Your point isn't without merit. It's also important to remember that it's usually only under great pressure (like successive bankruptcies) that creative solutions like this level of automation can occur. More so in a stale industry like baking.

Re your better way to handle the situ: if a business can operate with larger fixed upfront cost but significantly less operational labor cost, why would you not take this route?

Probabilistic thinking would have you believe the union would not negotiate anywhere near the labor cuts Hostess was able to accomplish with the bankruptcies.

I'm not talking bonuses and profits, their decisions look like sound decisions, albeit sterile and perhaps insensitive.