Hostess was clearly in deep trouble for a long time. What gets me is how the BCTGM seemed willing to be the patsy here. The Teamsters had looked at the books and confirmed that they weren’t bullshitting about how far gone the company was. But the BCTGM chose to play hardball anyways, for whatever reasons they had. Now, it’s pretty easy to lay blame on union inflexibility, even if the company was on its last leg regardless.