Several restaurants and their franchises, still smarting over the president’s re-election, are now threatening to layoff or cut back employee hours to avoid paying for the president’s health care plan.
Users, outraged by the companies’ recent announcements, have taken to social networks Twitter and Facebook calling for a boycott. The boycott includes the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Longhorn Steakhouse, Papa Johns and Burger King. According to the Huffington Post, a Florida-based Denny’s franchise owner is adding a 5 percent surcharge to customers’ bills to offset health care costs.
“What we have here is not some Obamacare cataclysm of good employers being forced to cut their employees’ hours or go out of business. Rather, it’s a food service sweatshop finding one more way to screw its workers,” said Laura Clawson of the Daily Kos. Clawson says the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster, Darden “is one of the 20 largest low-wage employers in the country; meanwhile, it was profitable in the last fiscal year and over the last three fiscal years, and has higher revenues, profits, operating margins and cash holdings than prior to the recession. In recent years, Darden has paid nearly $14 million in fines and settlements for wage theft.”
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