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Obamacare Forcing Restaurant Chain to Stop Full-Time Schedules for Hourly Workers

Details

Thursday, 11 October 2012 08:12

Written by Justin Credible

Just because something is called affordable by the government doesn't exactly mean it's true, but it's a friendly reminder that liberalism generates the exact opposite of its stated intent.  Obamacare could not be a more dystopian, top down, authoritarian government mandate that fundamentally transforms America - hey, a promise he actually kept!  Darden Restaurants and their 185,000 workers are getting hit hard by the law, causing them to cut part-time workers to less than 30 hours per week to avoid Obamacare fines.

Darden Restaurants owns the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouses.  Obamacare kills the mini-med insurance program that many large companies provide to part-time employees.  These employees, which typically work 30 or more hours per week, have seen their hours reduced as Darden Restaurants deals with the enormous costs of Obamacare.  Employees are now working around 28-hours per week and are told to go home if that threshold is reached.  Why?  So they don't have to offer health care coverage to these employees, which would increase costs across the company, particularly to the consumer.

Here are the details:

In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses.

Darden said the test is taking place in "a select number" of restaurants in four markets, including Central Florida, but would not give details. The company said there has been no decision made about expanding it.

In an emailed statement, Darden said staffing changes are "just one of the many things we are evaluating to help us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the health care regulations and we simply do not have enough information to make any decisions at this time."

Analysts say many other companies, including the White Castle hamburger chain, are considering employing fewer full-timers because of key features of theAffordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Under that law, large companies must provide affordable health insurance to employees working an average of at least 30 hours per week.

If they do not, the companies can face fines of up to $3,000 for each employee who then turns to an exchange — an online marketplace — for insurance.

"I think a lot of those employers, especially restaurants, are just going to ensure nobody gets scheduled more than 30 hours a week," said Matthew Snook, partner with human-resources consulting company Mercer.

Darden said its goal at the test restaurants is to keep employees at 28 hours a week.

Analysts said limiting hours could pose new challenges, including higher turnover and less-qualified workers.

"It's a real problem for restaurants," said Howard Penney, a restaurant analyst and managing director for Hedgeye Risk Management.

Darden, the world's largest casual-dining company and one of the nation's 30 largest employers, said it offers health insurance to all its approximately 185,000 employees. Many are offered a limited-benefit plan. That type of coverage is being phased out under health-care changes, which will ban annual limits for most plans.

About 25 percent of Darden workers are full time, meaning they work more than 30 hours a week. Though employees say Darden already offers traditional health insurance to full-timers, Janney Capital Markets analyst Mark Kalinowski said the cost of providing that could become higher for Darden under the Affordable Care Act. Because that law requires everyone to have health insurance, more workers will likely choose its coverage, Kalinowski said.

"Even a modest jump up in the amount of employees that decide they want the insurance you're offering could have a meaningful impact on your bottom line," he said.

Under the system Darden is testing, employees are to be scheduled for no more than 28 hours each week. They can run over that if things get busy, but Darden acknowledged they are not supposed to exceed 30 hours.

With roughly 25% of Darden's employees being full time, that's 130,000 part-time workers that will face a tough reality due to Obamacare and how their employer is dealing with the costs.  That is a significant change.

While liberals believe the corporation is evil in this situation, they're being moronic idiots; they believe everything should be done for the greater good.  And that's why liberalism is such a failed ideology.  It's always the same excuse: they need more money and more time to impose their dystopia.  Look at the Soviet Union.  There wasn't enough time in that top down government?  

Any sane person realizes the deep implications of Obamacare and how every American gets fucked whether they want to or not. 

Justin Credible is a contributing editor for Habledash.