Goodbye Twinkies.

[FireIceTalon]

i have a question for you

where the fuck do you live?

This doesn't matter. But planet Earth if you must know.

i have lived and dealt with capitalism my whole life, i have gone through losing my job due to the plant being shutdown
my family has had to close up shop on its landscaping business due to a shite economy
i have worked for free just to keep the company afloat at times, and you are telling me that the workers shouldnt have to pick between losing a little off thier paycheck and losing their jobs...

Yes, that is what I am telling you.

i find that rather amusing...that i am the one saying hey, the worker has some stake in the success in the business, and that if need be, might have to make a minor sacrifice in order to keep their livelihood.
i didnt get a chance to even consider losing my job or losing some pay.
if i had, i would have taken an 8% pay cut as long as it meant i kept putting food on my families table

Indeed, you have to do what you have to to take care of your family. However...

The worker has NO stake in the success of the company, because the worker does not own the means to production, and thus has to sell his/her labor as a commodity to a parasite capitalist class that does own the MoP, in order to survive. If you are happy with table scraps and taking paycuts while the boss reaps surplus value from YOUR labor, and to add insult to injury increases his own pay by 300%, then I guess you enjoy being a slave. Well, I don't. "Those who don't move, don't notice their chains" - Rosa Luxemburg

you hate welfare states, well guess what is happening to these workers now.
unemployment with little chance of rehiring due to limited cross training outside of mass bakeries.
if you work for a struggling company, under our current economic system, you either will have to make sacrifices or you need to GTFO early and cut your losses

Which for me, is enough to say FUCK this system. I don't own private property or the MoP, so there is no reason for me to be an apologist for capitalism. I'm not an anti-capitalist for the hell of it, I am one because it isn't in my objective class interests to be otherwise (just like it isn't in the objective interests for a CEO to be a socialist). And from what I can gather, it isn't in your objective class interest either.

Welfare states are a byproduct of capitalist society, a concession the ruling class made to discourage worker revolution, and nothing more. A welfare state and socialism are not the same thing at all (though many people seem to think they are), because the former still allow exploitation to occur, and even the benefits it does provide are cosmetic - they can be cut back through austerity at any time or even be destroyed completely; which is what is happening all over the world right now. It is just another form of charity (but through the State instead of private institutions). I'm a communist and a humanitarian - I'm not interested in charity or philanthropy, I am interested in social security, economic and social stability, solidarity and for everyone being able to live with dignity, certainty, and their livelihoods intact - free of exploitation.

if we were a socialist state, maybe this wouldnt be an issue
but we arent, we are capitialist.

Oxymoron. There can't be such thing as a socialist state. Capitalism is global, therefore socialism cannot exist until capitalism is completely destroyed. As long as nation-states, borders, governments and classes exist, socialism does not and cannot develop. But at least you recognize that if society was socialist, this wouldn't be an issue - that is a start. The only difference between a worker and a socialist is that the latter has an intellectual understanding and awareness of his/her social being in relation to the productive forces/circumstances in the world.

i will admit, the cutting of payroll and liquidating of assets may bring a fair chunk of money, but how much of that is going to pay off debt?
how much of that is going to pay for unemployment for the workers? not to mention the broken contracts with the unions. you have not only the bakery workers union but at least one other (the teamsters) that are suddenly jobless with this company.
somehow i doubt there will be anyone getting uber rich off this

Who knows, but more importantly, WHO THE FUCK CARES? The CEO's exploit workers, and workers should have no sympathy for them at all. I hope Hostess CEO's have debt up the fucking ass, so they can get a little taste of what it is like to live like us for a while. But I doubt that is the case. I have to ask though, why do you have sympathy for them? They sure as hell don't have any for the 18k workers they are laying off, I can promise you that. All they care about is keeping their pockets fat as possible.

you can spin conspiracy theroies all you want, but can you truly deny that if the union HAD gone with the deal (that they are now asking for) Hostess would have stayed open?
yes they are struggling, most businesses are in this economy. yes they had bad debt due to management fuck ups, again most companies have them at some point.

Conspiracy theories? LOL. There is nothing but truth in everything I have said comrade. Businesses aren't struggling man. WORKERS and their families are struggling, and will continue to do so as long as this volatile and anti-human system is in place.

i am not saying Hostess is blameless (god i feel like a broken record) but they are not alone in the blame
a union is supposed to look after its members, after all that is why you pay dues
if i was part of a union, i would have urged the leadership to take the deal so i could still have a job. or better yet not joined a union in the first place cause when i have, they have just taken money and not done much for me. i have honestly been treated better by non-union workplaces than at union ones

Which just proves that unions aren't very useful anymore (and haven't really been for a long time), since at the end of the day, they usually submit to the demands of private capital. In this case, they didn't, but whether they do or don't makes little difference in the big picture. As long as capitalism exists, workers are going to get fucked. Hostess may be going under, but all its Wall Street shareholders and CEO are set for life regardless, because of all the surplus value they have extracted from the labor of working men and women for over 75 years. And if they do have debt, good. They don't have my sympathies (only the workers do). Fuck em'.