Hostess asks bankruptcy judge for executive bonuses

[DavidM]

Hostess Brands Inc. plans to ask for a judge's approval Thursday to give its top executives bonuses totaling up to $1.8 million as part of its wind-down plans.

No money for the workers? Don't blame them for walking off the job.

[what]

Even though his union lost roughly 30% of its membership over the last decade and Frank Hurt condemns the pay cuts and other concessions his members took at Hostess, as the union’s president, Hurt saw his total compensation rise nearly 45%–from $181,840 in 2000 to $262,654 in 2011, according to Department of Labor reports.

Meanwhile, as his union members’ industry pension fund is in critical status, less than half funded (over $10 billion in liabilities as of 2011), bakery union bosses are sitting pretty. They have their own union pension fund (paid for by union members) that is 100% funded

no money for the workers

[what]

The Bakers’ Union, aka the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union (BCTGM), and that’s a mouthful, has kept blaming the plight of Hostess and its Twinkies on company executives who paid themselves too much money.

“Our members were aware that while the company was descending into bankruptcy and demanding deep concessions, the top 10 executives of the company were rewarding themselves with lavish compensation increases,” Frank Hurt, President of the Bakers’ Union said.

So let’s take a look at the number of executives in the Bakers’ Union, their salaries and titles. What does a humble baker president like Hurt rake in? A mere $262,654. His assistant, Harry Kaiser has to get by with a mere $149,764.

The Bakers’ Union (BCTGM) has 58 employees. 29 of them make more than $100,000 a year.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union has 8 Vice Presidents.(One is an Executive Vice-President).

These 8 Vice Presidents make anywhere from $218,989.00 to $161,789.00 for a combined total of over 2 million dollars. Additionally there’s a Secretary Treasurer who makes $244,396.00.

Does a union with 58 employees really need 8 Vice Presidents at a ratio of one Vice President to every employee?

BCTGM also has 12 representatives who make between $100,000 and $150,000. Its highest paid organizer makes $148,851.

While 18,000 workers may lose their jobs, the Bakers’ Union execs will keep their jobs and their six figure compensation packages. And even if BCTGM folds, they’ll just fetch up in another union.

Frank Hurt has worked as a Shop Steward at the United Auto Workers, with the Teamsters, a Union Trustee of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust and President of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations. Being a union boss is his job and as long as there are unions, there will be high paid compensation packages for union bosses.
Companies may go out of business, but guys like Frank Hurt will always land on their quarter-of-a-million a year.

cuts both ways