouth at this point is a lie or denial, and I've seen company go to market and raise money before the world kwew thir fate, and have all this money to pay down debt but instead burn it away keeping their jobs.

Might want to listen to this liberal professor. He is right on this one. Best thing you can do is quit carring this political bias into the classroom and try to learn something.

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But the secular progressive professor's political bias is quite all right with you?

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b...51/ROFLMAO.jpg

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Originally Posted by Buzz

Why don't you ask your professor where his information is coming from so you can look at it for yourself?

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Wrong thing to do if he wants a good grade. Never a good move.

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Again, I don’t think this is really a political issue.

It was the Dems who made it a political issue ...

Yes, Bain was vilified, but only because Democrats sought to vilify Romney.

So, why not also vilify the individuals who were responsible for the de-construction of Hostess?

I never heard them accuse Bain of being a Republican PE firm.

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No, Bain was not captioned as a Rep firm ... and, in fact, it is now run by people who contributed heavily to Dem campaigns in this election.

So, Bain was only a "bad guy" when run by Romney?

Yes, I do believe that people will work hard to advance themselves. When they have some means beyond their own basic survival, they are also moved to help those less fortunate do the same. I think both are part of human nature: to struggle to improve one's place in life and to have compassion to help another human do the same. And there is greed and lack of compassion in some humans as well. And it has also been historical that when humans are made to work "for the greater good", and receive very little from the work in a personal way, they lose their enthusiasm for the working.