Hostess didn't die because of Unions. It died because America woke up one day and discovered that 11 servings of grains a day isn't viable and neither is stuffing your face with Twinkies. And IBC/Hostess flatly refused to change or alter their offerings to meet the changing tastes. They only had one line of bread that was specialized for healthier tastes, otherwise they kept pumping out Wonder bread, which by now is an engineering marvel for shelf life rather than a baked good.

They had already cut wages which the union agreed to in 2004 under the first bankruptcy. But they never re-strategized the factories and still had massive overproduction. So the second bankruptcy came and they had to both close plants and cut wage/benefits. The rank and file had enough and authorized a strike which made the credit stop flowing. Basically, if you were making 48k/year at the 04 restructure, you agreed to a cut down to 38k. At the last bankruptcy, that was going to get cut to 27k.

At what point is the job worth having if your pay gets cut that deeply? Since they were unionized, they had a right to strike and the management folded to the creditors.