Subway. (Photo: Entrepreneur.com)
MY SUBWAY DERAILED
I love Subway. My favorite sub is the Tuna on whole wheat, with Spinach, Provolone Cheese and light onions. It is the single best tasting lunch or light dinner that just electrifies my taste buds. And they tell me its good for you which I guess is a plus.
But now I must tell you that I am no longer going to eat any Subway product. So I guess you can say, “I loved Subway”.
The reason is the way certain Subway franchise owners have reacted to the Affordable Health Care Act. When the President said he was going to give businesses a year’s grace period to ramp up so that it could be prepared, I wrote here that it was a mistake and an open invitation for employers to screw their employees out of hours and health care. And damn if I wasn’t right.
In New England, a franchisee who owns 21 Subways has cut back his employees to 29 hours per week. You can qualify for health care at 30.
According to CNBC, Loren Goodridge who owns the eateries said, "To tell somebody that you've got to decrease their hours because of a law passed in Washington is very frustrating to me. I know the impact I'm having on some of my employees."
Goodridge said he's cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a week so he won't trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. The provision takes effect in 16 months. So the thing isn’t even going into effect yet and this guy sees an opportunity to mess with the health and welfare of his workers. And Washington didn’t tell him to cut those employees, he is doing it of his own selfish volition.
What galls me is he is blaming the Affordable Care Act for his unfair treatment of employees. A difference in an hour is what he is pissing and moaning about. The workers will blame Washington of course but maybe they should look in the eyes of the guy who owns 21 of these money making machines and ask “Why?”
Business people, if left to their own devices will always try to skirt the government regulations they so often wring their hands about. That’s why government has regulations to control these pillars of society. I heard this joker Goodridge doing the math on TV saying the cut to his employees per month could easily be a car payment for them. What a hypocrite! You’re the guy that’s cutting the hours. It’s like the old days around here when a miner got killed and the coal barons shrugged their shoulders and said, “Yeah, tragedy, heyna?”
But really, you have 21 franchises and you can’t do the decent thing? No where did this guy say anything about how much he stands to make as he screws his workers and buries them deeper into the lower middle class.
I’m off Subway because these mothers don’t deserve a red cent from any thinking American who has a friend or neighbor getting boned from cheap, punitive, small business moguls who hide behind their real intentions (like little babies hiding behind Momma’s skirts) and blame it on a health care program that has not even been enacted.
This guy’s Business Plan must have been a beaut.
In the meantime, you want a Sub around here, go to Primo’s, Wegmans’s or any reputable pizza joint. BUT NOT SUBWAY!!!!
IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!!!!!
Why is Health Care for the middle class so important? Let me give you two examples. This month there is a fundraiser for one of the women who was injured in the Ross Township Municipal Meeting shootings. The woman had no health care and now needs help with her Medical Bills after being shot. I don’t think she imagined she would be in that position but if affordable health care was available, perhaps her burden would be eased a bit.
On Friday night at PNC Park, a young lady, about 26 circled the bases as the Railriders and the Charlotte Knights cheered her on. A patient at AlliedServices, in the prime of her young adulthood, she could not walk. I dson’t think she ever expected that would happen to her.
My point is this, these two cases are indicative of why providing affordable health care for middle class Americans is so important.
The GOP who is lying about this bill, passed by the Congress and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court keeps saying the Act will enable illegal immigrants and people on welfare free heath carer. They say it will cost you money because of that.
But they are wrong.
The Affordable Health Care Act, which is not free will give Americans access in case they get a disease that robs them of their mobility or in case they get shot minding their own business.
The lies really, really have to stop.
They are not only deceitful but downright unpatriotic.