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.
It’s another example of how an idea relatively sound in concept- capitalism- has been perverted and co-opted by corporate greedheads who care nothing for the interests of anyone save themselves and their kind. By “their kind” I mean those who are charged with the responsibility of managing an ongoing for-profit enterprise, the 1% who see the world as existing solely to serve their mammoths appetites and desires. That this often involves crushing those actually responsible for creating the means of generating the wealth enjoyed by those in executive suites seems not to matter, as if the role of workers is to serve the interests of the Lords of the Universe.
What Rayburn did may not have been illegal, but it’s certainly immoral…and it displays the undeniable and reprehensible lack of regard those at the top hold for the majority further down the food chain.
Gordon Gecko lives…and I can only hope that people like Gregory Rayburn will enjoy the valet parking in Hell.
