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

[TirielWoW]

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.

[Tradewind]

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.

[Cthulhu 2020]

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.

[Sunseeker]

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.

[Cthulhu 2020]

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.

[TirielWoW]

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.

Those are badly run, then. The closest one to my house is absolutely fantastic. Great service, great food. I know some people who work there, and they love it. The one across the river in the city I'm next to? Horrible. You couldn't pay me to go there.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Those are badly run, then. The closest one to my house is absolutely fantastic. Great service, great food. I know some people who work there, and they love it. The one across the river in the city I'm next to? Horrible. You couldn't pay me to go there.

This is probably getting off topic, but I've probably also been spoiled by a new chain that sprouted up called Mirko's. They're simply amazing. Homemade pasta from scratch using organic all natural ingredients, and to top it off they're cheaper than most chain italian restaurants. But yeah, as you said some Olive Garden chains are awful.

[KDSwain]

When you increase taxes and regulation and expenses, prices will go up and payrolls will go down. That is reality. If you don't like it, don't vote those who are for increased taxes and regulation and expenses.

The new reality is that low-income, low-skilled workers will be trapped. They will no longer be able to find 40 hour/week jobs. It will cost too much to keep them. For the past month I have been reorganizing our workforce. Our employees will be finding out next month that we will no longer have full-time employees as of Jan 1, 2013. Everyone will be on 7 hour shifts, 4 days a week. We will have to do this to survive as a contract company.

Elections have consequences, this is just the start of them.

[Wells]

The new reality is that low-income, low-skilled workers will be trapped. They will no longer be able to find 40 hour/week jobs. It will cost too much to keep them. For the past month I have been reorganizing our workforce. Our employees will be finding out next month that we will no longer have full-time employees as of Jan 1, 2013. Everyone will be on 7 hour shifts, 4 days a week. We will have to do this to survive as a contract company.

Elections have consequences, this is just the start of them.

Yeah like when all your competent employees leave for a company that doesn't treat them like complete shit.

[Spectral]

I was wondering what would replace all the Romney/Ryan avatars. I suppose I should have expected some "fuck America" avatars!

[lockedout]

The new reality is that low-income, low-skilled workers will be trapped. They will no longer be able to find 40 hour/week jobs.

Low skilled/low income workers can't get 40 hour a week jobs anyway. Poppa John is fuming because what fast food establishments like his would higher ALL part time employees and not have to provide benefits. Now he will have to provide benefits for ALL his employees. So the poor people will have health care.

[Sunseeker]

Elections have consequences, this is just the start of them.

But who is it that is really forcing your hand? You? Or the Government? Oh I know you're going to say "the government", that's what you always say. But at the end of the day, who made that choice? Who decided that because a democratic society elected the person you don't like, that you have to cut back hours? Was that your business? Or was that the government?

Eventually the poor and low-skilled workers will realize that they don't have to be trapped if they don't want to. And at that point the whole system of shitting all over the bottom in order to support the top will come falling down. Because without those low-skilled, low-income workers, you HAVE NOTHING, and they have realized this before, and will realize it again, and there are ALWAYS more of them there are you.

[celinamuna]

Eventually the poor and low-skilled workers will realize that they don't have to be trapped if they don't want to. And at that point the whole system of shitting all over the bottom in order to support the top will come falling down. Because without those low-skilled, low-income workers, you HAVE NOTHING, and they have realized this before, and will realize it again, and there are ALWAYS more of them there are you.

And they will do absolutely nothing about it, because they can't quit.

[Metallikiddd]

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

put gun to ceo's head and demand health benefits get paid or else.

[Grizzly Willy]

I was wondering what would replace all the Romney/Ryan avatars. I suppose I should have expected some "fuck America" avatars!

Yeah. Also interesting that they are, essentially, in favor of competing with China in terms of who has the worst worker conditions in order to get jobs back here.

[Shadowmelded]

Yeah. Also interesting that they are, essentially, in favor of competing with China in terms of who has the worst worker conditions in order to get jobs back here.

Race to the bottom, woooo!

[Grizzly Willy]

It's the only way we're going to get them back. Companies will always outsource labor if the reduction in labor costs are worth it.