For the record, I support Ontario’s minimum wage increases. The sorts of folks who work those jobs often do very important, tedious, thankless and difficult work and they deserve to get much more in return for it than they do. For instance, it’s usually them who has to deal with the public with a smile, even though a lot of the public can be gigantic, malignant dinks sometimes (especially in retail situations). In spite of my feelings on the subject, however, I do to an extent feel for those small business owners who are going to have to find ways to stretch some already thin margins just a little bit thinner. Many of them are very smart, creative folks and I’m sure they’ll see a way through, but yeah, I’ll bet it’s a bit of a frightening prospect right now.
But the funny thing about the fright is that while I’ve heard lots of screaming, none of it ever seems to come from the folks who maybe ought to be worried. It’s always some super rich cunt whose worth more money than I could figure out how to spend in 1000 lifetimes crying about poverty from his winter home in Florida. And in this particular case, I do literally mean from his winter home in Florida.
Employees at an Ontario Tim Hortons owned by the children of the chain’s founders say they have been told to sign a document acknowledging they are losing paid breaks, paid benefits, and other incentives as a result of the province’s minimum wage hike.
“I feel that we are getting the raw end of the stick,” said one front line employee who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing their job.The franchise is located in Cobourg, Ont., about 115 kilometres east of Toronto. The owners are Ron Joyce Jr. and Jeri-Lynn Horton-Joyce, the son and daughter of the chain’s co-founders, Ron Joyce and the late Tim Horton, respectively. Employees say they are married.
In the document, copies of which were obtained by CBC News, Ron Joyce Jr. Enterprises wrote:“Breaks will no longer be paid. A 9 hour shift will be paid for 8 hours and 20 minutes.”
“These changes are due to the increase of wages to $14.00 minimum wage on January 1, 2018, then $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2019, as well as the lack of assistance and financial help from our Head Office and from the Government.”
The letter is signed “Sincerely, Jeri, Ron and Lisa.”
When CBC News asked about the new policy, they were given a no comment by a manager and told by employees that the owners were at their winter home in Florida. They were, however, emailed a statement from corporate media relations.
Almost all of our restaurants in Canada are independently owned and operated by small business Owners who are responsible for handling all employment matters, including all policies for benefits and wages, for their restaurants.”
“Restaurant Owners are expected to comply with all applicable laws and regulations within their jurisdiction.”
Some of that is undoubtedly true, although these independent, small business owners come from a family worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1.4 billion, so this might not have been exactly the right time to mention it.
Feel how ever you want about the new minimum wage, but know that by not supporting it, this is the sort of company you’re keeping. Just something to think about over coffee next time.
I do support the minimum wage increase, so let’s kind of get that out of the way right quick. But they had 15 years to do it if they were going to do it. Wynne’s popularity is in the toilet, there’s an election in 2018, so naturally it’s here have a $15 minimum wage and don’t forget to vote Liberal.
That having been said, Tim Hortons (the corporation) can’t have been caught by surprise on this one. Ignore for 5 seconds that the owners of this particular franchise happen to be directly descended from the founders of the company. The benefits this franchise was offering aren’t available company-wide. Even if they were, this isn’t the only Timmies franchise who’s going to have to find ways to cut costs so they can afford to pay the new wage, since franchises don’t get to increase prices without corporate approval.
So basically, if Timmies (the corporation) doesn’t react to the increase, either by allowing for increased prices or providing some other kind of assistance, Timmies (the franchise) is still responsible for factoring in the increase into its expenses. Sure, maybe Ron Joyce can afford it–if you believe business owners should be forced to make up the difference out of pocket, but every Timmies owner can’t. If Timmies is an individually owned mom and pop coffee shop, then awesome. Raise prices, keep the benefits, everybody’s happy–except maybe the cheap shmuck who needs to pay a little more for his coffee, but no one’s forcing him. Since it’s a franchise deal, and the owners of the brand they’re franchising haven’t approved price increases and at least per that letter aren’t doing anything else to help offset the increase, the franchise’s only option is to cut costs. Yes, even if the franchise is owned by a guy who keeps a winter home in florida–which, again, I’m betting not a whole lot of franchise owners do.
The upshot of this, of course, is I bet you $20 Ron Joyce is kicking himself for selling the company…
Believe me, I know this minimum wage thing is in no small part an election stunt. Nearly everything, in some way, falls into that category especially right now.
As for thinking business owners should make up the difference out of pocket, not necessarily. But what I do believe is that your workers have a right to be treated with dignity and compensated like they’re worth something. And in this case, unless there’s a hell of a lot we don’t know about some kind of horrible money management disaster in this family, I’m pretty sure they can afford to eat some insurance premiums to make sure the folks what keep the machine running on ground level are taken care of.
The bottom line is that I’m sick of the lifeblood of these over-sized companies being treated as subhuman and having to scrape bye because head office only made $600 million after expenses instead of $700 million. Tim Hortons could easily fix this by setting standards for employee treatment and giving the operators the flexibility they need to make sure it happens. They won’t of course, but they could and they should.
We’re mostly in agreement. The problem is these are all independently owned franchises, same as your Pizza Pizza, or McDonalds, or whichever. Tim Hortons the company may have made 600million, but after expenses the franchise itself likely made 200k tops–probably less, depending on the market. I don’t imagine you can make a killing in somewhere like Cobourg, though me not being an economist and not being employed in Cobourg that’s a guess.
Basically, the owners had three options. Trim benefits (which they did), fire people (which some Timmies may need to do), or reduce hours. Maybe that 24-hour Timmies doesn’t find it profitable to be 24 hours anymore. They don’t do much but serve coffee before 5:00 AM anyway most of the time, so that wouldn’t be much of a stretch.
Since corporate controls the revenue end of the cashflow, the franchise can only cut expenses. If it starts hurting the franchise owner financially, expect a sale or for that franchise to shut down.
I agree with that in most cases, but I have trouble holding Johnny Billionaire here to the same standard. Maybe that’s wrong, but when you’ve got enough cash to buy and sell everybody working for you a hundred times over and still have enough for a yacht or three, crying poverty comes off as greedy and scummy.
I don’t know he’s crying poverty. What he’s crying is basic business 101. Whether you’re worth $100k or $4000000000000000, if you’re putting the kind of skin in the game you’d need to to actually get a business off the ground, you’re going to expect a return on that kind of investment. It’s the same thing as playing the stock market. If you start trending towards losing money, you’re going to bail the fuck out yesterday. He’ll hold that franchise so long as he keeps making money with it. If it starts accumulating losses, he’ll cut costs until the losses stop. If the losses don’t stop, he’ll sell. If he can’t sell, he’ll close the doors. Would it be a dick move? Sure. But so is sending all the call center work over to India, and yet have you called Bell lately? Same thing. They’re going to find the option that keeps it closest to legal without costing more than it absolutely has to. If Timmies could outsource coffee services to India they’d have done it years ago.
Again, you’re absolutely right. I know that some of this is just business. but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that’s all this is. Using your Bell example, if you look at the media end of the company, it does well. Very well. But yet they still felt the need to fire dozens of talented people and replace them with people they could pay less if they bothered replacing them at all. They have every right to do that. They have every right to make money, as we all do. But I also have every right to call it legally sanctioned greed and garbage.
Again, not wrong. But it’s that legally part that’s going to prove a bitch. Like I said, it’s a dick move, but if every business who employs people at minimum wage ends up doing it, people are going to forget that these fools got the ball rolling in 20 minutes.