Those unions watching out for their workers...

[MachZer0]

Conservatives seem to define fair as accepting an unfair offer. Liberals define fair as not making an unfair offer in the first place.

You're perfectly free to make an offer to purchase the Hostess brands and manufacturing facilities at which time you can make a "fair" offer to the now unemployed laborers. So, supposing that you do so, tell us what "fair" wage you would offer to the laborers.

 

[mathetes123]

Yes, those who worked longer received the same amount as those who fewer hours. Still, the disparity was not 200 or 300x, but a much closer ratio.

The mutual agreement was in a parable, not "the market".

Again, how would you correct the perceived disparity? Define what a fair wage is?

 

[Steve Petersen]

Why is it OK to pay ATHLETES and ACTORS outrageous salaries without this kind of hand wringing?

 

[MachZer0]

But the company was in poor financial shape because of mismanagement. Had the company been well run this issue would have never arisen.

What mismanagement?

You are trying to blame the company closing on the workers, when the facts show that the company was in financial straits because of mismanagement. Even if the union had accepted the contact it was extremely unlikely that Hostess would have lasted more than a few months.

It's worth noting that you still have yet to criticize the execs of Hostess for lavishing rewarding their own failure.

The company made an offer to the workers which was based on what was necessary to keep the company afloat. The workers refused and now they are entitled to have Obama pay them for not working

 

[mathetes123]

You're perfectly free to make an offer to purchase the Hostess brands and manufacturing facilities at which time you can make a "fair" offer to the now unemployed laborers. So, supposing that you do so, tell us what "fair" wage you would offer to the laborers.

I have been trying to get that answer for some time now. The obvious answer from a socialist anti-capitalist liberal is to get government to Intervene and regulate the wages but they cannot come out and say that.

 

[mathetes123]

Why is it OK to pay ATHLETES and ACTORS outrageous salaries without this kind of hand wringing?

Not to mention government workers who are paid more than the equivalent in the private market.

 

[Belk]

Really? The workers went on strike (refused to work) and were told that if they did not return immediately the company would be forced to liquidate. They refused to return (refused to work) and just as they were told, the company was forced into liquidation.

Guess it was not a fair wage then?

 

[whatbogsends]

Just wondering if you missed this


Moving along. Your contribution toward the CEO's salary is miniscule. Without other laborers working in concert, your contribution is likely nil. It is the CEO who brings all the contributors together to make the company successful. Moreover, you as a laborer are highly expendable and can be replaced without much notice, thus, your contribution is less valuable than that of the CEO

Yet we CEOs making exorbitant salaries even when the company fails under them.

CEO's aren't some sort of uber-human who produce hundreds of times more than other people. I've met CEOs, i've worked at large companies, and let those CEOs share their "vision" with us. There are many, many employees within the trenches who possess more insight than they, who have better problem solving skills than the CEOs, who can articulate a strategy better.

If CEOs possess such irreplaceable skills, then why is the average tenure for a fortune 500 CEO less than 5 years?

Are company CEOs muppets? Troubles of Lloyd Blankfein & Indra Nooyi - Economic Times

In the 80's, CEOs made 40+ times the salary of the average worker. By 2010, that was up to 340+ times the salary of the average worker. If our economy is so bad, and has gotten so much worse than it had been, how do you justify the leaders of industry being compensated even more highly when they are not successfully driving the economy?

You have no answers, just garbage "define fair", when it is painstakingly obvious to any reasonably honest person that the pay disparity that has been developing over the last 30 years is clearly not fair.

 

[whatbogsends]

What mismanagement?

The company made an offer to the workers which was based on what was necessary to keep the company afloat. The workers refused and now they are entitled to have Obama pay them for not working

The company made an offer to lower workers wages, at the same time as they raised executive wages. If it was done "to keep the company afloat", they would have decreased wages across the board to make it work. As it was, the wealthy capitalists continue to wage war upon the working man.

Why do people on the right not value work and productivity?

 

[kermit]

What mismanagement?

Do you mean besides not offering products that are in high enough demand to support the company? BTW, you correctly stated this is why the company failed a few pages. It's odd that you don't see that as a mismanagement.

The company made an offer to the workers which was based on what was necessary to keep the company afloat. The workers refused and now they are entitled to have Obama pay them for not working

The company's financial problems were the fault of the execs. For which they rewarded themsleves; something you still haven't criticized them for.

 

[jpcedotal]

I still like 50-50 company idea after they reach a certain size....There would be no place for unions or offensive executive pay scales.

 

[MachZer0]

Guess it was not a fair wage then?

There is no wage. The company offered what it was willing to pay, the workers offered what they were willing to accept, and they came to no agreement. Thus, the company will no longer exist and the workers are free to find other employment.

 

[whatbogsends]

Not to mention government workers who are paid more than the equivalent in the private market.

If you want government workers to be compensated with proportion the the private market, the President should be making $50 million a year (unless you're going to argue it's harder to manage a corporation than a country). I'll sit back and let you push for the president's compensation increase.

 

[MachZer0]

Do you mean besides not offering products that are in high enough demand to support the company? BTW, you correctly stated this is why the company failed a few pages. It's odd that you don't see that as a mismanagement.

The company's financial problems were the fault of the execs. For which they rewarded themsleves; something you still haven't criticized them for.

It's not mismanagement when the product is no longer in demand. CEO's cannot force demand for their products.

 

[whatbogsends]

Do you mean besides not offering products that are in high enough demand to support the company? BTW, you correctly stated this is why the company failed a few pages. It's odd that you don't see that as a mismanagement.

The company's financial problems were the fault of the execs. For which they rewarded themsleves; something you still haven't criticized them for.

Why is it odd? Have you ever seen Mach be critical of management, unless it was a specifically partisan reaction?

It's obvious to any thinking person that Hostess' situation is a result of poor management, but capitalist die-hards will always try to pin the failure to the hands of the worker, despite the evidence to the contrary.

 

[whatbogsends]

It's not mismanagement when the product is no longer in demand. CEO's cannot force demand for their products.

CEOs don't have the power to change product lines? What are we paying them so highly for again?

 

[dies-l]

It's not mismanagement when the product is no longer in demand. CEO's cannot force demand for their products.

What an odd claim! If you are a CEO and there is little or no demand for your product, it would seem to me that you have several options available to consider: perhaps, increase and/or improve marketing to generate demand for an existing product line; perhaps, add new products to the product line to meet existing consumer demands; perhaps, a complete overhaul of the product line; or, perhaps adjusting price points to bring the product line to a level that consumers are willing to pay. These are just a few of the options available to CEO when a company's products are no longer in demand. And, to think, I don't even have a business degree, and even I could think of these. To claim impotence over the consumers' willingness to buy your product would seem something akin to malpractice, much worse than mere mismanagement, on the part of a CEO.

Let's say that Henry Ford was so impressed with the Model T that he refused to alter the design or offer any other models in order to stay competitive. And, let's assume, as would probably be the case, that at a certain point, the public was no longer interested in purchasing Model Ts. By your logic, in the example, Ford is not mismanaging his company because he "cannot force demand for [his company's] products." See how silly that sounds. Yet, to a lesser extent, Hostess management might be accused of something similar: over dependence on the public's willingness to pay premium prices for nostalgic products that simply don't taste as good as the less expensive competition product.

 

[MachZer0]

CEOs don't have the power to change product lines? What are we paying them so highly for again?

What product would you have them change to? They make bakery products and bakery products are in lower demand and those that are competing are of the gourmet type rather than the cheap snack type. Maybe you would have them transition to Tofu cakes

 

[kermit]

It's not mismanagement when the product is no longer in demand. CEO's cannot force demand for their products.

It's then their job to make sure that new products that are in higher demand are developed.

One of the larger employers in my town in Johnson Controls. The name comes from their original business of making control modules for HVAC. They still do that, but they also now make large scale industrial HVAC units as well as many other products. The original product offering was not sufficient to support the growth desired, so they expanded their offerings. Had they gone down the same route as Hostess they probably wouldn't be in business today. Yet you don't see poor management of product offerings as a mismanagement?

 

[kermit]

What product would you have them change to? They make bakery products and bakery products are in lower demand and those that are competing are of the gourmet type rather than the cheap snack type. Maybe you would have them transition to Tofu cakes

Setting the direction of a company is the job of a CEO. That's supposed to be why they make so much money