Could Greenspan be right after all, re supply not keeping up with demand? Could this be first, and worst, realization of his fears?
Union Furor Makes Twinkies Scarce in Northeast
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By MARTIN FINUCANE
.c The Associated Press
BOSTON (March 22) - Forget the high gas prices. Folks along the East Coast are swallowing bitter news this week: There is a shortage of Twinkies and other snack-food favorites, courtesy of a labor dispute.
Supply problems are being reported from the nation's capital to Maine, wreaking havoc on untold snack breaks.
'I'll have to eat healthy food,' complained Rubens Breeden, a 28-year-old state worker longing for Ring Dings and Devil Dogs on Tuesday.
Charlie Bianchi, who works at a snack bar in one of the busiest state office buildings, has faced the wrath of the hungry masses.
'All day long, they're saying, 'Where's my Twinkies? Where's my coffee cake? Where's my pound cake? Where's my Devil Dogs? Where's my Yodels? Where's my Ring Dings?' Bianchi said.
'They're ready to kill. They look at me with doubt in their eyes. They think that I forgot to place the order. It's always the coffee slinger's fault,' said Bianchi, 42, assistant manager of Hal's Place.
Actually, a Teamsters strike has lead to shortages in a variety of well-known bakery products, including Wonder bread and Hostess brands such as Twinkies.
As shelves empty across the region, the area will have to do without deliveries of about 2 million Twinkies and cupcakes per week and another 400,000 loaves of Wonder bread, a company official estimated.
The strike began a week ago when 1,400 Teamsters responsible for delivery and sales of products from Interstate Bakeries Co.'s only New England bakery in Biddeford, Maine, walked off the job.
Since then, that bakery and others have shut down as Teamsters in other states honored the pickets. Interstate Bakeries officials say five bakeries in four states have closed.
The union has accused the company of refusing to honor arbitration rulings. The company maintains it was shut out of the arbitration process, and it has asked a judge to clarify the process.
One of the major sticking points has been the company's requirement that drivers deliver more than one brand of Interstate products. The Teamsters say drivers are supposed to be paid different amounts for each brand.
All of this comes as the Twinkie, the yellow, spongy, cream-filled cake, approaches its 70th anniversary next month.
Some people are already seeking to make a buck off of the Twinkie crisis. What was billed as 'The last box of Twinkies known to Man?' was being offered on the Internet auction site eBay, with the minimum bid set at $2,500. There were no takers late Tuesday.
Pamela Anderson, a mother of two, picked up some of the last Twinkies at a gas station in Concord. N.H.
'I say they're for my kids, but they're really for me,' she said.
Lisa Towne, a dental hygienist with Aesthetic Dental Center in Concord, saw a bright side to the strike: 'The dental community might even benefit.'
In downtown Boston, shelves usually occupied by Hostess products were bare or getting there quickly.
To Breeden, the Massachusetts state worker, eating Twinkies and other snack cakes is just part of growing up American.
'It's like everything from baseball to watching the Celtics,' he said. 'Basically, every little kid does it; it's like throwing rocks and playing in the mud.'
AP-NY-03-22-00 0222EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press |
