Darden tests limiting worker hours as health-care changes loom

[markomalley]

From the Orlando Sentinel: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 the Affordable 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.
The other thing that Darden may eventually do is to just drop health coverage for everybody. After all, it’s only a $3,000 per employee tax (according to the Supreme Court, it’s a tax, not a fine, not a penalty).

And before anybody goes there, the CEO of Darden is a Democrat:

http://i.imm.io/Hb2U.jpeg

 

[Elizabeth502]

However I have to say that long before the ACA was even so much as a thought in anyone’s mind, it has been a trend in corporate America to reduce standard benefits as a means of increasing profit, including when businesses were not suffering from increased expenditures or taxation, but merely when profits were declining, variously, due to market competition and nothing else.

The average U.S. employee is victimized by a take-no-prisoners unbridled capitalism, which suffers no repercussions from pursuing unadulterated greed. No incentives are offered to companies for their ratio of full-time to part-time workers, for example, in the form of tax breaks.

Enlightened companies, when facing the possibility of layoffs, sometimes approach their employees, inform them of that possibility, and give those employees the choice to become part-timers (as opposed to losing their jobs entirely), and/or to forego benefits, etc. Also, some companies have the humanity to pro-rate benefits based on proportional employment. Sometimes employees on the management level choose a reduction in salary (or a pass on raises/bonuses) in order to keep everyone employed.

Imagine.

What I’m saying is, please don’t blame this all on the ACA. Surely it is not helping, but the brutality started about 20 years ago. Hate to tell you.

Greed figures in in other ways as well. Often companies over-expand, pushing risk to the limit. When expansion does not meet profit goals, often the employees of the pre-expansion sites are punished for those business decisions, by losing their jobs. (All sites stay open with reduced & overworked staff everywhere.)

Just saying…

 

[Elizabeth502]

continuing…

I actually have rarely benefited from company-offered health insurance. Therefore, I have far preferred the more modern trend to offer employees a choice of whether to participate in the offered group policy or whether instead to take a cash offer (monthly), in lieu. The group rates are frankly not all that good (not a significant discount, nor do many of the plan benefits apply to me), and a health care voucher makes much more sense, i.m.o.

 

[april32010]

However I have to say that long before the ACA was even so much as a thought in anyone’s mind, it has been a trend in corporate America to reduce standard benefits as a means of increasing profit, including when businesses were not suffering from increased expenditures or taxation, but merely when profits were declining, variously, due to market competition and nothing else.

The average U.S. employee is victimized by a take-no-prisoners unbridled capitalism, which suffers no repercussions from pursuing unadulterated greed. No incentives are offered to companies for their ratio of full-time to part-time workers, for example, in the form of tax breaks.

Enlightened companies, when facing the possibility of layoffs, sometimes approach their employees, inform them of that possibility, and give those employees the choice to become part-timers (as opposed to losing their jobs entirely), and/or to forego benefits, etc. Also, some companies have the humanity to pro-rate benefits based on proportional employment. Sometimes employees on the management level choose a reduction in salary (or a pass on raises/bonuses) in order to keep everyone employed.

Imagine.

What I’m saying is, please don’t blame this all on the ACA. Surely it is not helping, but the brutality started about 20 years ago. Hate to tell you.

Greed figures in in other ways as well. Often companies over-expand, pushing risk to the limit. When expansion does not meet profit goals, often the employees of the pre-expansion sites are punished for those business decisions, by losing their jobs. (All sites stay open with reduced & overworked staff everywhere.)

Just saying…

 

[markomalley]

However I have to say that long before the ACA was even so much as a thought in anyone’s mind, it has been a trend in corporate America to reduce standard benefits as a means of increasing profit, including when businesses were not suffering from increased expenditures or taxation, but merely when profits were declining, variously, due to market competition and nothing else.

The average U.S. employee is victimized by a take-no-prisoners unbridled capitalism, which suffers no repercussions from pursuing unadulterated greed. No incentives are offered to companies for their ratio of full-time to part-time workers, for example, in the form of tax breaks.

Enlightened companies, when facing the possibility of layoffs, sometimes approach their employees, inform them of that possibility, and give those employees the choice to become part-timers (as opposed to losing their jobs entirely), and/or to forego benefits, etc. Also, some companies have the humanity to pro-rate benefits based on proportional employment. Sometimes employees on the management level choose a reduction in salary (or a pass on raises/bonuses) in order to keep everyone employed.

Imagine.

What I’m saying is, please don’t blame this all on the ACA. Surely it is not helping, but the brutality started about 20 years ago. Hate to tell you.

Greed figures in in other ways as well. Often companies over-expand, pushing risk to the limit. When expansion does not meet profit goals, often the employees of the pre-expansion sites are punished for those business decisions, by losing their jobs. (All sites stay open with reduced & overworked staff everywhere.)

Just saying…

I one time had a boss who asked me a very provocative question once. Seems pertinent to me:

“Is it better to bid lower salary rates or is it better to lose the bid?”

This could be analogized to the question: “Is it better to cut fringe benefits or to go out of business?”

 

[PaulinVA]

Everything has consequences. Some things have unintended consequences.

The ACA does indeed give incentives to companies to drop workers to below 30 hours so that the tax or the minimum benefit plans don’t apply.