Free Talk Live

Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly, began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake.

A day after union workers rejected for a second time a contract that might have saved their jobs, the Metro East company told them it was moving about 1,000 ammunition production jobs from Metro East to Oxford, Miss.

headlines have been quick to blame unions for the downfall of the company there’s actually more to the story: While the company was filing for bankruptcy, for the second time, earlier this year, it actually tripled its CEO’s pay, and increased other executives’ compensation by as much as 80 percent.

USA Today reports that some Federal workers are more likely to die than be laid off.

"I was fired for trying to start a union at the UFT," said a dumbfounded Callaghan, who worked for the union's newsletter and as a speechwriter for union leaders for the past 13 years.

Callaghan said he personally told United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew on June 9 about his intention to try to organize nonunionized workers at UFT headquarters.

"I told him I want to have the same rights that teachers have," said Callaghan, 63, of Staten Island. "He told me he didn't want that, that he wanted to be able to fire whoever he wanted to."

This year saw the birth of a new, private bus company in Detroit, and it’s called the Detroit Bus Company. The owner and founder, 25-year-old Andy Didorosi, was a guest on Mitch Albom’s show today, where he stated that his company is “trying to change what people think about buses.” In other words, his company does not tool around the city in monstrous, shabby, dirty, disgusting cages on wheels that are driven by 400-pound, sedentary maniacs who have nothing to lose, especially their union-protected, government job.

Oakland turns to 1st general strike in 65 years

A 10,000-strong rally has blocked the entrances to the Port of Oakland, which has had to shut down its operations for the day. The port will lose roughly $8 million per day if the "blockade" continues.

Today’s events have culminated in a massive march in the Bay Area, which has been one of the goals of the Occupy Oakland General Strike, the first such strike in the city for 65 years. The Port of Oakland is one of the largest shipping hubs of its kind in the country.

I have been covering a pending grocery workers' strike at my newspaper. Today, I broke news suggesting the strike could be near thanks to an offer I received to interview for a scab job. The leftist commenters are now threatening me with beatings for saying I would cross a picket line. So much for a free market of consent-based contracts between workers and employers.

Time to call in the libertarian cavalry!

Michelle Berry runs a day-care business out of her home in Flint, MI. She thought that she owned her own business, but Berry's been told she is now a government employee and union member. It's not voluntary.