Twinkie-maker Hostess continues to screw over its workers. The company is in the process of complete liquidation and 18,000 unionized workers are set to lose their jobs. More troubling – they could lose their pensions.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Hostess’ CEO, Gregory Rayburn, essentially admitted that his company stole employee pension money and put it toward CEO and senior executive pay (aka “operations”). While this isn't technically illegal, it's another sleazy theft by Hostess executives - who've paid themselves handsomely while running their company into the ground. Just last month, a judge agreed to let Hostess executives suck another $1.8 million out of the bankrupt company to pay bonuses to CEOs.  

If there's no way to recover the money for the Hostess pension plans for workers, then the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will have to foot the bill to make sure workers get at least some of the retirement money they paid in.

Hostess shows us clearly what Bain-style predatory capitalism is all about: big bucks for the very few rich executives, layoffs and poverty for the workers and their communities.

And don’t mourn the loss of Hostess brands – they’ll be back, as the company is currently negotiating with over 100 potential buyers right now to bring Twinkies, Wonder Bread, and Ding Dongs back into the marketplace.  

The Hostess story has nothing to do with unions, and everything to do with the Enron-ization and Bain-ization of the American economy.  

In classic Enron style, back in 2005 Hostess sent out a letter saying they’d just had a very, very profitable quarter.  Their stock jumped up. The CEO, Charles Sullivan, and many of the senior executives sold chunks of their stock.   The CEO and senior executives were making out big, and the workers were making a decent living. 

At that time, one of the hostess workers – Mike Hummel, blogging as bluebarnstormer over at Daily Kos – noted that he was making $48,000 a year, a bit over the US median household income, and had insurance and a pension.  

Then, a few weeks later in 2005, came the letter saying that, oops, all of that profit had really been just an accounting error – the company was actually in trouble.  Although the CEO and the top guys had all made a nice killing selling the stock when it was high, and paying a maximum income tax on it of 15 percent because they used the Capital Gains loophole that Mitt Romney used to become a multimillionaire, they now wanted the workers to take a big pay cut. 

Hummel notes that the “oops” letter became the justification for asking the workers to take a pay cut, which they agreed to, and his pay dropped from $48,000 a year in 2005 to $38,000 a year last year.  But every year, $3 an hour of his compensation showed up in the worker’s pension fund instead of his paycheck.  Year after year.  With 18,000-plus workers, it was millions and millions of dollars.  Dollars that the workers had paid in, at the rate of $3 per hour.  

Then came the Bain-style takedown.  In order to strip the company down to its individual brands and sell them off, piece by piece, the company needed to bust the union.  The union said, “No,” so the company went to bankruptcy court – a method Bain and other vulture capitalists often use to kill off unions. 

In the meantime, the CEO and senior executives were paying themselves handsome salaries and big bonuses.  And where was that money coming from?  

On August 12 of 2011, the employees got a letter that said that the company was going to “temporarily suspend payments” to its pension funds.  That would be the $3 per hour that this worker had negotiated as part of his compensation – instead of paying it to him by putting it into his pension fund now, the company said they were going to put it in later. 

As the letter said, “I want to be clear that this temporary suspension of payments to the pension fund will not affect your pension benefits.”  

Workers believed management, and kept on working.  

But, it turned out, as we learned from that interview in today’s Wall Street Journal, that the senior management wasn’t just “borrowing” the pension funds – they were using them to fund ongoing operations.  Including big paychecks to the fatcats. 

Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t around when that particular thing happened. "Whatever the circumstances were, whatever those decisions were, I wasn't there," Rayburn told the Wall Street Journal.  After all, Rayburn isn’t a baker – he’s a bankster.  He’s the owner of Kobi Partners, a company that tells corporations how to “restructure.” Think Mitt Romney. And he’s going to make out very well on all this – the bankruptcy court just okayed $1.8 million in Christmas bonuses for the new fatcats at Hostess. 

Ironically, if you borrow money to pay for your education, you can’t get rid of that debt through bankruptcy – one of the “reforms” of the bankruptcy law during the Bush era.  But if you’re a CEO or a buyout bankster and you borrow money from your employees’ trust fund to be able to cover your own paycheck and million-dollar bonuses, and then take your company into bankruptcy, neither you nor the company have to pay those employees back even a single penny. Part of their pension is picked up by federally-run pension insurance, and the rest is just lost.  

There used to be a time in America when businesspeople had at least a modicum of ethics. Mostly it was because the majority of businesses were small- or medium-sized and locally owned, so the owners and managers had to look the employees in the eye. Or the unions were strong enough to keep the CEOs honest.

Reagan put an end to all that when he stopped enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, wiping out most of America’s small and medium-sized businesses, and when he kicked off the modern war on unions by firing the PATCO union strikers. You can see the result most clearly at any shopping mall or any downtown in America.  What used to be locally owned business are now big chains, from food to jewelry to clothing.

It used to be that CEOs shared the pain.  Lee Iacocca famously took a dollar a year as pay when he was working to turn around Chrysler. Steve Jobs did the same when Apple was in trouble.  Pretty much everybody who’s ever started a small business knows what it’s like to make payroll for workers while taking little to nothing themselves during the early years of the company.

But in today’s post-Reagan, Bain-model American capitalism, there’s never any risk for the CEO class. Instead, all the risk is borne by the workers. 

Karl Marx famously wrote that capitalism contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. If true, the young, green shoots of that destruction may well be the corporate and billionaire excesses, ranging from the Hostess debacle to the billionaire oligarch Koch Brothers funding anti-union efforts by Rick Snyder and Republicans in Michigan.

This article originally stated that taxpayers would have had to foot the bill for the lost pension funds through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), but in fact PBGC does not receive taxpayer funds on an annual basis. It has been corrected to say that the PBGC will pay out a portion of the lost pension funds, and that the rest of the missing funds will not be recovered by the workers.

Craig Davis, a former forklift operator at a Hostess cake plant in Emporia, Kan., has been unemployed since November, when the Twinkies maker shut its factories and began liquidation proceedings.

He could have applied to get his old job back now that the plant is churning out Twinkies, Zingers and Ding Dongs in preparation for a July 15 return to store shelves. But he said the current starting salary of about $11 an hour, with the chance to bump it to $14, is "a slap in the face."

"When I left, I was making $16.53 an hour, so I just didn't see the point," said Mr. Davis, who worked at the plant for almost 22 years.

Eight months after Hostess closed amid labor strife, its former workers have had divergent paths, but many of them have failed to regain their previous income levels. Hostess moved to liquidate in November shortly after the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union went on strike in response to a new contract imposed on them at a bankruptcy court's direction. The bakers balked at the company's cessation of pension contributions. Hostess later admitted to using wages that were supposed to help fund pensions for the company's operations.

C. Dean Metropoulos, chief executive and co-owner of the new Hostess, where the workforce currently isn't unionized, said the company has "put together an excellent and competitive wage and benefits program for our employees."

Some former Hostess workers who belonged to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters still blame the baker's union for the company's demise.

"We might still have our jobs if they didn't go on strike in November," says Scott Quenneville, a former Hostess delivery driver and Teamster in Detroit.

The 42-year-old father of three said he's gotten just one job offer as a driver for a food company 72 miles away, offering only $527 a week. It would have cost him $300 to $400 a week in gas to commute, so he passed. He expects he'll have to move out of state to find work. He and his wife are falling behind on house and utility payments.

Luigi Peruzzi, another former Hostess driver in Detroit, is now delivering Frito-Lay chips as a salaried employee filling in when other drivers are on vacation. The 49-year-old expects he might get his own route in a year, enabling him to earn commissions.

For now, he's making $700 a week, about half the nearly $1,400 he was making at Hostess.

Mr. Peruzzi said he feels fortunate to have a job, but "Trying to stretch that money across all my bills is pretty tough." The Hostess episode, he said, "is like a distant bad memory now."

The 42-year-old father of three said he's gotten just one job offer as a driver for a food company 72 miles away, offering only $527 a week. It would have cost him $300 to $400 a week in gas to commute, so he passed. He expects he'll have to move out of state to find work. He and his wife are falling behind on house and utility payments.

Some former Hostess employees are better off. James Jones, who had worked at a Lenexa, Kan., bakery for almost 26 years, found a new job as a machine operator at a nearby Unilever ULVR.LN +0.72% PLC plant. Mr. Jones, 52, said he earns almost $2 an hour more than his $16.32 hourly wage at Hostess, and has better benefits.

As a bakers union member who had voted to strike, he said, "I have no regrets."

Mr. Davis, the former forklift operator, said he's hoping for a job at a power plant after he finishes his associate's degree in power-plant technology next year from a vocational school he's attending through a government retraining program.

His house is paid for and his two kids are grown, so he and his wife can get by on her salary as a registered nurse for a while. Mr. Davis, 45, considers himself lucky, but worries about retirement. Had Hostess continued contributing to its employee pension plan, Mr. Davis says he would have been eligible to collect about $1,800 a month starting at age 55. Now expects to draw only $500 a month.

Hostess Brands Inc. won interim approval from a bankruptcy judge to shut down and start selling the Twinkie maker's assets after last-minute mediation with its bakers' union failed to resolve a contract dispute, leaving more than 18,000 jobs at risk.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain today approved Hostess's request to close at a hearing in White Plains, New York. Chief Executive Officer Gregory Rayburn said 15,000 workers will be fired today so they can start receiving unemployment benefits. Hostess said Nov. 16 that it needed to liquidate because a weeklong strike by its bakers' union crippled operations.

Sales of Hostess assets may generate about $1 billion, financial adviser Joshua Scherer of Perella Weinberg Partners LP told Drain today. Drain approved going-out-of-business sales at Hostess's retail outlets and the return of excess ingredients and packaging. Final approval of the wind-down plan will be considered Nov. 29, and Hostess will seek court approval later for sales of major assets, such as its brands.

There is "very intense" competition for the brands, Scherer said in court. A sale would be a "once in a lifetime opportunity for our competitors to get iconic brands," he said. The 82-year-old company makes Wonder bread, Hostess CupCakes, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Drake's Devil Dogs.

'Could Rehire'

Most of the wind-down will take place in the first three months, said Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess with Jones Day. Quick asset sales may preserve some jobs, Scherer said. A prospective buyer visited a Drake's cake factory yesterday and asked whether its acquirer "could rehire employees who worked here," he said.

Rayburn asked Drain to shield company officials from lawsuits over today’s firings. Hostess has been spending about $1 million a day for payroll since halting operations last week, down from $2 million a day, Rayburn said.

Hostess said about 3,200 employees will stay on temporarily to clean plants and mothball equipment. Drain approved a plan to retain the employees, as well as a request to use cash collateral and an amended financing agreement for the company.

Drain rejected a request by U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis to convert the Hostess case to a Chapter 7 liquidation from Chapter 11, which would have handed control over the asset sales to a trustee. Conversion "would be a disaster," Drain said.

Charles Carroll, an adviser to Hostess with FTI Consulting Inc. (FCN), argued that a trustee would "take time to get up to speed" while the assets' values declined.

'Last Chance'

Drain adjourned the hearing two days ago and sent the parties off for a last-ditch effort to negotiate terms that might keep the floundering company afloat. Hostess said it was forced to opt for liquidation after the bakers' union went on strike Nov. 9. The union, representing about 5,000 Hostess workers, walked out after Drain imposed contract concessions opposed by 92 percent of the union's members.

"I'm giving the union as well as the debtors and their lenders a last chance to try and work those issues out in private," Drain said Nov. 19. He cited "serious questions as to the logic behind the decision" to strike.

Hostess, based in Irving, Texas, and the union agreed to Drain's request to enter confidential mediation under his supervision. Company and union officials acted in good faith in yesterday's talks at the law offices of Jones Day in New York, Drain said today.

Mediation 'Unsuccessful'

Mediation with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union "was unsuccessful," Hostess said yesterday in a statement.

Frank Hurt, the union's international president, didn't immediately return a phone message seeking comment on today's ruling.

Hostess asked Drain for approval to shut down 36 bakeries, 242 depots, 216 retail stores, and 311 hybrid depot-store facilities, according to court filings. There are 58 other leased or owned sites used for storage, warehousing of products or parking. The plants are in 22 states, stretching from Alaska to New Jersey.

Ken Hall, general secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters union that represents Hostess drivers, said in a statement that the liquidation process will take six months.

"With Judge Drain's ruling today, more than 18,500 workers will be left without a job as Hostess proceeds with the liquidation of the company," Hall said in the statement. "For our 6,700 Teamster Hostess members, our union will be focusing its efforts on ensuring that they receive what they are owed in the form of wages for hours worked accrued benefits."

WARN Act

Laid off Hostess worker Mark Popovich sued the company alleging that his termination without 60 days advance written notice violates the U.S. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act. Popovich, who worked as a loader in the shipping department of a Hostess facility in Ohio, seeks to represent all laid off Hostess workers and seeks unpaid wages, vacation pay and benefits for 60 days, with "first priority administrative expense status," according to a complaint filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains.

Hostess sought court protection in January, its second time in bankruptcy, listing assets of $982 million and debt of $1.43 billion.

The case is In re Hostess Brands Inc., 12-22052, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (White Plains).

Hostess Brands is not dead just yet, but the prospects for the company's survival are now dim at best. Hostess—which still makes iconic food products (or sort of food products) like Twinkies and Ding Dongs—went into Chapter 11 back in January for the second time in eight years, in an attempt to get out from under a pile of debt and labor obligations. The company hoped, it seems, to be able to use bankruptcy protection as a way of imposing cuts in wages and benefits on its unionized employees. But last week, after Hostess put in place a contract that the bakers' union said would end up cutting wages and benefits between twenty-seven and thirty-two per cent (including an immediate eight per cent wage cut), that union went on strike. Hostess claims the strike has irreparably damaged production and made it impossible for it to continue operating. As a result, on Friday the company asked a bankruptcy judge to allow it to liquidate the company. If no deal is struck over the weekend, and if the judge approves Hostess's request, as of Monday afternoon, it will be on its way out of business—its brands and factories will be sold for whatever the company can get for them. A few thousand workers will be kept on initially to wind things down, but most of the nearly nineteen thousand employees will lose their jobs.

Management, of course, blames the company's demise on the greedy, unreasonable unions. But, while the strike may well have sent Hostess over the edge, the hard truth is that it probably should have gone out of business a long time ago. The company has been steadily losing money, and market share, for years. And its core problem has not been excessively high compensation costs or pension contributions. Its core problem has been that the market for its products changed, but it did not. Twinkies and Ding Dongs obviously aren't anyone's idea of the perfect twenty-first-century snack food. More important, the theoretical flagship of Hostess's product line, Wonder Bread, has gone from being a key part of the archetypical American diet to a tired also-ran.

Hostess's management certainly bears some of the blame for its failure to successfully adapt, though the company made numerous (and failed) attempts to introduce healthier products. But the simple truth is that this kind of failure is endemic to the system—there are always going to be companies that are unable to change in response to the marketplace. And those companies are supposed to go out of business. Not to be too clichéd about it, but this is what creative destruction is all about.

The problem, of course, is that that destruction is going to upend the lives of thousands of workers. And to the extent, then, that Hostess's demise shows us something important about the plight of organized labor today, it's not that greedy workers have precipitated their own demise. It's rather that one of organized labor's biggest challenges over the past four decades has been that union strength was concentrated in industries and among companies that, though once dominant players in the postwar American economy, have often ended up in a slow slide to obsolescence, employing fewer and fewer workers and having less and less money to pay them with. In theory, unions could have made up for this by organizing those companies and industries that have become ascendant since the nineteen-seventies, but for a variety of reasons (including a tougher corporate approach to union-busting, a less friendly legal climate, the difficulty of organizing many small enterprises as opposed to a few big factories, and a tendency to protect existing members rather than put real money into organizing) they haven't. And the paradox is that as unions have gotten smaller and less influential, they’ve also gotten less popular. That's why it's so easy for Hostess's management to spin the anti-union narrative.

The real issue here is that people's image of unions, and their sense that doing something like going on strike is legitimate, seems to depend quite a bit, in the U.S., on how common unions are in the workforce. When organized labor represented more than a third of American workers, it was easy for unions to send the message that in agitating for their own interests, union members were also helping improve conditions for workers in general. But as unions have shrunk, and have become increasingly concentrated in the public sector, it’s become easier for people to dismiss them as just another special interest, looking to hold onto perks that no one else gets. Perhaps the most striking response to the Hostess news, in that sense, was the tweet from conservative John Nolte, who wrote "Hostess strikers had pension. PENSIONS! What is this 1962?" It was once taken for granted that an industrial worker who worked for a big company for many years would get a solid middle-class lifestyle, and would be taken care of in retirement. Today, that concept seems to many like a relic. Just as Wonder Bread does.

With less than five hours to go before a 4 p.m. deadline, the Teamsters Union Thursday recommended that bakers’ union members on strike against the maker of Hostess Twinkies vote by secret ballot on whether to continue their strike.

Hostess Brands has given members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union until 5 p.m. Eastern time to get back to work or prompt the liquidation of the snack cake maker, which has been in bankruptcy court since January.

The bakers’ union blamed management going back several years for the company’s plight.

The strike by the second largest union at Hostess Brands has put it at odds with the Teamsters, the Irving-based company’s largest union.

In a news release Thursday, the Teamsters stressed that the company’s ultimatum “is not an empty threat or a negotiating tactic, but the certain outcome if members of the [bakers’ union members] continue to strike.

“This is based on conversations with our financial experts, who, because the Teamsters were involved in the legal process, had access to financial information about the company.”

The Teamsters’ release talked about the efforts by that union to work with current management to craft a solution to the company’s financial woes.

“The [bakers union] chose a different path, as is their prerogative, to not substantively look for a solution or engage in the process. [Bakers union] members were told there were better solutions than the final [contract] offer, although Judge Drain stated in his decision in bankruptcy court that no such solutions exist.

“Without complete information, [bakers union] members voted by voice votes in union halls. The [bakers union]  reported that over 90 percent rejected the final offer and three of its units ratified the final offer.

“As is our longstanding tradition, Teamster members by and large are honoring bakery worker picket lines when encountered and complying with their contractual obligations when not encountering picket lines.

“The [bakers’ union] leaders are putting Teamster members in a horrible position – asking them to support a strike that will put them out of a job when they haven’t even asked all their members to go on strike.”

Stay tuned.

Bakers at seven or eight Hostess plants are planning a strike this weekend, The Post has learned.

The bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread implemented a pay cut at these plants after members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union rejected the proposal.

The pact includes an 8 percent first year pay cut, a suspension of pension payments and a cut to health care benefits.

The affected plants include those in Indianapolis, Orlando, Rocky Mount, NC, and Waterloo, Iowa, sources said.

The pay cuts were forced on only one-third of Hostess bakery workers — not at each of its 36 plants.

The labor contract allows a strike only if a pay package is forced on workers.

The plan by management was to keep some workers on the job — and production humming.

"A widespread strike will cause Hostess Brands to liquidate if we are unable to produce or deliver products," a company spokesman said. "We urge our employees to remain on the job to rebuild this company."

The Bakers union did not return calls.

A second union at Hostess, The Teamsters, voted to accept the reduced pay package.

Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn in recent weeks has been unsuccessful in engaging the Bakers union in talks, sources said.

There is some question whether the planned strike will hold.

Bakers union leaders have warned members not to cross a picket line. They will face stiff fines if they do, according to a memo the union sent out to members.

"Bakers are asking me how to resign from their union so they can avoid a fine from crossing the picket line," a Teamsters worker told The Post.

The Philadelphia bakery workers, which make Wonder Bread and Twinkies for the New York City area, have been told they need to honor a picket line, a Philadelphia plant worker said.

Although they are not expected to strike this weekend, workers from striking plants could picket in front of the Philadelphia plant.

Bakery Union Head Frank Hurt said in September that Hostess is a company "that is controlled by Wall Street private equity and hedge-fund firms, whose sole objective is to maximize their own returns, not rebuild a company for the long haul."

September 14, 2012: Teamsters have narrowly accepted a concession pact put forward by Hostess, but the Bakery Union is overwhelmingly rejecting the deal, after the bakery union president called it a "piece of crap."

The IBT took no position on the contract, but presented it to the Teamster members for a vote: it passed by 2,357 to 2,049.

Meanwhile, 5,000 members in the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union reportedly have rejected in at 24 of 25 local votes.

Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs and other baked goods, is in bankruptcy and using that process to get concessions.

The proposed contract essentially eliminates Teamster pensions; similar to the YRCW pension concession, the company says it will later re-enter Teamster plans at a 25% contribution rate. Some Teamster plans will not accept that at all, while others will impose a big pension cut.

Will the bakery union end up with a better deal, or will the whole deal go south now? It seems strange that the Teamsters International either didn't know or didn't care what they were going to do.

Click here for an article in the New York Post, "A Half Baked Plan."

Hostess, the beloved but bankrupt sweets company, may not have to be liquidated after all. The Post reports that the company, which has been going through bankruptcy proceedings since January, is this close to coming to a deal with its Teamsters. Which might allow them to keep their creditors happy.

Nothing has been signed yet and T's still need to be crossed and I's dotted, but "there are no major sticking points, according to sources." It isn't all great news—workers are going to be asked to take a 5 percent wage cut in the first year, and there will be health-care cuts and lower pension contributions—but jobs will be saved.

As part of the deal, Hostess would be able to sell smaller brands, such as Southeast favorite Merita Bread. Part of the sale proceeds would go to the company and part to pay back the creditors.
In exchange, the company would remain in almost all of the Teamsters’ multi-employer pension plans — a key demand of union officials.
The Teamsters are expected to reach a deal with creditors by week’s end, then spend the next few weeks preparing ballots to distribute to its roughly 8,500 Hostess worker members.

Of course, just because union officials like the deal doesn't mean that workers will. Mexican bakery conglomerate Grupo Bimbo, which has tried to buy out the brand before, already pays its workers more. But right now this is "likely Hostess' last hope." Save the Twinkies!

Allows company to cancel union contracts; on same day, Twinkie-maker sends lay-off notices to all 18,500 workers.

A federal judge is moving to end a tense labor standoff at Hostess Brands by bringing the heavy hand of bankruptcy law down in favor of the corporate managers and against the employees who produce the cakes and breads that have made the company famous.

Judge Robert Drain issued an order May 4 giving the company permission to unilaterally cancel union contracts covering thousands of production workers at the plants where Wonder Bread, Twinkies and dozens of other goods are made. The workers—represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM)—may see their wages and benefits arbitrarily reduced by the company, as well as losing the labor union rights they have enjoyed for decades.

Drain’s decision is equally bad news for the Hostess employees represented by the Teamsters and a half-dozen other smaller unions. Bankruptcy court proceedings are already in progress to strip these workers of their labor rights as well, and Drain’s action against the BCTGM indicates that other union members can expect the same sort of treatment at his hands.

Click here to read more.

A deal between bankrupt Hostess Brands and its unions that could rescue the maker of Twinkies and Wonder bread before a crucial trial begins tomorrow is not likely, CEO Gregory Rayburn told The Post.

Hostess made a last-ditch effort to win support from its unions on April 14 by offering to pony up at least some cash for their pensions, but Rayburn, in an interview with The Post, said he is not hopeful of reaching a deal with the Teamsters and bakery unions.

The unions are expected to reject the offer and could come back with a counteroffer today.

Absent a deal, a bankruptcy judge will hold a two-day trial to determine if Hostess can scrap its existing collective bargaining agreements.

If the union deals are canceled, the likelihood of both a union strike and the liquidation of Hostess increases.

"As much as 50 cents of every dollar Hostess Brands contributes goes to pay for pensions for people who worked at other companies that no longer exist and who never worked at Hostess Brands, IBC or any other predecessor of [Hostess]," the company said in its proposal. "Unfortunately, we can no longer afford to carry the pension costs of former competitors who have long since closed their doors and disappeared."

The Post reported exclusively Saturday that New Jersey Hostess Teamsters workers were now being forced to take severe pension cuts because their multi-employer pension was under-funded enough to trigger federally mandated cuts.

Hostess has not made pension contributions since August, which is partly why the multi-employer pensions are becoming seriously under-funded.

Hostess, under the new plan, would not make back payments and would not make new pension contributions until 2013.

At that time, it would give present workers the chance to get reduced pension benefits when they join financially healthy multi-employer plans.

By Josh Kosman for New York Post