Let's see....
Company A's entire product line is falling out favor with consumers.
Sales and revenues plummet (we can't say this for sure, because Hostess is a private company that does not publicly report it's numbers, but this is a safe assumption).
Company A's does nothing to expand its product line to include things that consumers actually want to buy.
Company A's profits fall.
Company A's executives demand massive (the only appropriate adjective) wage and benefits concessions from their line employees.
When the employees balk, the company decides to liquidate.
AND BLAMES THE UNIONS FOR IT ALL.
There are so many layers of this yet to be explored, many of which will likely never see the light of day because of the privately-held status of the company.
Frankly, if any manager reporting to me came to me with a plan that said the only way to keep the company solvent was to demand that workers take massive cuts in pay, I would fire that manager immediately. Heck, if I were the CEO, I should have been fired ages ago for letting things get to this point.
More importantly - where was the board during all of this? Management should have been canned months if not years ago for letting the company get on this trajectory. If there were any justice here, the union would be able to sue ownership, management, and the board for the full lifetime value of the lost wages and benefits that were caused by reckless managerial incompetence. Unfortunately, due to the travesty that is "limitation of liability" in our corporate legal system, this cannot happen.
Can't wait to read, months from now, buried on page 27D, how much money the PE investors make off of this liquidation.
This is story of management failure.
But none of that matters, it's all the greedy union's fault. And the government's fault for providing such luxurious safety net benefits that people would rather be on the dole than work. Keep telling yourself that.