Even though Hostess is asking for permission to cut employee pensions by over $1 million per month, they're also still asking for permission to dish out bonuses totaling $1.75 million.
Hostess Brands Inc., the defunct maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, told a bankruptcy court that it must cut $1.1 million a month in retiree benefits as part of its liquidation plan.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, today approved formation of a committee of retired employees to defend their rights in connection with the intended cuts. Drain is also being asked to consider Hostess’s request to close and its bid to pay as much as $1.75 million in incentive bonuses to 19 senior managers during the company’s wind-down. [...]
The union and a pension fund have asked the judge to appoint a trustee to take control of the wind-down.
Let them eat Ding Dongs?
Hostess' 18,000 employees are already going to lose their jobs, and now company execs want to cut their pensions by $1.1 million per month while dishing out $1.75 million in bonuses to themselves. Because this company won't bury itself on its own. They need to provide an incentive to the sensitive, talented masters so they can bear the burden of shuttering the company in an orderly fashion. It's a terrible job and someone has to do it.
With any luck, Judge Robert Drain will grant the union's request to give control to a trustee rather than the executives who ran the company into the ground.