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| Twinkie workers already suffered pay cuts when management blamed them for the company's demise. (Photo: Tim Boyle/Getty Images) |
By now everyone’s heard much about the demise of Twinkie-maker and sugar-enabler, Hostess Brands. This week, a bankruptcy court granted permission to the company to initiate the selling of its assets, a move that punctuates 10 years of economic decline for the company. And though executives like CEO Greg Rayburn have been quick to blame the bakers' union in particular for its financial difficulties, recently revealed numbers about executives' money management choices tell a different story.
According to WSJ, in 2011 when the company was mired in almost a billion dollar debt, then-CEO Brian Driscoll tripled his own salary, while other top executives received 35-80% raises as well. Creditors griped that it was the company's way of "side-stepping" bankruptcy laws. Though Driscoll was replaced by Rayburn earlier this year, workers complain that this type of money mismanagement was par for the course at the snack manufacturer.
As if trying to prove that fact, the Washington Post reports that this week the company not only asked the bankruptcy court for permission to immediately liquidate 15,000 factory workers’ jobs, but also for permission to grant its current executive board $1.75 million in bonuses.
In contrast, according to Reuters, full-time bakers, including those who've been at the company for decades, were as of late, making $35,000 per year (with overtime), which was down from the $45,000 they were making five years prior. READ MORE
