On 10/13/2012 22:40, Matt Munson -> All wrote:
 MM>     Hello everybody!


 MM> Its an article from Daily Kos, but it is relevant. I just feel like it
 MM> might be more ethical just to cook at home and leave entrepenuers who
 MM> find the loopholes unworthy.


 MM> Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

 MM> Papa John's has company in the Obamacare fear-mongering game. Darden
 MM> Restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and others,
 MM> is joining the pizza chain in threatening dire consequences stemming
 MM> from the requirement that large companies offer affordable health
 MM> insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week. But where Papa
 MM> John's has threatened to pass the 11 to 14 cent per pizza added cost it
 MM> claims will come from insuring or refusing to insure their workers along
 MM> to customers, Darden is sticking it straight to its workers by planning
 MM> to make sure hourly workers just don't get the 30 hours a week that
 MM> would tip them over into qualifying for insurance.
 MM> Here's the thing: Obamacare or no, this is completely typical behavior
 MM> from Darden. The chain already keeps 75 percent of its hourly workers
 MM> below 30 hours of work a week, and:

 MM> Darden has been aggressively keeping labor costs down. It has cut
 MM> bartenders' pay and required servers to share tips with them. It also
 MM> has eliminated busboy positions at Red Lobster and reduced the number of
 MM> servers working each shift at that chain.
 MM> Labor costs as a percentage of sales have dropped steadily from 33.1
 MM> percent in fiscal 2010 to 30.8 percent in the most recent quarter.

 MM> What we have here is not some Obamacare cataclysm of good employers
 MM> being forced to cut their employees' hours or go out of business.
 MM> Rather, it's a food service sweatshop finding one more way to screw its
 MM> workers. Darden is one of the 20 largest low-wage employers in the
 MM> country; meanwhile, it was profitable in the last fiscal year and over
 MM> the last three fiscal years, and has higher revenues, profits, operating
 MM> margins and cash holdings than prior to the recession. In recent years,
 MM> Darden has paid nearly $14 million in fines and settlements for wage theft.
 MM> It's a sad fact that almost any time you're eating in a restaurant,
 MM> you're in a low-wage, low-benefits workplace. Usually, employers who've
 MM> taken the high road are the only ones that stand out in the restaurant
 MM> industry. But Darden has repeatedly distinguished itself by being one of
 MM> the worst employers in an industry of bad employers. That it would use
 MM> Obamacare as an excuse to cut the hours of the few remaining full-time
 MM> hourly workers in an overwhelmingly part-time workforce is hardly a
 MM> surprise.

BO has never cared about people, only power. Companies  are only playing by
then rules set up under BO. If BO's plan forces them to cut hours to keep
from being extorted by the Government, so be it.

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