A few items Nancy Fischman omitted in her letter from Nov. 28. The new CEO of Hostess, Gregory F. Rayburn, had announced he was slashing executive compensation and that the company’s top four executives had temporarily agreed to cut their annual salaries to $1 while four other executives had agreed to return to their previous salary levels, to help keep the company alive. Maybe she forgot that part.

The union members refused to budge. The pay raises mentioned were put in place after the company began bankruptcy proceedings and had nothing to do with Hostess going under.

What private company executives make is their shareholders business, but since we are discussing pay let’s look at the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers Union leaders pay. Nearly $2 million is paid in salary to the top 10 executives of the bakers’ union, average salary of all union office staff is nearly $100,000, with 29 office workers in the union office make more than $100,000.

The bakers’ union office has more than $31 million in assets. The bakers’ union is part of the AFl-CIO, which is led by Richard Trumka with a salary of nearly $300,000. The average of the 207 employees of the AFL-CIO office is $83,000. The AFL-CIO has over $100 million in assets.

But you are correct on one point, it was not working people that caused Hostess to go under, it was the striking union members walking the picket line.

Oh, by the way, I was never offered a job from a poor person.

JOHN HAMES

Gray