Thursday, November 15, 2012

Florida restaurateur to impose surcharge for ObamaCare

Get ready to pay more for your Grand Slam.
A Florida restaurateur who operates roughly 40 Denny’s locations and five Hurricane Grill & Wings franchises in Florida, Virginia and Georgia intends to add a 5 percent surcharge to customers’ bills to offset costs from ObamaCare beginning in January 2014 when the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented.
“People are trying to find ways to avoid the penalties and to avoid having to pay for ObamaCare,” John Metz told FoxNews.com. “Everyone’s looking for a way to not have to provide insurance for their employees. It’s essentially a huge tax on all us business people.”
To further offset the costs, Metz, who oversees roughly 1,200 employees as president and CEO of RREMC Restaurants, LLC, said he also will slash most of the staff's time to fewer than 30 hours per week. That change will be announced to employees next month, he said.
“I want to explain it to everybody, to let them know what’s coming down the pike,” he said. “We like to keep our employees informed.”
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. Thanks again, give-mes!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

CEO of Papa John's says employees' hours will likely be cut due to ObamaCare


The CEO of popular pizza chain Papa John's says his employees may face reduced hours and he expects his business costs to rise because President Obama's re-election most likely insures the president's health care reform law will be implemented in full.
NaplesNews.com reports John Schnatter made the remarks to a small group at Edison State College's Collier County campus the day after the election.
Schnatter, who supported Mitt Romney in the election, said though he believes it is a good thing that all will have health insurance under ObamaCare, businesses like his will bear the brunt of the up to $8 million annual cost.
Schnatter estimated that these rising costs could adversely affect his workers. Since only full-time employees working 30 hours or more must be covered under the new law, he said he expects franchise owners will be forced to cut employees' hours because they can't afford the costs of health insurance plans.
"That's probably what's going to happen," he said according to NaplesNews.com. "It's common sense. That's what I call lose-lose."
The comments were not Schnatter's first statements on ObamaCare. He made headlines in August for telling shareholders the law may lead to increases in the price of his pizza.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Coal company exec lays off more than 160 workers after Obama re-election


A major coal company announced more than 160 layoffs across three subsidiaries this week, becoming perhaps the first company to follow through on threats to make cutbacks in the event of a second President Obama term. 
Robert Murray, a vocal Mitt Romney supporter and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation, began to inform workers of the layoffs the day after Obama won re-election. He announced 102 layoffs at UtahAmerican Energy Inc. and another 54 layoffs at The American Coal Company in Illinois. 
The official statement put out by Murray's company cited Obama's alleged "war on coal," claiming federal regulations have "already (led) to the closure by 2014 of 204 American coal-fired power plants."  
The company announced another seven layoffs Thursday at the Kanawha Transportation Center in Wheeling, W.Va. 
It's unclear whether other CEOs -- many of whom grumbled before Election Day about the burden on business from the federal health care overhaul, EPA regulations and other policies -- will follow suit. 
The boss who made arguably the most widely covered layoff threat -- Westgate Resorts owner David Siegel -- has since eased off a bit. 
Siegel, who earlier warned employees that Obama's call for tax hikes would cause him to cut back, told Bloomberg Businessweek after the election that while he's "not optimistic" about the business climate he doesn't yet know whether he'll lay anybody off. In the meantime, he's giving employees raises. 
"I'm going to work my hardest to keep the company going and expand the best I can. We'll see what happens," he said. "Meanwhile I gave everybody in the company a raise this week -- the average was 5 percent. I wanted to help them handle the additional burdens the government will put on them." 
Separately, somebody claiming to be a Las Vegas business owner called into a radio show after the election and said he was firing 22 employees. The caller, though, would not give a name so the claim was not verifiable. Thanks goes out to all of the give-mes who brought the creep back for 4 more years!


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/09/coal-company-lays-off-more-than-160-workers-after-obama-re-election/#ixzz2BlSVRrc7 

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

CartoonDems