There Ought to Be a Law

How can it be that there is no remedy for this sort of theft? Hostess took workers' pension money to fund itself:

Of all the outrages Hostess has committed against its workers, this may take the cake. In August, 2011, the company just stopped contributing to its workers’ pensions, and is now acknowledging that it instead used the money for operational expenses. The money that didn’t go into pension funds was money that the workers had bargained for and chosen to take as pension instead of wages. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything they can do about it:

At the very least we should put promised past pension contributions higher up in the queue in bankruptcy. (Underfunded future promises is a harder question I haven’t thought through.) It certainly ought to come ahead of management bonuses.

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5 Responses to There Ought to Be a Law

  1. Patrick (G) says:

    Could the employees take this to the bankruptcy judge as an act of bad faith on the part of management and ask that all management bonuses since that date be
    Garnished to be paid to PBGC if the contribution deficit is not made whole from the proceeds of the sale of the firm?

  2. agabada says:

    This is exactly what the federal government does with Social Security. Why should Hostess be any different?

    Could the citizens take this to Congress as an act of bad faith on the part of the President and ask that he be impeached?

    • It’s not like SSA at all – SSA is currently in surplus because we collected extra taxes in anticipation of future shortfalls.

      And the President had nothing to do with Hostess’s actions, so I don’t think he can be blamed for how Congress wrote the laws. Actually, when it comes to Social Security, all both this and former administrations have done is execute the laws at written there too, so that hardly seems impeachable whether or not it turns out to be wise policy.

      • Just me says:

        That and, unlike the Hostess issue, Social Security is still paying out. So even if, theoretically, “agadaba’s” analogy held up, the injury hasn’t happened yet.

        • Barry says:

          In addition, the citizens of the USA have means to compel payments (through elections). The workers at Hostess have squat.

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