You thought you could kill a Twinkie that easy?
Bankrupt Hostess Brands and its striking bakers stopped the death clock attached to the 82-year-old company by agreeing to a mediation session today.
The one-day chatfest between the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread and its 6,000-strong bakers union comes at the urging of Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain.
Drain rejected a Hostess request yesterday to wind down the business immediately.
The White Plains, NY, judge will now try to broker a peace between two very hostile sides.
Hostess shut down operations this weekend — citing the cost of the strike — and if the session is not successful, will quickly seek liquidation.
Josh Kosman
LAST HAUL: Hostess Teamsters drivers, from left, Richie Cestaro, Denis Fenton and Steve Galluzzo stock up on snack favorites at a company thrift store as their jobs hang in the balance.
Richie Cestaro, who has driven a Hostess truck in Queens and Long Island for 24 years, thanked the judge for not immediately flushing his job down the drain.
“I think the judge is doing the only thing possible,” Cestaro said. “There is definitely a glimmer of hope. I would think that the bakery has to explain this strike to him.”
Hostess, in the weeks leading up to the strike, reached out unsuccessfully to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union to engage in talks, several sources said.
A Hostess executive said people in the corporate office believe the mediation effort is a very unfunny joke.
“This is all being done so the judge doesn’t have to be guilty” when the company liquidates, the executive said.
An executive at a Hostess rival speculated the leaders at the bakers union knew all along their strike would lead to liquidation.
The union leadership cannot accept the company’s demands for an 8 percent pay cut and a 17 percent boost in health costs, the rival sniffed, or members at other bakeries would eventually have to make similar concessions.
Hostess, the executive said, lost about $7 million during the week-long bakers strike and does not have the money to re-start without new investment.
The bakery union did not return calls.
Sun Capital Partners co-founder Marc Leder yesterday said his firm is interested in buying Hostess — but several sources scoffed at the public outreach.
Several months ago, Sun Capital inquired about Hostess and made an informal bid that the Teamsters union, Hostess’ largest, quickly rejected, a source said.
As the judge yesterday was giving Hostess a 48-hour reprieve, driver Denis Fenton and a few of his colleagues milled around in front of the Hostess depot in Hicksville, NY, the area’s largest.
Inside, managers were cleaning about 45 trucks and getting them ready for sale.
A nearby Hostess thrift store was jam-packed.
Fenton, along with Steve Galluzzo and Cestaro, each in their early 50s and with more than 20 years behind the wheel, cannot tap their pension for years — until they are 55.
“I’m 51,” said Fenton, who earns $55,000 a year. “With the economy the way it is, it won’t be easy for us.”
Galluzzo said he had put his Hostess uniform in a box that morning and stored it away so he would not have to look at it every day.
Cestaro said he instinctively woke up at 1 a.m. as if he were going to work, and stopped by a Dunkin’ Donuts to pass the time.
“I feel depressed and angry,” he said.
jkosman@nypost.com
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