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There’s a difference between not believing in management and not believing management’s inconvenient facts. At Hostess Brands, some employees didn’t make that distinction, and they could bring down the company.

Hostess’ union workers have lost faith in their leaders for good reason. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and emerged five years later with lower sales and higher debt. Despite the nostalgia for Twinkies and Ding Dongs — and don’t worry, some bakery will produce the brands — sugary junk food isn’t a growth market.

Yet a string of Hostess CEOs failed to develop new products, capitalize on well-known names or invest in equipment, distribution and marketing. Hostess’ truck fleet is 18 years old, and even before this month’s strike, bakeries were running at 65 percent capacity.

Three years ago, management didn’t use bankruptcy to whack pensions or completely overhaul work rules. When Hostess filed its second Chapter 11 in January, it still had 372 separate collective bargaining agreements and 80 different health plans.

It also has a big problem with workers’ compensation. About $231 million of Hostess’ cash is restricted for those claims alone, leaving nothing for scores of other creditors.

Hostess’ debt load has been growing, too, thanks to payment-in-kind interest that dug a deeper hole. Its private equity investor, hedge fund lenders and management believed that Hostess would grow into the larger debt, but the Irving company’s annual revenue is $1 billion smaller than when it filed the first time.

So a failing business came out of bankruptcy primed to fail again.

It’s understandable that union workers, who took $110 million in annual cuts in the first reorganization, would say, “It’s not our fault.”

While that’s true, it doesn’t change Hostess’ prospects or the fact that management was right about one important detail: If labor didn’t accept more cuts in bankruptcy, Hostess was going to be sold off in pieces.

While most employees gritted their teeth and went along, the bakers union, representing about one-third of total employees, went on strike. With production crippled, Hostess said it would seek to liquidate and eliminate about 18,000 jobs. But on Monday, the company and the bakers agreed to a judge’s request to return to mediation.

The bakers union had justified the strike by recalling earlier sacrifices and management mistakes, including executive raises. The company’s business plan, the union said, had “little or no chance of succeeding.”

But isn’t a little chance better than none? And isn’t it better to work for a troubled company than to not work at all?

The Teamsters, representing the largest union at Hostess, reluctantly embraced reality. The union’s turnaround expert, Harry Wilson, told the bankruptcy court that poor management had doomed Hostess. One example: Hostess made only one notable innovation since 2009, Nature’s Pride bread, while competitor Grupo Bimbo reformulated 1,300 products. Bimbo introduced flatbreads, thin bagels, a broader line of cakes and pastries, and products with better nutrition.

Not surprisingly, Wilson concluded that unions weren’t the major problem. Base pay for Hostess Teamsters, he said, was at least $6,000 per year lower than for union brothers at Bimbo. Yet Teamsters still agreed to concessions, and they pleaded with bakers to return to work, fearing that Hostess would be closed.

“This is not an empty threat or a negotiating tactic, but the certain outcome,” the Teamsters wrote last week.

Not just because management said so; the Teamsters’ experts had studied the company’s financial reports, and no better solutions existed.

Hostess’ reorganization plan, filed last month, documented the problems and shared sacrifice. Ripplewood Holdings, the private equity firm that invested almost $130 million three years ago, was to get nothing in return. Holders of fourth-lien notes, owed more than $230 million, would get nothing. Ditto for general unsecured claims, estimated at up to $2.5 billion, including pensions.

Bankruptcy lawyers would get an 18 percent cut in fees; and union and nonunion employees, 8 percent cuts in wages and a 17 percent cut in benefits. Retirement contributions were suspended.

They weren’t good choices, but they were better than hoping for a white knight. Hostess had called 41 parties before landing a single investor, and that was contingent on cutting labor costs and pensions.

In 2010, bankers also pitched Hostess to Bimbo, Flower Foods, Hershey, Kraft and more. In 2011, Hostess offered individual brands, and only Mrs. Cubbison’s was sold — for just $15 million in proceeds.

There simply wasn’t much interest in a company with $1 billion in assets and $2.5 billion in liabilities. The smart money was waiting on a going-out-of-business sale.

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