Tim Hortons franchise owners tell workers to blame gov for cuts, don't vote liberal

[Omega10]

Increasing the minimum wage is not helping the business, it is the government screwing them over. The workers get screwed over by loosing benefits, being given less hours or being made redundant. The customer gets screwed over by having to pay more. Remind me again, who is being helped here?

Since companies have so much power to retaliate against their employees, as you have discussed here, action must be taken to take power OUT of their hands, because as you just stated, they can NOT be trusted with this power, and into the hands of employees. UBI is one way - when companies get uppity they lose employees and no one has to work for them.

You have demonstrated exactly how companies abuse their financial power. It is imperative that we find a mechanism - SOME mechanism - to put more power in the hands of the working class, and to make their lives easier. You've made it quite clear that companies will do everything in their power to prevent this from happening.

[Oneirophobia]

From which I thought they meant monopoly in the sense I described: i.e. the only place around you can get coffee because its pushed the "mom and pop" cafe's out of business; rather than that Tim Hortons was getting a monopoly on the minimum wage labour market.

I did mean the prior, but maybe the later as well? I don't know.

There is nothing but Tim Hortons virtually everywhere. It's almost a little eerie. Big cities like Toronto of course have more selection but some towns don't even have any other businesses, it's literally JUST Timmies.

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By what mechanism would they secure a monopoly? This makes zero sense.

In a lot of smaller towns they're the only business/fast food/coffee/non-residential building. They push everything else out because my fellow Canadians don't eat anywhere else.

[Zan15]

I'd love to see a full copy of that report. I've only seen pieces of it reported, and the numbers used are.......massaged to look better that what actually would happen.

The biggest issue with the minimum wage change in Ontario isn't specifically the amount, it's the short time in which the wage is changing. There also isn't any big stink being made over the fact that students and people who serve alcohol can be paid below minimum wage for some reason.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.d3e552b554e4

You quote a bunch of overall statistics for Seattle, which just shows that overall the region is doing well. That can have absolutely zero correlation to those making minimum wage.

One important note, that study above was paid for by Seattle city council.

Sigh, why would these min wage industries be any different. it sounds like you are making excuses for it actually working???



how about
https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/employme...ent-report.pdf

Year over year stats, for industries that pay min wage

Retailers added 11,500 jobs
Employment in leisure and hospitality is up by 9,500, led by a gain of 7,300 jobs in food services and drinking places.


Hmm EVEN restaurants and food service jobs!!


But But the report you linked said

The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.


Based on the Study and others, these jobs should be disappearing.

https://data.bls.gov/cew/apps/table_...a=53033&supp=0

Feel free too look at the overall trend of employment. Even with the Min wage increases they are keeping up with the rest of the economy when the study said they would be left behind. Here are the bottom 5 wage earning employment area's.

https://data.bls.gov/cew/apps/data_v...htm#tab=Tables

Baseline first report after Min Wage increase in 2016

Three month trend Jan-Mar 2016
NAICS 713 Amusements, gambling, and recreation 15,708 15,708 15,609 $421
NAICS 722 Food services and drinking places 89,761 90,717 91,408 $447
NAICS 447 Gasoline stations 2,501 2,514 2,512 $454
NAICS 448 Clothing and clothing accessories stores 9,394 9,213 9,149 $464
NAICS 624 Social assistance 38,788 39,150 39,275 $490


Three month trend Jan-Mar 2017
NAICS 713 Amusements, gambling, and recreation 16,505 16,983 16,855 $441
NAICS 722 Food services and drinking places 92,879 93,134 94,846 $478
NAICS 447 Gasoline stations 2,494 2,523 2,511 $501
NAICS 448 Clothing and clothing accessories stores 10,219 9,784 9,806 $507
NAICS 624 Social assistance 38,983 39,265 39,567 $541


Three month trend Apr-June 2017
NAICS 713 Amusements, gambling, and recreation 15,989 16,414 17,890 $462
NAICS 722 Food services and drinking places 96,588 98,812 100,612 $492
NAICS 447 Gasoline stations 2,537 2,545 2,555 $509
NAICS 448 Clothing and clothing accessories stores 9,811 9,900 10,027 $510
NAICS 624 Social assistance 39,660 39,932 40,300 $549



Trend:
15.7k > 17.9k.... $421 > $462
89.7k > 101k ..... $447 > $492
2.5k > 2.55k ........$454 > $509
9.4k > 10k ..........$464 > $510
38.8k > 40.3k ......$490 > $549


Relative growth equal to the general local population as a whole.
Wage growth, on par with general economy.


Two rounds of Min wage increases and no collapse. Average weekly earnings are up. Employment is up.


I can do the same with prices to dismiss that Myth of abnormal rise in prices if you want, but really at this point its failing to live up to the hype in that report and the calls by all min wage opponents

[Spectral]

In a lot of smaller towns they're the only business/fast food/coffee/non-residential building. They push everything else out because my fellow Canadians don't eat anywhere else.

This isn't what "monopoly" means.

[Krastyn]

Everything I talked about for the part after the small statement you bolded is in the article that I had quoted from with the research in it. If you need it again, since you missed it in my previous post, here it is for you again. Know that you have to read the entire article and not just the first paragraph. It's fairly long.

But again, much like the article states, the increase in higher paying jobs is not shown as causation from the study. Typically when an economy is growing there usually is wage growth to go with that. But keep breezing past that point and saying I didn't read the article.

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Sigh, why would these min wage industries be any different. it sounds like you are making excuses for it actually working???

Can you link sources that are just Seattle, and show not just weekly earnings, but also hours worked? Linking all of King county isn't helpful, as I don't believe Seattle's $15 applies to all of it.

[Shadowspire]

Ok I remember having a debate with my dad back when minimum wage was being talked about in the USA. I came up with the idea of a 3-6 year hold on all jobs, meaning you can't fire or cut hours because of the increase, you also can't raise prices of things that existed for 3 or more years at nearly the wsame price ,so the dollar menu stays the dollar menu.

I know that this is really heavy handed but again as I told my dad, if you know ppl will try and abuse the system, why not make sure that the system is fully locked down.

[elaina]

I don't think very many franchisees drive Lamborghinis.

This is another weird misunderstanding of how markets work though. There simply isn't a mechanism for competitive goods (such as fast food) to yield high profit margins. Any given store is going to have a pretty limited amount of profit due the swiftness which which they'll be ground to dust by competition if they're trying to extract much higher profits from consumers. If you disagree, you're going to need to propose both a coherent mechanism for how a store owner can get massive profits and examples of them doing so; I think you'll find that the only times this happens are when someone has a scarce good or a monopoly.

Every franchisee I've ever known back when I worked in food was loaded with plenty of overhead to shed, however all of them had also either married into money or grew up rich, and were also diversified into other ventures such as owning rental property, et al. so maybe they were all above average in level of success. Still, I've seen some of the profit sheets (they LOVED sharing them with management) and it was pretty disgusting. Anecdotal, sure, but it has definitely shaped how I view franchisees overall: that the perception is that things are a lot tighter than they are, when in reality they are utterly unwilling to budge and cut into their piece of the pie (as anyone would be). Going to resorts all over the country six times a year is important.

[Independent voter]

You could simply have laws that don't let businesses make such adjustments right after the minimum wage gets pulled up. I thought Canada would have such laws (as most european countries do), but I guess the USA sometimes rubs off on them instead. It's all just a matter of lack of worker rights, it would be illegal in most european countries to adjust your employees benefits and hours like that. In most european countries it would also be followed by massive union strikes.

North-America really missed out on some of the more violent socialist revolts that happened throughout Europe. It's why employees get treated like shit there.

May Day was founded to commemorate a US labor protest or strike.



. The Haymarket Affair // Chicago, Ill.

More from mental floss studios


Who: Chicago police vs. protesting laborers
Date: May 4, 1886
Dead: 11 (seven policemen, four protesters)

Workers in Illinois were mandated an 8-hour workday in 1867. But even afterward, if you wanted a job, you were often required to sign a waiver allowing more hours. State oversight was lax, so workers had little recourse until the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions called for a rally on May 1, 1886. Demonstrations were held in various cities, and 80,000 workers marched in Chicago. The demonstrations continued for several days. Chicago police killed a few striking workers on May 3, prompting a labor meeting on May 4 at Haymarket Square.

The mayor of Chicago had granted permission for the rally, but Chicago police showed up and tried to disperse the crowd anyway. The rally was almost over by that time, and only a couple of hundred workers remained. Someone from the rally threw a homemade bomb filled with dynamite at the police. The police began shooting, and when the smoke cleared, seven policemen and four rally attendees lay dead. Only one policeman was found to have been killed by the bomb. Dozens on both sides were injured.

via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Eight men among the labor activists were rounded up and charged with murder. Most weren’t even at the rally, but were labor organizers. They were all found guilty and sentenced to death, except for one who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor. Two of the death sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment, and one man was found dead in his cell a day before the execution. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1886. In 1893, the surviving three men were pardoned by the governor. May 1 was later declared International Labor Day to commemorate the demonstrations for the 8-hour workday.
2. The Battle of Homestead // Homestead, Penn.

Piotrus via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0

Who: Carnegie Steel Corporation vs. Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
Date: July 6, 1892
Dead: 12* (nine strikers, three Pinkerton agents*)

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union members made up only about a fifth of the workers at the Homestead steel plant. When their contract was about to run out in 1892, Amalgamated tried to negotiate a raise for its workers. Carnegie Steel countered by offering a pay cut, take it or leave it. The company locked the doors of the plant on June 28. Henry Clay Frick, who oversaw operations for Carnegie Steel, had barbed wire and guards placed around the plant to keep workers out. A wall was built around it, which the workers dubbed “Fort Frick.”

The plan was to bring in non-union labor from cities far from Pittsburgh. But first, they brought in 300 men from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to keep Homestead workers out. The armed agents were brought in on barges traveling up the Monongahela River on the evening of July 5. Thousands of striking workers rushed to watch, bringing guns. At midnight, workers warned the agents not to step on land, but they did, and that was when the shooting began.

B.H.L. Dabbs via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

No one knows who shot first, but the gunfire raged on and off for 14 hours. Workers not only fired their rifles, but threw dynamite and tried to set the river on fire with oil. The Pinkerton detectives finally surrendered on the afternoon of July 6. They were removed under a gauntlet of abuse, and the barges were burned after they left.

The workers celebrated their victory, but it was only one battle in a longer war. The governor sent in the Pennsylvania National Guard to keep order, and to ensure safe passage for strikebreakers brought in to reopen the plant. Strike leaders were arrested for murder and treason. They weren't convicted, but the union was broken in Homestead. Most of the striking employees were rehired within a year, at reduced wages.
3. The Pullman Strike // Chicago, Ill.

Public Domain

Who: Pullman Palace Car Company vs. The American Railway Union
Date: July 7, 1894
Dead: 30

Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company near Chicago, which manufactured railway cars, went on strike on May 11, 1894, to protest a 25 percent pay cut and 16-hour workdays. The American Railway Union, which represented a minority of the Pullman workers, only got involved after the beginning of the strike. The union instructed its railway worker members to refuse service to trains that used Pullman cars. By the end of June, over 125,000 workers had walked off the job nationwide.

As more union workers joined the railroad boycott, the public became angry about the interruption in service. Once a mail train was set on fire, President Grover Cleveland became angry as well, and he sent federal troops to Chicago. The head of the ARU, Eugene V. Debs, tried to urge restraint among workers, but an injunction from Washington prohibited the union administration from communicating with the rank-and-file. On July 4, workers rampaged through rail yards, setting fires and destroying equipment in response to the federal intervention.

Library of Congress // Public Domain

On July 7, thousands of police and federal troops clashed with thousands of protesters. National Guardsmen shot into the crowds, killing around 30 people. Debs, who was arrested on July 10, tried to end the strike by offering to send workers back to their jobs under company conditions, but the railroads instead hired non-union workers. The railroads inched back to regular service, and the boycott was broken.
4. The Ludlow Massacre // Ludlow, Colo.

Survey Associates, Inc. via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Who: Colorado Fuel and Iron Company vs. United Mine Workers of America
Date: April 20, 1914
Dead: Dozens (numbers vary by source)

In September 1913, 11,000 miners across southern Colorado went on strike against several mining companies, protesting low pay and unsafe conditions. The strike lasted over a year. The company responded by evicting miners and their families from company housing, which led to thousands of people living in tent colonies. The tent colony in Ludlow, near Trinidad, was particularly large. The mines in that area were operated by Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation. CF&I hired agents from the Baldwin Felts Detective Agency to harass miners. The detectives brought an armored vehicle with a mounted machine gun called the “Death Special,” from which they fired on striking miners. There were occasional deaths on both sides.

The Rockefeller family, who owned the mining operation, called on the governor of Colorado to send in the National Guard. When they arrived, striking miners thought they were there to protect them from the hired agents, but soon saw that the National Guard was there to impose CF&I control.

On April 20, 1914, the shooting escalated into an all-out battle. Baldwin Felts agents and the militia set fire to the tent colony. Some women and children fled into the wilderness, while others took shelter in cellars they had dug under the tents. In the cellar of tent #58, two women and 11 children suffocated as their tent and its wooden floored blazed above. Two other women survived to tell the tale. Several other people were shot to death.

Bain News Service via Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

The miners, outraged at the massacre, destroyed mining operations all around the area, and traded shots with the militia until federal troops were sent in. By the time the strike was over in December 1914, the union was out of funds and somewhere between 60 and 200 people had been killed. Hundreds of miners and a few militiamen were arrested for murder, but not convicted. Even though the union lost the strike, national publicity about the working conditions of Western miners led to new federal safety regulations for mines. The site of the Ludlow Massacre, on land owned by the UMWA, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. The story was remembered in a folk song.
5. The Battle of Matewan // Matewan, W.V.

Public Domain

Who: Stone Mountain Coal Corporation vs. United Mine Workers
Date: May 19, 1920
Dead: 10 (seven detectives, two miners, one mayor)

At the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation's mines in Matewan, W.V., the hours were long, the conditions unsafe, and the pay was low. The company even controlled commerce: It paid in script that could only be redeemed at the company store, and rented company houses to employees. Coal miners in West Virginia had heard about miners in Pennsylvania that had won a 27 percent raise through the United Mine Workers, so when the union came to organize West Virginia in the spring of 1920, miners signed up. Stone Mountain responded by firing union members, which meant they were to be evicted from company houses.

Matewan mayor Cabel Testerman and police chief Sid Hatfield refused to carry out evictions of the miners and their families, so Stone Mountain hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, operated by the three Felts brothers. They sent agents to evict miners throughout the spring. By May 19, tensions were high in the community, and hundreds of families were living in tents. That day, a group from the detective agency arrived by train in Matewan to evict six more miners. They worked through the afternoon, and returned to town to have dinner before the train left. Mayor Testerman confronted the agents (called “thugs” by the townspeople) about the evictions. Sid Hatfield threatened to arrest them. Albert Felts produced an arrest warrant for Hatfield. The group was surrounded by angry and armed miners. That’s when the shooting began.

Jimmy Emerson, DVM, Flickr // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Most accounts say that no one knows who shot first, while at least one states that Hatfield shot Albert Felts first. When the gunfire was done 10 minutes later, seven detectives—including both Albert and Lee Felts—two miners, and Mayor Testerman were dead; a number of townspeople were wounded.

State police were sent to Matewan to keep peace. Hatfield and 22 others were indicted for murder, but those whose charges weren’t dismissed were acquitted by a sympathetic jury. Hatfield married Testerman’s widow a couple of weeks after the mayor’s death, leading to some speculation that Hatfield actually shot Testerman. In 1921, the surviving Felts brother, Thomas Felts, arranged for his agents to assassinate Sid Hatfield and his deputy Edward Chambers. There were no charges leveled against the detectives.
6. The Milwaukee Transit Strike of 1934 // Milwaukee, Wisc.

Milwaukee Sentinel via Milwaukee Notebook

Who: The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company vs. The American Federation of Labor
Date: June 26-28, 1934
Dead: 1

The employees of the Milwaukee Electric Rail & Light Company were represented by a union called the Employees’ Mutual Benefit Association. But the workers felt that this in-house union wasn’t on their side, especially when the rail engineers, bus drivers, streetcar drivers, and mechanics had to take a pay cutin 1932. The American Federation of Labor wanted to move in and unionize the utility and restore wages. Company president S.B. Way opposed the AFL, and fired eight workers for union recruiting. A strike was called on June 26, 1934, in which laborers from other unions, many unemployed, joined the strikers and blocked streetcars from moving. Twelve were injured on the first night, 16 on the second night, and dozens were arrested.

On the third night, June 28, thousands of striking workers descended on the utilities' various facilities, bent on destruction. At the Lakeside Power Plant in St. Francis, rioters broke through windows to get in and destroy the building. One group rammed a steel post through a window, and it connected with a high-voltage control panel. Eugene Domagalski, a 24-year-old strike sympathizer, was electrocuted. On the same night, a bomb ruptured a major power line.

The next day, Way met with AFL officials of three unions and a priest as a negotiator. He gave in to the unions’ demands: a small wage increase and reinstatement of union organizers who had been fired. The trains and streetcars were running again on June 30th.

There are many other labor disputes in U.S. history that turned deadly. Look for more in a future post.
History Miss Cellania

[Cthulhu 2020]

This isn't what "monopoly" means.

Small towns can have effective local monopolies.

[Snes]

All they had to do was cite the minimum wage hike as a reason for layoffs and leave it at that.

People would have forgotten about it within a couple internet weeks, but instead they had to dig themselves into more shit with this memo.

[Poopymonster]

Can't believe that kid said "hipster fagget" unironically. Or maybe he did and I didn't see it. I always thought more of him, but w/e.

If they were trying to be ironic, they'd use the french canadian "Faguette"

[Zan15]

But again, much like the article states, the increase in higher paying jobs is not shown as causation from the study. Typically when an economy is growing there usually is wage growth to go with that. But keep breezing past that point and saying I didn't read the article.

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Can you link sources that are just Seattle, and show not just weekly earnings, but also hours worked? Linking all of King county isn't helpful, as I don't believe Seattle's $15 applies to all of it.

Seattle is not at 15 yet for the business in that study. Only for large employers. I mean no offense but if you can't even be bothered with looking up and knowing this fact why continue with even more data....but i will.




i am not breezing past that point. Their point is incorrect and the study/other economist/opponents overall findings, conclusions and predictions have not come true.

the fact is they said in the study that you would see wage and employment problems.
If you look at their stats relative to other area's that DID NOT increase min wage, they are in the same ballpark. Showing that raising min wage had no effect so far in the Two year of ACTUAL results.

If it did have an impact, there could still be wage growth and employment growth but they would be lagging the state, region and country....which they are not.




Seattle min wage is increasing as well as the state of WA min wage

Seattle went up 2016-2018 and depending on type of job and how many employees its

Small business
10.50-11.50 (9.5%)
or
12-14.00 (16.7%)

Large employees its 12.50-15.00 (20%)


State went from 9.47-11.50 (21.4%)


So linking all of King county is in fact helpful since they are under the same level of increases, if not bigger increases then Seattle. And yet its still the same result, that the economy adjusted and there was no impact so far on the economy, growth, employment, prices that were predicted.


Who knows there might be a price break point that starts to effect like the study says, but after 2 years we are not there yet.


i don't have all day to pull BLS tables for you, the data is there if you want to counter with hours, localities, etc etc.

they are a pain to get to and not every locality reports every stat at the city level. Sometimes you need to pull it from the state reporting tables outside the BLS.

Seattle has only just recently in the last year or so have had their city added to a lot of BLS urban tracking tables, most of the historical tables have just been King County. But since they all have seen their Min wage increase, its still applicable.

[Dastreus]

This is almost exactly backwards - larger companies generally have lower profit margins and succeed via scale rather than having the sort of margins that boutique businesses have. Wal-Mart, for example, has a margin around ~3%.

I know it's old news, but in 2015, Wal-Mart profits were seen at over 1.5 billion. That's after all payments, etc.

[Lynarii]

I raise my eyebrows at some of these reasons given for why a Tim Hortons franchise has to do this.

Particularly the idea that if they raise prices, another company is going to swoop in and steal their customers. That's unlikely to happen. One, in a lot of these places Tim Hortons is the only current company in place. Someone else wants to come in? They need to buy a location, they need to put in the infrastructure to support it, hire people, advertise, etc... and guess what. They have to pay their employees the same minimum wage that Tim's does. If another company can come in and pull that off, steal all Tim's customers and make a larger profit while paying their workers the same, then that's not the fault of the minimum wage. That's the Tim's franchise being poorly managed to begin with and losing to a company that is simply better than them at business.

Ultimately, if a franchisee finds themselves incapable of making a profit, then they should shut down that location. There is no 'right' to make a profit, if your location is bad, if your management is bad, you lose to companies that don't make those mistakes. That's how it works. Tim Horton's is practically a national icon, the ones near me all have lines out the door even in the winter during the morning rush. If you can't make a Tim's work, you're screwing up somewhere.

[SirBeef]

I raise my eyebrows at some of these reasons given for why a Tim Hortons franchise has to do this.

Particularly the idea that if they raise prices, another company is going to swoop in and steal their customers. That's unlikely to happen. One, in a lot of these places Tim Hortons is the only current company in place. Someone else wants to come in? They need to buy a location, they need to put in the infrastructure to support it, hire people, advertise, etc... and guess what. They have to pay their employees the same minimum wage that Tim's does. If another company can come in and pull that off, steal all Tim's customers and make a larger profit while paying their workers the same, then that's not the fault of the minimum wage. That's the Tim's franchise being poorly managed to begin with and losing to a company that is simply better than them at business.

Ultimately, if a franchisee finds themselves incapable of making a profit, then they should shut down that location. There is no 'right' to make a profit, if your location is bad, if your management is bad, you lose to companies that don't make those mistakes. That's how it works. Tim Horton's is practically a national icon, the ones near me all have lines out the door even in the winter during the morning rush. If you can't make a Tim's work, you're screwing up somewhere.

For how much business a Tim Hortons does, I bet a 1% increase across the board would more than cover the wage increase.