Conservative Business Continues to Intimidate Employees on Voting and Their Jobs

Earlier this week Zach commented on Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel threatening his employees with layoffs and cutbacks if President Obama were reelected. You can find Zach’s post here. Ironically on several occassions Mr. Siegel has admitted that his firm is actually doing exceptionally well under the Obama Administration:

Siegel’s found himself in the spotlight this week after sending an email to his employees, telling them that their jobs will be at risk if Obama is reelected. He’s since defended the email repeatedly, clarifying that it wasn’t meant as a threat to his workers and that he wasn’t trying to “intimidate anybody.”

But while Siegel has claimed that an Obama reelection would mean debilitating tax hikes, he’s also admitted amid his defense of the email that his business is currently thriving under Obama.

“The company is doing the best we’ve done in our history,” Siegel said in an interview with Businessweek. The comment echoes a similar one he made on CNBC’s “Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo,” when told hosts “we’re very profitable.”

Well, Mr. Siegel has apparently started something as others start to come out of the closet woodwork! Next up, is Arthur Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions who also emailed his employees suggesting that they too may lose their jobs if they don’t vote for Mitt Romney! (You can read the entire email following the article in the link above)

“If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don’t want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come,” Allen wrote to workers at ASG, a company that has over 1,000 employees and 70 offices.

But not quite content with threatening their employees about the results of voting wrong on November 6th, Darden Restaurants (owners of Red Lobster and Olive Garden) have started an experiment in a number of markets. The plan is to reduce the hours worked by their staff to keep each employee under 30 hours a week to avoid provisions in the Affordable Care Act!

The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants is putting more workers on part-time status in a test aimed at limiting health care costs.

Darden Restaurants Inc. declined to give details but said the test is only in restaurants in four markets across the country. It entails boosting the number of workers on part-time status, meaning they work less than 30 hours a week.

Under the new Affordable Care Act, companies with 50 or more workers could be hit with fines if they do not provide basic coverage for full-time workers and their dependents.

Starting Jan. 1, 2014, those penalties and requirements could significantly boost labor costs for some companies, particularly in low-wage industries such as retail and hospitality, where most jobs don’t come with health benefits.

Bob McAdam, who heads government affairs and community relations for Darden, said the company is still learning from the tests.

“We’re not at a point where we have results,” he said. McAdam also noted that Darden is not alone in looking at ways to keep labor costs in check, with companies industrywide prepping for the new regulations to take effect.

Of course that’s not the only cost cutting experiment that Darden is foisting on its employees:

And last year, the company also put workers on a “tip sharing” program, meaning waiters and waitresses share their tips with other employees such as busboys and bartenders. That allows Darden to pay more workers a far lower “tip credit wage” of $2.13, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Yup, let that free market work…it has nothing but the best interests of its employees and customers at heart…and of course they’d love someone in the White House who already understands all of the shortcuts and dodges available to let companies short change the public.