ilovefuzz.com

sonidero wrote:

bigchiefbc wrote:

snipelfritz wrote:How are people missing the actual issue? A company which claims it never had issues making money or creating demand and had 2.5 billion dollar revenue last year would rather shut down than agree to pay it's employees properly.

That shit makes me sick. Almost as sick as a snowball would make me.

This wasn't about employee pay at all. This was about how expensive the pension plan and health care was for their retired workers. Until about 20 years ago, a lot of companies offered defined-benefit pension plans to workers who put in 20 years (my grandfather still has one of these pensions). It was a good idea and was reasonably affordable back in the 30s, 40s and 50s, when most workers (especially manual workers) died early. But now that most people are living well into through their 70s and 80s, it's bankrupting companies. For some companies, actually a majority of their compensation expenses are taken up by retirees now rather than by current employees. The cost of pension payments and healthcare for retirees is the primary reason the government had to bail out GM and Chrysler back in 2008. The cost of the retirees benefits was strangling the companies. And that is exactly what happened to Hostess.