Thank you for that original and inspired comment

You're welcome

Hey Ray,

I belong to a union and I have no problem calling out any union when I believe they're wrong. All the unions but one including the Teamsters voted to help save Hostess. But the Bakers union trumped them all and 18,000 union workers are without jobs now. Skip the circle around the wagon mentality and understand that every organization has some degree of corruption, incompetence and idiocy!

Mike Kenney

Good grief, everyone knows now how the company was 'Romenied', laden with debt, restructured and laden with debt... sucked dry by the profit takers, while the unions kept giving up, the brass got richer and richer...

Where have you been?

Michael,
the death of Hostess was not due to union corruption or incompetence. It was a a plan to bust unions and make big money by selling off the brand.

It was corporate greed that killed the Twinkie.

Union work rules contributed to the demise of Hostess. As well as the DEMOCRAT Hedge Fund managers of Ripplewood and former Congressman Dick Gephardt. Gepharts son was appointed to the Board Of Directors and made 100k a year.

The snack giant endured $52 million in workers' comp claims in 2011, according to its bankruptcy filing this January. Hostess's 372 collective-bargaining agreements required the company to maintain 80 different health and benefit plans, 40 pension plans and mandated a $31 million increase in wages and health care and other benefits for 2012.

Union work rules usually required cake and bread products to be delivered to a single retail location using two separate trucks. Drivers weren't allowed to load their own vehicles, and the workers who loaded bread weren't allowed to load cake. On most delivery routes, another "pull up" employee moved products from back rooms to shelves.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/

"the family" oh please, give me a break. Unions were conceived and created by progressives aka communists and communists care nothing about family values. Your own political administration is owned by the unions and look at the perverted family values they portray,... abortion, death panels, adultery, corruption, murder?? ya some family values...

Turn off your radio and TV and start listening to your neighbors...

The reason retired folks have to sell their homes is because they are paying 2012 property taxes on income relative to 30 years ago. Especially in the city. Taxes need to be tied to income. What we have now is a regressive scheme that serves the upper class.

Stop targeting elderly home owners and instead shift the tax burden to those who have money. Unions haven't stolen anything.

Unions have taken what percent of the real estate tax increases in NH over the last ten years. They have exorbitant pensions, salaries and benefits. Unions should stop their greedy grubby grabbing of all that tax money. Give the money back or be called a thief, not only from the elderly but from children as well.

Jack W's proof that public unions in NH have taken exorbitant pensions and ripped off the tax paying homeowner is what?
.................................

Just as I thought, he has no proof.

Retired public workers in NH are using their "exorbitant" pensions to pay for such luxuries as: a roof over their heads, (hopefully they can afford a house in the neighborhoods in which they worked) food, clothing, medical expenses, maybe a college education for their kids if they are lucky.

How many public employee pensions are above $50,000 per year? How about $70,000 per year?, Wait a minute try $80,000. Hold the phone, how many public employees are getting a pension above $100,000 per year.

They did not EARN THAT MONEY and they DO NOT DESERVE THAT MONEY.

Public employee UNIONS are ripping off the taxpayers, 100% of the taxpayers.

Tell us Jack, how many are above 50K, 80K etc?

And what do you mean they didn't earn it?

Anyone who goes to work each day for 25 or 30 years with the potential of being shot at, has earned it. Anyone who goes to their job each day for 30 years and has to deal with 31 teenagers from all walks of life, has certainly earned it.

Evidence, please.

Yes, listen to your neighbors, 80% of them have been shipped in from socialist states given local or state union jobs and infested NH quite efficiently, so listen to them so they can convert you as well.

There's the rub. Lets see if hassan and norelli keep their word or are they going to do a 180 on us. Good luck to all democrats if they do.

Yes gladly an income tax as long as my property taxes are cut in half and school appropriations aka union appropriations are cut in half.

Saying taxpayers do not fund these pensions is a joke.

The average annual pension for a police officer in the New Hampshire Retirement System is $33,876

Imagine the workers in Bangladesh now living the lavish lifestyles once enjoyed by American workers, because, as we know, multi-nationals pay workers so well in Third World countries.

And so has Conservatism.

As long as corporate greed exists, unions remain useful.

When govt unions force the elderly to loose their homes because of Union Greed they are USELESS. Obviously Ray Guarino considers the elderly and retired seniors expendable. Ray, you as a democrat are very very confused and very very wrong.

You're right because many of these big corporations union zealots talk about don't have union labor anymore. The majority of unions are governmental, which speaks volumes for the cause of getting rid of them.