No Union Contract Coming Here: Hostess Twinkie plant in Schiller Park, Il. closes after 84 years

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Hostess Brands said Wednesday it will close its Schiller Park bakery, where Twinkies and other iconic sweets have been produced for 84 years, affecting about 400 employees.

Union officials said they were notified of the closure on the same day they were set to start negotiating a new labor contract. About 280 of the workers had voted to unionize in May.

The plant, among only four remaining Hostess bakeries in the country and the last left in Illinois, is expected to close Oct. 19. Twinkies were invented in the Chicago area in 1930.


Donald Woods, president of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 1, said he learned about the plant closure when he met with company officials to negotiate a labor agreement.

“We were shocked,” Woods said. Union members average about $15 an hour. “It's devastating for them,” he said.

Change.