Olive Garden retreats on 'Obamacare' threat

A

AK Forty Seven

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/olive-garden-owner-hold-off-200230971.html

Olive Garden owner to hold off on worker changes

Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants to hold off on worker changes tied to health care reform



NEW YORK (AP) -- The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster says it won't bump any full-time workers down to part-time status, after its tests aimed at limiting health care costs resulted in a publicity backlash that took a bite out of sales.

At the same time, Darden Restaurants Inc. isn't ruling out relying more heavily on part-timers over the long haul.

The company, based in Orlando, Fla., is set to announce Thursday that none of its current full-time employees will have their status changed as a result of the new regulations. The move will come just two days after the company lowered its profit outlook for the year, citing failed promotions and negative publicity from its tests that used more part-time employees. The tests were aimed at keeping down costs tied to new health care regulations, which will require large companies to provide insurance to full-time workers starting in 2014.

After Darden's tests were reported in October, the company received a flood of feedback from customers through its website, on Facebook and in restaurants, said Bob McAdam, who heads government affairs and community relations for Darden. Additionally, he said that internal surveys showed both employee and customer satisfaction declined at restaurants where the tests were in place.

"What that taught us is that our restaurants perform better when we have full-time hourly employees involved," he said.

McAdam declined to give specifics on the internal surveys but said the decline was "enough to make a decision." Beyond the first year of the regulation, however, the company said it still needs to see how costs and other factors play out to determine what its workforce will look like in following years.

For now, about 75 percent of the company's 185,000 employees are part-timers. Although that mix should hold for the time being, whether it changes in the future "will depend on how the business goes," McAdam said.
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_1...a-johns-ceo-my-obamacare-claims-were-twisted/

Papa John's CEO: My Obamacare claims were twisted


Papa John's founder and CEO John Schnatter wrote Tuesday that the media had it all wrong in its reporting on his comments on how the national health care law known widely as "Obamacare" will negatively impact his business.

"Many in the media reported that I said Papa John's is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare," he wrote in the Huffington Post. "I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act."

Schnatter, who supported and fundraised for Mitt Romney in the presidential election, went on to say that while his company is still researching the impact of the law, "we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100% of Papa John's corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984."

Schnatter wrote that his remarks to a class at a Florida college were taken out of context. According to his telling, he was asked if franchise owners would cut back hours to make them part time in order to keep from having to provide health insurance. "Well, in Hawaii there is a form of the same kind of health insurance and that's what you do, you find loopholes to get around it," he responded. "That's what they're going to do." He also called it "common sense" that some business owners would cut hours to avoid paying for health insurance.

Schnatter stressed Tuesday that he was taking about the actions he expects Papa John's franchisees to take, not the plans of his company. "Since our franchisees own the restaurants they operate, who they hire, how many hours they give each employee and what they pay each employee is up to them, not me or Papa John's," he wrote. He also noted that he told the class that he was "cool with" more Americans getting health care and that under the health care law "I get to provide health insurance and I'm not at a competitive disadvantage ... our competitors are going to have to do the same thing."
 
I wouldn't get too comfortable IQ 47.

these companies most certainly are going to either
1) apply for exemption
2) stealthily do exactly what they said ,more part-timers as a policy due to increased cost.
 
They could divide the restaurant in 2 sections like they did for the smokers. One half could be staffed by full timers with health care and have a menu to reflect the increased cost of doing business with Obamacare. The other half could be staffed with part timers and a cheaper menu. I wonder which side all the complaining pricks would eat?

Which side would Ak dine on?
 
Quote from nutmeg:

They could divide the restaurant in 2 sections like they did for the smokers. One half could be staffed by full timers with health care and have a menu to reflect the increased cost of doing business with Obamacare. The other half could be staffed with part timers and a cheaper menu. I wonder which side all the complaining pricks would eat?

Which side would Ak dine on?
More...

The full time side
 
Quote from PHOENIX TRADING:

I wouldn't get too comfortable IQ 47.

these companies most certainly are going to either
1) apply for exemption
2) stealthily do exactly what they said ,more part-timers as a policy due to increased cost.
More...

Exactly.

It isn't necessary to state the obvious. Most of the smart CEOs are simply going to make the necessary adjustments to negate the impact that Obamacare will have on their companies and have the sense to not discuss it publicly. It will be clear when their financial statements are examined closely but they aren't going to be making proclamations on CNN. :)

Same thing for taxes. Millions of individuals and businesses are setting up to massively dodge the increased taxes and they are preparing quietly. I suspect that most of them lack even the slightest twinge of regret or remorse about it. It isn't in the nature of normal people to hold still while they are being robbed.

A friend of mine started teaching engineering part-time at a technical school in the Northwest , one of those quasi-accredited schools that advertises on TV and caters to working students, and they just fired every single full-time instructor on the teaching staff. The only person on the entire staff that is full-time is the Department Chairman. Obama has effectively introduced the concept of the 29-hour week. Many will work 2 jobs in the future.

At some point the USA will have to build a wall on our borders to keep citizens *in* like East Germany in the cold war. People my age have already had a chance to make their money and acquire some assets but imagine what life is going to be like for people who are just graduating from university or finishing a stint in the military in their early 20s. The rug has been pulled out from under these people and they simply aren't going to have the quality of life that we did. Poof! All gone!

I will be amazed if the population remains peaceful when the full extent of the Marxist plans being enacted by the liberals becomes clear. I think there is going to be trouble.
 
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