John Curley


AP: e9728602-87fc-4a76-a897-0105344a63be
People are shown standing in the parking lot at the Utah Hostess plant in Ogden, Utah, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (AP Photo)

John Curley says it's no wonder Hostess has failed

BY Stephanie Klein  on November 16, 2012 @ 10:58 am (Updated: 11:15 am - 11/16/12 )

About 250 people in Washington are out of job Friday after Hostess decided to close its doors.

Read: Twinkie maker Hostess reaches end of the line

Many of the employees worked at the plant in South Lake Union and the remaining were at plants in Kent and in Pierce County.

The company had already filed for bankruptcy this year, but it was trying to stay afloat. It couldn't survive a strike by 30-percent of its work force over a pay cut.

More than 18,000 people nationwide are now out of work.

"Hopefully somebody else will come in and start the bakery up and hire the experienced workers," said David Douglas, a Hostess worker in St. Louis.

John Curley said on Seattle's Morning News he's not surprised Hostess is calling it quits.

"People stopped eating white bread. People stopped eating Twinkies," said Curley, who said Wonder Bread became irrelevant as soon as we had cheap options for wheat, multi-grain, etc.

Not only that, but Curley is guessing fewer people bring their old, metal lunch boxes to work, which means they're not carrying around a packaged Ding Dong or Ho-Ho.

KIRO Radio reporter Chris Sullivan expects we can blame some of the sales loss to healthier options in vending machines, both at work and in schools.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm going to miss Wonder Bread. Every so often a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Wonder Bread is awesome."

Curley is going to miss Ding Dongs the most. Ursula Twinkies, and Sullivan the Ho-Ho.

KIRO Radio reporter Chris Sullivan contributed to this report.

Stephanie Klein, MyNorthwest.com Editor
Stephanie joined the MyNorthwest.com team in February 2008. She has built the site into a two-time National Edward R. Murrow Award winner (Best Radio Website 2010, 2012).
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Comments (44)


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  • The_Kid wrote...
    calapete....get a clue!
    November 16, 2012 2:23 pm
    C.E.O's make a ton of cash because like all the elite athletes they have a particular set of skills that allow them to make intelligent decisions unlike your stupid post. In turn because of their decisions the company continues to be profitable and therefore keeps running, all the while paying individuals salaries and taxes that in turn keep the economy running. In this case there seems to be equal accountability as to why the company is folding. Poor Management, unrealistic Union demands and changing environment where eating anything that has sugar in it is now evil, thank you Obama Care! Man Liberals Suck.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    They couldn't stop this ship from sinking. I for one won't miss them.
    November 16, 2012 4:01 pm
    What happened to this country? When unions were at the highest income disparity was at its lowest. Virtually all of the increase in GDP over the ten years before this recession went to the wealthiest 2% of the populations and it is not enough for them. All right, they're magnificent titans of industry, but does it really take a genius to figure out if you pay workers shiat wages you can make more money? We used to care about neighbors in this country. Now if someone works for a living the right demonizes them and calls them idiots for not being smart enough to get theirs. It's not enough to work hard to make a decent living anymore. This isn't even new history. At the beginning of the Great Depression income inequality, and inequality in the control of wealth was very high, but between 1929 and 1947 wages for workers in manufacturing rose by more than 60% while real income for the richest 1% fell by 15%. This was the beginning of the middle class people!! Two things helped this, unionization and the New Deal. The rich were still mega rich, but a family of four could live on one salary too. Now even if somebody works 60, 70 hours they can't seem to make it. I know a family who I consider to the working poor. He's a bus driver, she's a housekeeper for a hotel and both of them work as many hours as they can, but it is so difficult for them to keep up with rent, food, car insurance, health insurance, gas, etc. and save money for retirement. I don't know how they even manage. I couldn't live on their salary and yet the right denigrates them every chance they get because they aren't smart enough or work hard enough or screww people enough to get ahead. A job is supposed to get you out of poverty not keep you in it. You think liberals suck, but conservatives suck way harder.
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  • Golfer66 wrote...
    You think liberals suck, but conservatives suck way harder.
    November 16, 2012 11:01 pm
    Not on the same things, GMCH!! In any event, unions are passe, and their decline proves it. Envy is still the coin of the realm, it seems, and that wedge remains a tool for the left to buy votes and launder $$. You may not understand this, but I am bouyed by the fact that many other's do...
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  • BeenThere wrote...
    gmcfh......Maybe if we all started living within our means
    November 17, 2012 12:30 pm
    Americans borrow money to go on vacation. Take out a second mortgage to buy a boat. Put that big screen on a high interest credit card. This economy is built around us spending our money, when we run out we borrow more. We have an artificial sense of security and saving money is almost viewed as unpatriotic. Btw, we ALL decided the fait of those workers by not supporting them with our money. You didn't buy enough twinkies, I didn't buy enough ding dongs. That is what we chose and we are free to choose.
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  • BeenThere wrote...
    gmcfh...I agree with you that we should care for our neighbors in need.
    November 17, 2012 1:32 pm
    There is also a difference between those truly in need and those in want.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    yeah for sure. but it would be good for some people to remember
    November 17, 2012 5:59 pm
    Romneys father and mother were on welfare. I don't think being on welfare makes you who you are. It is what you do with that help that determines that
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  • lazarus wrote...
    George Romney WAS NEVER on WELFARE!
    November 18, 2012 9:20 am
    snd the hits (nonsense)just keep coming. The outright ingnorance of the masses, is troubling. But here's the point, what would it prove if he was? That his religiously bigoted 100 millionaire son feels the pain of the poor? What evidence is there of that?
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Oh yes he was.
    November 18, 2012 3:26 pm
    George Romney’s family fled from Mexico in 1912 to escape a revolution there, and benefited from a fund established by Congress to help refugees who had lost their homes and most of their belongings. That is public assistance aka welfare. And my point was simply that I don't think being on welfare makes you who you are. There is a real lack of empathy from Romney when he says that "he will never convince them (47%) that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives". Especially when a majority of that 47% voted for him.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    Been There
    November 19, 2012 7:35 am
    Well put.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    well, i do agree the 90s were like the seven years of good harvest
    November 17, 2012 5:56 pm
    (From the bible) I don't know if you are familiar, but there were seven years where the crops grew so much it was crazy, then seven years of nothing and very few saved up enough food to last the drought. Maybe we will all get a little bit smarter.
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  • BeenThere wrote...
    Words of wisdom.
    November 17, 2012 9:15 pm
    May I be better about applying them in my own life.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    GMCH
    November 19, 2012 7:33 am
    I have NEVER heard anyone on the right denigrate people for working? See, this is where your tiny narrow mind gets it wrong. You are so blinded by your ideology that you actually believe the stupid hate filled rhetoric of the PMSNBC. Nobody I know on the right has anything against working people. We do however, have something against a government that takes from working people and pisses it away on illegals and lazy feeloaders and demonizes people for achieving success in this country.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Define them than eediot boy.
    November 19, 2012 1:52 pm
    Who the fruck are these lazy freeloaders? Aren't you talking about the 47% of people who don't pay income taxes? Who the fruck are they if you're not talking about the working poor? Where are these lazy freeloaders? You're a moron.
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  • roomtemp wrote...
    I'm guessing the dude in China will make them for 8% less...
    November 16, 2012 4:15 pm
    Chwinkies! Coming to a store near you!

    We still won't know what the heck is in that cream filling.

    By looks of them, I think they ate the profits. Is there some union rule about not being able to see your pecker?

    Can you say global economy kids? I thought you could...

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  • spuddog wrote...
    roomtemp...
    November 19, 2012 9:27 am
    Chwinkies! Coming to a store near you! By looks of them, I think they ate the profits. Is there some union rule about not being able to see your pecker? Hilarious! Kudos.
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  • Zoeller wrote...
    Gay///// Really?
    November 16, 2012 4:21 pm
    Most bus driver job’s and definitely a housekeepers job was never designed and or supposed to be a living wage job, and you are surprised? They are both supplemental income jobs and when you combine the two you still only have a slightly higher supplemental income , not a living wage. I would tell your friends to invest some time and effort into a trade skills training program and obtain a real living wage job. Non-Union of course.
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  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    well, theres the rub there aint it. how can they invest that which they
    November 16, 2012 4:43 pm
    Do not have? And by the way, I don't agree. The world needs housekeepers and bus drivers. I'm not saying they need to be paid buka, but both of those jobs are hard work. I am all for helping people like them. Hard workers, good family, very simple, humble folk. That used to be enough.
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  • dsbab wrote...
    T.A.R.P.
    November 16, 2012 4:30 pm
    Twinkie asset relief program. They need a gvmt bail out. They are too delicious to fail..
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  • Forrest wrote...
    The greed of the 1%
    November 16, 2012 6:19 pm
    Is going to drive this country to socialism.
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  • Golfer66 wrote...
    ???
    November 16, 2012 11:06 pm
    In the interest of accuracy, I think what you meant is that the lack of understanding of the importance of profit and sustainability is what actually leads to a fertile environment for politicians to go down the "socialism" path.In order for government to grow, it must take from the free market and the individual alike...it's the same thing, actually. These things are self-evident.
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  • Ron_Spins wrote...
    Fact is the company got way too big
    November 16, 2012 11:41 pm
    Just like the Postal service and our government.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • gaymarriedchristianfromhollywood wrote...
    Just saw this on FB
    November 17, 2012 8:02 am
    So Twinkies, which were supposed to survive a nuclear holocaust die 3 weeks before the end of the world? Well played Mayans.
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  • Ted Bundi wrote...
    When the CEO makes cover a million bucks per year
    November 17, 2012 6:31 pm
    I can see why the rest of the employees are now out of work.
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  • jstumbo wrote...
    Sure, don't pay the CEO
    November 17, 2012 11:21 pm
    That would give them enough to give each employee about $10 more each month. That surely would have kept the company afloat.
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  • Hayduke wrote...
    AJ, I have two words for you: Vikram Pandit.
    November 18, 2012 5:23 pm
    You're so smug with your constant blather about the "free market." So you think the top guys at hostess DESERVE a 300% pay raise while they blame their failures on union thugs" who are being pink slipped?

    If you think these guys earn their inflated salaries while, like Pandit, driving their company into the ground and blaming it all on "union thugs," you're an idiot.

    Why don't you tell the rest of us chumps here, who are obviously so unenlightened and far below your level of intellect and comprehension: if all these corporate captains are so indispensable and literally worth their weight in gold, why do they keep running their companies into the ground, only to come running to the government they claim to hate for more assistance? Tell us, how does you "free market" account for that?

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  • Hayduke wrote...
    And another thing, AJ, When you have to STEAL from your employees to keep your company afloat, that's not the wonders of the 'free market" at work. It's just thievery masquerading as belt-tightening
    November 18, 2012 9:45 pm
    "In 2005 it was another contract year and this time there was no way out of concessions. The Union negotiated a deal that would save the company $150 million a year in labor. It was a tough internal battle to get people to vote for it. We turned it down twice. Finally the Union told us it was in our best interest and something had to give. So many of us, including myself, changed our votes and took the offer. Remember that next time you see CEO Rayburn on tv stating that we haven't sacrificed for this company. The company then emerged from bankruptcy. In 2005 before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. My pay changed dramatically but at least I was still contributing to my self-funded pension.

    In July of 2011 we received a letter from the company. It said that the $3+ per hour that we as a Union contribute to the pension was going to be 'borrowed' by the company until they could be profitable again. Then they would pay it all back. The Union was notified of this the same time and method as the individual members. No contact from the company to the Union on a national level.

    This money will never be paid back. The company filed for bankruptcy and the judge ruled that the $3+ per hour was a debt the company couldn't repay. The Union continued to work despite this theft of our self-funded pension contributions for over a year. I consider this money stolen. No other word in the English language describes what they have done to this money.

    After securing our hourly cash from the bankruptcy judge they set out on getting approval to force a new contract on us. They had already refused to negotiate outside of court. They received approval from the judge to impose the contract then turned it over to the Union for a vote. You read that right, they got it approved by the judge before ever showing to the Union.

    What was this last/best/final offer? You'd never know by watching the main stream media tell the story. So here you go...

    1) 8% hourly pay cut in year 1 with additional cuts totaling 27% over 5 years. Currently, I make $16.12 an hour at TOP rate of pay in the bakery. I would drop to $11.26 in 5 years. 2) They get to keep our $3+ an hour forever. 3) Doubling of weekly insurance premium. 4) Lowering of overall quality of insurance plan. 5) TOTAL withdrawal from ALL pensions. If you don't have it now then you never will.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/18/1162786/-Inside-the-Hostess-Bankery

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