CEO's blame layoffs and reduced hours on Obama re-election

[Rukentuts]

While true, that's not the concern of a business owner. A business owner doesn't (and shouldn't be expected to) simply accept that someone else is saving money at his expense.

Eh, he'll just increase prices and we'll be done with it.

[vaeevictiss]

So whats the best solution?

hell if i know, im not the politician. What i do know is that "free" healthcare is anything but, and has failed in nearly every nation that has tried it..or just bankrupted it. We never just "let people die on the streets" like people claim. People were always able to get health care. Sure we as taxpayers footed the bill, but not as much as we are about to. Shit like that is also billed into people insurance. Its just like uninsured motorists coverage. Insurance companies know there is no way to get everyone insurance so they bill that into the cost of peoples health care plans. The high quality of care we see in the US is about to dwindle as well, and you will see less and less people coming from other countries to receive care because of it.

In addition to the topic at hand...Are you really surprised that a business owner is altering costs to the consumer based on current economical standing? This has been happening since the very first business...its called running a business. economy changes, costs to the consumer change...i challenge you to find a company/industry that does not. If John Shnatter said "were raising costs of a pizza by .14c because of the bad economy" no one would bat an eyelash. But because he said "because of obamacare" the response is "BURN HIM AT THE STAKE"!

[Riidii]

Eh, he'll just increase prices and we'll be done with it.

You were saying that was "bullshit" and "ludicrous" a page ago.

[Laize]

Eh, he'll just increase prices and we'll be done with it.

And it's really just as simple as that.

[Darkwing]

What a bunch of children. If Romney got elected the same thing would be happening.

Oohhhh i'm pretty sure.... you are right my friend.

[HeatherRae]

His problems can be offset by a slight and not likely even noticeable increase to his pizza prices yet he is going to lay people off and cut hours instead. Or do both.

As explained earlier, HE isn't going to be doing anything. HE doesn't control the majority of the Papa John's locations in the world. They are franchises. Owned by much smaller companies/single owners.

[TradewindNQ]

Hmmmm...tough choice for CEO's. Buy a Jaguar...pay for employee health benefits.

[Laize]

Hmmmm...tough choice for CEO's. Buy a Jaguar...pay for employee health benefits.

Contrary to what the left would have you believe, that's only a tough choice when the quality of your employees' work matters.

[TradewindNQ]

Contrary to what the left would have you believe, that's only a tough choice when the quality of your employees' work matters.

Left and right are irrelevant to me. There's just what a person should do.

[smrund]

Contrary to what the left would have you believe, that's only a tough choice when the quality of your employees' work matters.

The first company to tell me that the quality of work their employees do doesn't matter, is going to be the first company I point to when I hear about someone going out of business.

If you don't care about your employees, they won't care about their work. If their work suffers, your product suffers, if your product suffers, you lose money.

Companies have nothing to lose by treating their employees well other than a sense of entitlement, which sadly runs rampant in America among all groups of people.

[Laize]

Left and right are irrelevant to me. There's just what a person should do.

You have a target for the amount of profit your company should make.

When you fall under that target you have to either raise prices or lower costs.

If you raise prices you risk pricing yourself out of a market.

If you lower costs there are no negative repercussions until you need to expand again.

So "What a person should do" is, in effect, cut costs rather than assume that, whatever industry they're in, raising prices will work.

---------- Post added 2012-11-17 at 12:17 AM ----------

The first company to tell me that the quality of work their employees do doesn't matter, is going to be the first company I point to when I hear about someone going out of business.

If you don't care about your employees, they won't care about their work. If their work suffers, your product suffers, if your product suffers, you lose money.

Companies have nothing to lose by treating their employees well other than a sense of entitlement, which sadly runs rampant in America among all groups of people.

McDonalds, Walmart and Darden Restaurants seem to have made billions proving you exactly wrong.

[TradewindNQ]

I think you're misunderstanding...it's a moral question, not economic. Profit at the expense of your employees is immoral. Nuff said.

Also, McDonalds and Walmart are hardly paragons of customer service. No fucking clue who Darden is.

[HeatherRae]

I think you're misunderstanding...it's a moral question, not economic. Profit at the expense of your employees is immoral. Nuff said.

Also, McDonalds and Walmart are hardly paragons of customer service. No fucking clue who Darden is.

I think the point is that whether or not they actually have decent customer service, they are making billions a year providing sub standard customer service while treating their employees like slave labor.

[TradewindNQ]

I think the point is that whether or not they actually have decent customer service, they are making billions a year providing sub standard customer service while treating their employees like slave labor.

No I get the point. I'm saying that doesn't make them right. Certainly not worthy of admiration, unless it's your life goal to make a fortune on the backs of your under-compensated workforce.

[Decklan]

While true, that's not the concern of a business owner. A business owner doesn't (and shouldn't be expected to) simply accept that someone else is saving money at his expense.

You make it sound so black and white when it really isn't that simple. Every employer makes a certain amount of money off each employee. Employers on the one hand want that profit margin to be as large as possible for their benefit, and this is where the gray area begins. How much do you like your workers vs how much do you see them as little expendable profit machines? The most successful and popular businesses treat their employees well and put employee happiness and success on the same level as overall business success. Many successful but not so popular businesses see employees as expendable worker bees that make them money, and take every shortcut to screw their workers as much as possible to save a dime here and a penny there.

Also, CEO's are throwing a temper tantrum that their companies aren't meeting their 5.9% growth expectation for this fiscal year in a free market while treating their employees like shit, news at 11.

[Laize]

I think you're misunderstanding...it's a moral question, not economic. Profit at the expense of your employees is immoral. Nuff said.

Also, McDonalds and Walmart are hardly paragons of customer service. No fucking clue who Darden is.

Darden is the guys who own LoneStar Steakhouse, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and others.

No one's saying McDonalds and Walmart are paragons of customer service. Quite the opposite. I'm saying that treating your employees like shit is hardly a requisite for success.

And when you're talking about costing a company like Walmart billions off their bottom line, you better be damn sure they're going to fight that any way they can. If they can't win in Congress they'll win on the payrolls and price tags.

[Wells]

Hey!

Let's all get mad at this guy now.

"Florida Restaurateur to Impose Surcharge for ObamaCare".

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/florid...obamacare.html

So he's slashing most hours and still has to raise prices by 5%. Yeah I'm calling bullshit.

[smrund]

McDonalds, Walmart and Darden Restaurants seem to have made billions proving you exactly wrong.

McDonalds produces some of the shittest food I've ever had the displeasure to eat. IMO what McDonalds is running on now is reputation and market share alone. There was a time when they made good, quite delicious fast food; that time is gone.

WalMart is a complicated situation to address, in individual instances they make up impressive local market share which makes it difficult to develop compeition. The stores that have survived the WalMart-effect are ones like Target who have shifted from cheap, crap products to a more higher-quality. This is why stores like K-Mart, who try to compete in the same market but on a much smaller scale, continue to fail. WalMart as it stands is something like the banking industry, they are so big, so influential in their locations that they could make all the wrong decisions and it still wouldn't put them out of business. To add to the above point, WalMart has aided in the preservation of McDonalds by integrating them into the majority of their locations.

Also before Google: WTF is Dardens?
Oh...the Red Lobster/Longhorn/Olive Garden guys. Dardens relies on local ownership, which is why some Red Lobsters are full of morons and shitty food and why some other places are amazing and delicious. While there is a corporation that determines where a new store will ultimately be located, many of the decisions we hear about(such as the suit against all of Red Lobster by two employees in Florida) are made at the individual store level. Secondly, Dardens maintains multiple types of restaraunts, from higher-class ones such as Olive Garden to more casual joints like Bahama Breeze or Yard House. It's a great example of diversification.

Aside from perhaps WalMart, whose sheer size allows them to be collective dicks on a corporate scale, McDonalds has shown signs of strain for years now, and with the locally-owned/operated architecture of Dardens, I doubt there's any kind of corporate-level "treat your employees like crap" mandate.

[Decklan]

So he's slashing most hours and still has to raise prices by 5%. Yeah I'm calling bullshit.

Haha, he's riding the temper tantrum train as an excuse to raise prices. Right Wing asshole #1049513 please take a number.

The changes will force some front-of-the-house employees to look for second jobs, Metz said, but he simply cannot afford the penalties associated with ObamaCare.

Yeah, Metz has really fallen on hard times, he may have to take one less vacation to turks and caicos this year. Poor him.

from higher-class ones such as Olive Garden

Wait what? I know Olive Garden used to be pretty darn good but every single one I've eaten at in the last 10 years has tasted like cafeteria/freezer section pasta.

[Laize]

McDonalds produces some of the shittest food I've ever had the displeasure to eat. IMO what McDonalds is running on now is reputation and market share alone. There was a time when they made good, quite delicious fast food; that time is gone.

WalMart is a complicated situation to address, in individual instances they make up impressive local market share which makes it difficult to develop compeition. The stores that have survived the WalMart-effect are ones like Target who have shifted from cheap, crap products to a more higher-quality. This is why stores like K-Mart, who try to compete in the same market but on a much smaller scale, continue to fail. WalMart as it stands is something like the banking industry, they are so big, so influential in their locations that they could make all the wrong decisions and it still wouldn't put them out of business. To add to the above point, WalMart has aided in the preservation of McDonalds by integrating them into the majority of their locations.

Also before Google: WTF is Dardens?
Oh...the Red Lobster/Longhorn/Olive Garden guys. Dardens relies on local ownership, which is why some Red Lobsters are full of morons and shitty food and why some other places are amazing and delicious. While there is a corporation that determines where a new store will ultimately be located, many of the decisions we hear about(such as the suit against all of Red Lobster by two employees in Florida) are made at the individual store level. Secondly, Dardens maintains multiple types of restaraunts, from higher-class ones such as Olive Garden to more casual joints like Bahama Breeze or Yard House. It's a great example of diversification.

Aside from perhaps WalMart, whose sheer size allows them to be collective dicks on a corporate scale, McDonalds has shown signs of strain for years now, and with the locally-owned/operated architecture of Dardens, I doubt there's any kind of corporate-level "treat your employees like crap" mandate.

Just putting this out there...

If you think McDonalds has been struggling for years I have some statements that disagree.

In fact here's a chart that can go back 20 years to show you just how poorly they've been doing.