Striking bakers must work or Hostess will shut down - KMSP-TV

Fox 32 News cameras captured a Hostess Brands manager barking down at striking workers moments after a 4:00pm deadline to return to work came and went.

The manager yelled "I want you to come back to (expletive) work! Is the union going to pay your house mortgage?"

"I haven't had a raise in eight years but you know what, I'd rather stay here and do what I got to do than not have a job," said David Newman, a maintenance manager at a Hostess Brands plant in Schiller Park.

"My reaction to that is, he gets paid more than we do so it doesn't really effect him. Their union is different than ours," said Fred Gee, a Hostess employee on strike.

Fox 32 News was there when workers received what they say could be their last pay check. Workers are on day six of a nationwide strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union that threatens to shut down the 82-year-old company that makes Twinkies, Wonder Bread and other sweets.

18,000 employees could lose their jobs.

Workers outside the Schiller Park Hostess factory marched through a 4:00pm deadline.

"Don't make other people go home and explain to their families why they have no job and no unemployment and add that to 23 million other unemployed people in this country. Go back to work and then find another job. If you don't like it you can leave," said Gregory Rayburn, the CEO of Hostess Brands, Inc.

"The company wants to give us an 8-percent cut... pay cut," said Gee.

Gee said on average, employees make about $35,000 a year, including overtime. On Wednesday, Hostess announced it will file a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Friday to liquidate the entire company if enough striking employees did not return to work by 4:00pm Thursday.