Bimbo Ho-Hos?

Now that Hostess is officially dead, other companies are looking to buy the assets.

There's a Mexican company called (I kid you not) Bimbo that may end up bringing back the Hostess products:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/...can-company-bimbo-may-be-eyeing-twinkies?lite

"Bimbo" Twinkies? Bimbo Ding-Dongs? Bimbo Ho-Hos?

Let the jokes begin! :-D

 

That's like selling ice to Eskimos.:-D

Hope I can try a twinkie one day, I've seen then on TV enough.

 

Rikky:

Since I think you're in the UK, I'll explain the joke: In the United States, "bimbo" is a slang term for a stupid and/or sexually promiscuous woman. "Ho" is a slang term for a prostitute. "Ding Dong" is one of the many slang phrases for the part of the male anatomy Brits affectionately refer to as "John Thomas".

It's a translation thing. :-D

 

i'm sure he got the joke(s). "bimbo" and "ho" have long spread worldwide.

not so sure about the penetration of "ding dong".

that said, i've long been amused by Bimbo Bread in the supermarkets. not very often a product calls me out BY NAME like that!

 

Bimbo Ding Dongs?

roflmao

 

I love how they blame the union. Nevermind that the union has given them incredible concessions over the years. You know what the company's "last, best and final offer" was, that the union refused? More than a 10% pay cut. A 17% cut in health care benefits. a 75% cut in pension obligations. Meanwhile, in 2011, almost a dozen of Hostess' top executives received an EIGHTY PERCENT pay raise.

Of course it's all the union's fault! It couldn't have anything whatsoever do with mismanagement, or the fact that their products are so ridiculously unhealthy and overpriced that people weren't buying them nearly as much any more. Their sales falling every year can't be blamed on the people who make the goods; it can, however, be blamed on a company that refused to change with the times to provide a product people might actually want.

As an article on CNNMoney said...People love Twinkies, but they don't eat them. I can honestly say it's been at least a decade, probably more, since I've eaten one of their products.

 

yeah, that's rough. much better they should have a 100% pay cut and a 100% cut in health care benefits.

i dunno what will become of their pensions, but i'm sure they're all so much better off for resisting that 10%/17% offer!

 

Whenever a union goes on strike, they know that is the risk they take. But on top of all the other concessions they've given over the years, at some point you have to draw a line.

Think about your own life. Say you were making $15.00 per hour. Then suddenly you were making $12.00. The next year your employer asked you to work for $10.00. The next year $9.00. And the next year, minimum wage, with a hefty cut to your health benefits.

Where do you finally say no? Especially when it is documented that while at the same time your employer is asking you to cut your wages by a third, you know they are giving themselves almost a 100% pay raise?

 

I didn't read the article/post so I don't know the exact terms of the arrangement but wouldn't you rather have 9.00 per hour than no dollars per hour? Especially since it's so hard to find a job in this economy?

That's not saying that I think it's right, I don't think that anyone should receive a raise when the company is floundering like it had been.

 

On a lighter note:

I heard that Twinkies were being sold on e-bay for $100. No first hand evidence, but a friend of a friend sez she's buying what she can to e-bay them.

I found 2 bags of Hostess Sweet 16 mini donuts. One bag of frosted, one bag of chocolate covered.

They'll never make e-bay alive... :-D

 

I don't think I've ever had a twinkie or a ho-ho or any other of their funny named desserts. :-D

 

my boss is free to do that at any point.

i am free to find a job which pays more at any point.

the end.

 

I find it difficult to fathom that a few of us are saying this. I don't care for twinkies, but I thought everyone had tried one at some point in a mis-spent youth.

Irony Meter Update:

Colorado becomes one of the fourteen states with laws that make smoking marijuana legal, only for the smokers to find they cannot get the obligatory Twinkies to munch on.

 

Nah, my childhood was spent eating Little Debbie cakes. They were cheap and tasty (still are!) :-D


My friend sent me a text the other day: "I decided to go on a diet today and Hostess goes out of business!" LOL

 

My point is that they gave their executives an 80% pay increase while asking the union to give up not just a raise, but to take a pay cut, as well as a cut in benefits, while also cutting their retirees' pensions by 75%. And then they turned around and blamed the union for them not having enough money to stay open.

 

it's called free enterprise. the board can give themselves a 5000% percent hike and cut ALL employees to minimum wage. who cares? if you don't enjoy working there, DON'T.

i feel sorry if they were forced into a pension scheme along the way, tho. not that it will go bust, but that they were sapped for the premiums in the first place. who in their right mind would rather make $15 an hour with some vague promise of money and medical coverage 30 years later -- MAYBE-- vs. making $20 or $22 in the here and now?! even when your employer "pays", it all comes back to you somehow.

no pensions, no benefits, no healthcare. that's the package I'M looking for....

 

Grupo Bimbo owns most of the bakery aisle now. (I worked for Freihofer's in New England for many years)

Including -

Orowheat/Arnolds/Boboli
Entenmann's (who will make a killing in sugar pop-ems sales now)
Sara Lee

This week is THE biggest grocery week with Wednesday the biggest day for Grocery stores.

SgtTibbs, The Union said they knew this could kill Hostess.

I saw a strike from the union bakery company on my left who had 4 feet in most stores, I had 2 and to the right of my section was 6 from another union bakery. My company doubled my orders thinking I could sell more during the strike..... problem is the company on the right paid fees to the store and filled all 10 feet, leaving me with the same 2 feet. ..... This was in 1997. Others told of strikes where they would fill 8 feet in the morning, and go back at 11 for recall to pick up all the bread - now sliced. That company also went out of business. The union was "ready" with jobs the next day for New England workers... in North Carolina. rolleyes

 

As I said earlier, every union knows that is a possibility when they finally have to resort to a strike.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to be pro-union. What I am saying is that it is dishonest at best for a company to spend all of their profits giving their executives 80% raises, and then to blame a union for them not having enough money to continue operating. In a previous round of negotiations, Hostess promised that the money given up by employees would be put back into the company. They lied. They put it in their own pockets.

Are they allowed to? Yes. Should they be surprised when eventually their employees give them a big old F you? Nope.

 

Twinkie and Cookie is slang for a part, or piece:-D of a Females anatomy

 

I get it Thought I'd give everyone else a chance before I covered them all:-D

WTH is John Thomas,now I'm confused:confused 'joke'

 

Is that fair? no but the first lesson we learn in life is that it's not fair and we can't always try to *make* it fair either.

Which brings me to the logic I just don't understand, why would you willingly choose to terminate your own job by going on strike, therefor having nothing, then to take a cut in pay and still have something? so yay you took a stand! but how will that stand now pay your mortgage? your car loan? buy food? since when, for the sake of proving a point, is nothing better than something?

 

Ask anyone who has ever stood up for something they believed in, no matter the cost.

 

IMO you need to pick your battles wisely and this was not wisely chosen. Logic did not prevail in this situation, only pride and pride can't pay the rent.


(using the word "you" in a general sense, not directed at anyone in particular)

 

For anyone that really cares, the brand name is pronounced "BEEM-BO".

 

On the Union issue, it's interesting to note that the Teamsters (delivery drivers) approved a contract a few weeks ago. It was the bakery union's failure to accept an 8% cut in wages that shut the company down. :confused

 

True - but the "Bimbo" delivery trucks around Houston still generate giggles from those not familiar with the company. :-D

 

i will actually side with you on this one; i can appreciate someone standing up for principle, even when it is to their detriment.

when they're on the right side of an issue, however. in this case, they are not. they get paid to do w/e work they do during the hours for which they get paid. they are not being paid to "lock in" those rates unto eternity.

 

back to "bimbo", both it and "bambi" come from italian "bambino", child, and generally refered to BOYS back when they entered english. papers from 100 yrs back carry captions like "Judge Cromwell visiting a fine young bimbo" meaning...er..."lad".

how times have changed!

 

See Dyamond, the trouble is that they want to cut the costs they're paying to employees without any thoughts to the fact that prices and costs are only going up. What do they care? They're making nearly double.

The trouble is that once companies reach a certain size, they stop caring about anything but profits, and hostess reached that.

Their 'last, best and final offer' was to gut the workers. Yes, I guess they should have just taken it on the chin and continued to work, but there's a point at which you have to stand up and say NO. What's the difference between ending up out of a job, and having to try and find a second or third one to make up the difference because you've been relying on money from your company to survive. Not even thrive, but survive. Pay a mortgage? Pay rent. When it comes down to rent or food and you have to choose rent? That's not a situation you can stand for.

It's better that Hostess die than survive like this.

 

Hi, my name is economy. I SUCK.

You must be out of touch with the current job markets (or lack thereof).

 

i dare say i'm more in touch with the economy than the union bosses who committed suicide-by-ho-ho.

 

Look on Amazon you can get 100 twinkies for anywhere from $319 (plus shipping) to $899 (plus shipping of course). roflmao

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B008OAEZKE/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new


Sure you don't want to buy some, Laura? :-D

 

aim high. last night there was a box on there for $15 million... "or best offer".

i offered him $2.50. :-D

 

No doubt, there will be made in China pirate replicas of our beloved Twinkies, anyway.:yum ~ They got one here I saw the other week, called 'Twonkies'. roflmao

 

they HAVE been known to misspell a product on occasion....

http://www.11points.com/images/chinafastfood/starbucks.jpg

 

Suicide by ho ho? Isn't that what Petraeus did?

 

This whole thing about blame the unions or blame the management is really bogus because it is pure economics.
I have no doubt that Hostess had every intention of closing down the factory and moving production to Mexico where production costs are lower and that equals more profit so in reality the union fell into the trap by playing hard ball.
A similar situation has developed over the last few weeks here in Belgium where Ford motors are closing the plant in Genk south Belgium and moving production to Spain resulting in 10.000 people losing their jobs 6.000 from the plant and 4.000 peripheral jobs and that is purely for production costs.
What is ironic that 70 miles from Genk is another plant in Cologne Germany where production costs are far higher but the unions have over the years negotiated such spectacular terms that it is almost impossible to close the plan due to the high cost of redundancy payments.
Unions have their place in industry but todays climate is not conducive to hard line tactics when a company can just pack up and leave for another country where the costs are lower.

 

+1 Bill.
I couldn't agree more with that last post, Bill.:cool

 

I would not want to purchase a "used" twinkie :-D but tell your daughter not to fret, looks like twinkies aren't dead yet..

Judge convinces union to mediate with Hostess

 

True, and everyone holds some of the blame here. But I find it interesting that when people complain about "union hard line tactics" they fail to recognize that the union does not negotiate contracts alone. Someone on the other side of the table had to agree to the conditions of the contract and sign it as well.

I am VERY glad they're in arbitration, and I sincerely hope they do reach an agreement by the deadline. That would be the best-case scenario for all involved.

 

Sometime power is abused from both sides of the table.
Owners have contracts to fulfill and deadlines to meet so will give concessions that they do not necessarily fully agree with.
I am a retired businessman and always tried to treat my employees with fairness and consideration but i had contracts with the US military in Europe that were very lucrative but also came with penalties for missed deadlines so during negotiations the union knew that at a certain point i had to give in or suffer the consequences,i fortunately never had a withdrawal of labour but at a price.
I understand that the union always want the best for their members but never forget without employers making profits there are no jobs,no employer runs at a loss and survives.

 

Perhaps Hostess should have thought of that when they were giving their executives 80% pay raises while their profits were continuing to decline. Just a thought.

 

As i said in an earlier post maybe they were going to close the plant and used the union to spring the trap??

When the district union rep come in for negotiations he/she has nothing at stake, if negotiations go wrong and the management walks away from the table the rep still has a job and moves on to the next negotiation.

Admittedly if enough disasters happen to the same rep he is demoted not layed off.

 

That's not how contract negotiations work in my union...I personally have been part of the negotiating team for my own contracts, and we only call in help from the International if we're having trouble negotiating on our own. Which has happened about 25% of the time. I realize that's not how it works in other unions, but where I come from, the people negotiating a contract also have jobs that depend on it.

 

Why am i not surprised that you are a union negotiator??

You and i both know when we sit down to negotiate we both know how far the other can go,as a union you have checked our balance sheets and we know from various sources what you are going to ask for so it is an auction for us both.

Always remember companies that make profit produce wealth for the employees and the owners.

I risked my money to start the business and built it up over a number of years so i am entitled to a bigger share of the pot, I drove a Jaguar and my employees drove fords but that does not make me the devil incarnate.

I have every sympathy for the employees at Hostess because in todays climate it is difficult to find new work so i hope agreement can be reached but my personal feelings are this was planned long ago and the reason they awarded management such large bonuses was to aggravate the union and the workforce enough to force a strike.

Management and union leaders are like politicians, they never tell the whole story.

 

Sgt. Tibbs has been quite helpful to me in the past (tech matters), so I'll try to hold my tongue here, but really, unions should be OUTLAWED. Their sole purpose is the coordination of extortion against employers which they themselves have FREELY SELECTED.

If the nasty boardholders have voted themselves a million percent payraise as the entire company is in flames, I would suggest that is not a good place to work at. No more, no less. Been a looooooooooong time since anyone was endentured to remain at a job.

(ceptin' in the military....)

And Laura - why don't you just head down to Walmart/Target/CVS etc and pick up a box of knockoffs? Those Twonkies or Twankies or w/e it is Phantom is eating these days.

Lose the box and tell her the Ebay Bunny brought them!