Corporate raiders now control the Twinkies brand. You may remember almost a year ago that Hostess Brands wanted to eviscerate wages and benefits for the thousands of workers.Typical story: the company shut the place down and it reopened with non-union workers at lower wages, all courtesy of private equity pirates. But the union hasn’t gone away.

It is trying to make a deal with these pirates, pointing out the professionalism and skill of the union bakers — and how that skill has helped another company:

The BCTGM has consistently stated our interest in working cooperatively and productively with the new owners of this company.  We have always maintained that the experience, skill and professionalism of our members offer the new owners, who have no experience in the wholesale snack cake business, the best chance for long-term success in consistently putting out a quality product.

Compare Hostess’ approach to that taken by the U.S. Baking Company, a 107-year old wholesale bread and cake company based in Portland, OR, which bought the former Hostess assets in the northwest.  The company, with which the BCTGM has had a longstanding collective bargaining relationship, decided that the most effective way to achieve a seamless re-entry into the marketplace was to reopen the former Hostess bakery in Billings, MT with the professional bakers who knew the product and the bakery the best.

The BCTGM and U.S. Baking recently negotiated a fair and equitable collective bargaining agreement and the bakery is up and running, producing high-quality products.  In fact, the workers there are earning more in wages in the first year of the contract than they were when Hostess closed the bakery last year.

Last year’s demise of Hostess was due in large measure to critical mistakes made by a series of management teams that simply did not have any meaningful experience in the wholesale bread and cake baking business.  To avoid the same fate, the BCTGM encourages the two private equity firms that own Hostess Brands, LLC to change their approach and work with our Union and our members in a cooperative manner.  This is their best hope for long-term success.

As the process moves forward, the BCTGM remains committed to taking all appropriate and necessary steps to protect the rights of our members and all Hostess Brands workers.

Good luck…though I still won’t regress and eat those things.