Think Progress: Not long after the owner of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains admitted their anti-Obamacare campaigns hurt more than helped, the owner of a Wendy’s franchise in Omaha, Nebraska plans to cut 300 employees’ hours to part-time to avoid providing them health care coverage.
By moving workers to part-time status in order to avoid paying for their health benefits, the Wendy’s franchise would shift the costs of insurance coverage onto hundreds of employees:
The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, vice president of operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week. Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.This fall, Denny’s quickly distanced itself from a franchisee’s similar ploy, while Darden Restaurants saw a sharp 37 percent drop in profit after threatening to cut workers to part-time.
Heaping blame on Obamacare is a misleading one. According to the Urban Institute, Obamacare has a negligible impact on business costs, leaving large companies virtually unaffected while actually reducing costs for small businesses.
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Thursday, January 10, 2013
I'm Boycotting Wendy's in Omaha, Nebraska, for reducing Minimum Wage Workers hours to Avoid Obamacare.
Looks like one of my favorite "change of pace" fast food restaurants, Wendys in Omaha, has decided to stiff their low wage worker when it comes to health care, and stick the bill with their state Medicaid program. And that's only if these young people, and family supporting adults, think to apply for it. Again, this is one franchise owner, in Nebraska and not here in Wisconsin.
"as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance."
ReplyDeletePhew, good job he won't have to pay for everyone's health insurance then because small businesses are exempt from having to provide insurance!
Oh, "small business" = 300 workers in OmahaWendyspeak. I think he means "large business". Phew, good job he won't have to pay for everyone's health insurance then because the mandate doesn't kick in until 2014! So, um, why cut their hours *now*?
It's all about anticipation for 2014 he says? Phew, good job he won't have to pay for everyone's health insurance even then because even if he pays them the minimum wage of $7.25/hr for 35 hrs/week, 52 weeks/yr, he can *still* get his single employees to stump up $264/yr towards the premiums without penalty so he won't have to pay for everyone's health insurance, just 95% of them (equivalent to about $2.50/hr; or choose to pay the penalty instead which would be about 40%, or about $1.10/hr).
Of course, since he's in the business of serving food to customers, ensuring that his employees are healthy so as not to endanger his customers in any way is surely priority #1.
Right?