After Obama reelection, Murray Energy CEO reads prayer; layoffs

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Originally Posted by Loki

Yeah, because lowering the price about something while most people have no idea what you're doing is a great idea. Stop assuming you're better at every job than people who do it. It's getting tiring.

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You're projecting. Again. Talk about tiring and tiresome posts. :donkey:

I'm gonna bet you've never actually worked in a pizza shop, making or delivering pizzas. You've never actually hoped your employment would make ends meet, finagling wages and tips. And you've certainly never been a part-time pizzeria worker trying to buy your own health benefits. If you'd known any of those on a personal basis, you wouldn't think $0.10 per pie was such a big fucking deal.

:bored:

You're projecting. Again. Talk about tiring and tiresome posts. :donkey:

I'm gonna bet you've never actually operated a pizza shop, hiring or paying staff. You've never actually hoped your takings would make ends meet, finagling earnings and costs. And you've certainly never been a full-time pizzeria operator trying to stave off bankruptcy. If you'd known any of those on a personal basis, you wouldn't think $0.10 per pie was such a small fucking deal.

:bored:

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Originally Posted by GGT

Then I'll reiterate: he's a crappy CEO. He could have used ten fucking cents per pizza as a better marketing tool, than giving away one million free pizzas, or buying those multi-million dollar TV advertisements.

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If you're so damned good at it then why don't you put your livelihood where your mouth is? Remortgage your house to the hilt, sell whatever you need to in order to get enough capital and start your own damned business. Work 80 hours a week to try and get it working, provide steady employment to 50+ people so that this law applies to you. And show how much of a better CEO you are.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

You're projecting. Again. Talk about tiring and tiresome posts. :donkey:

I'm gonna bet you've never actually operated a pizza shop, hiring or paying staff. You've never actually hoped your takings would make ends meet, finagling earnings and costs. And you've certainly never been a full-time pizzeria operator trying to stave off bankruptcy. If you'd known any of those on a personal basis, you wouldn't think $0.10 per pie was such a small fucking deal.

:bored:
If you're so damned good at it then why don't you put your livelihood where your mouth is? Remortgage your house to the hilt, sell whatever you need to in order to get enough capital and start your own damned business. Work 80 hours a week to try and get it working, provide steady employment to 50+ people so that this law applies to you. And show how much of a better CEO you are.

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Excuse me for having an opinion. :donkey:

I live in a state and region that has so many pizza shops and family-owned pizzerias...they not only compete quite well against big franchises, but often confound them in market share. Papa John's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Little Caesar's are constantly trying to keep up with local joints. The local restauranteurs are the ones who mortgage their own homes just to get a small business loan. They're the ones who have skin in the game, literally working 24/7.

They know the value of delegating some of that work to their employees, and would likely see TEN CENTS per pizza is not only a good value, but good business sense. Oven cooks, wait staff, and delivery drivers who can show up every day without illness is money in the bank. Retaining good workers, who have access to affordable medical care, is money in the bank. It means retaining good and reliable workers, who can help build the business from the bottom up.

Food businesses are always competing. Drive-thru-window meals compete with special-order delivery meals. Especially after normal 9-5 business hours, and weekends. Franchises aren't the automatic winners. Not even for their 0.10 savings. :donkey:

You realize that most Papa Johns stores are franchises, right?

Yes.

You realize I'm asking Rand to differentiate between franchise and independent operations, right?

Why? Only rich people buy franchises?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Why? Only rich people buy franchises?

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There's a huge difference between national/international franchises and local mom-'n-pop shops. Not just in their loan structures (yes, it takes much more collateral to buy a franchise than start a new small business) but in their employee management.

Are you claiming otherwise?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Excuse me for having an opinion. :donkey:

I live in a state and region that has so many pizza shops and family-owned pizzerias...they not only compete quite well against big franchises, but often confound them in market share. Papa John's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Little Caesar's are constantly trying to keep up with local joints. The local restauranteurs are the ones who mortgage their own homes just to get a small business loan. They're the ones who have skin in the game, literally working 24/7.

They know the value of delegating some of that work to their employees, and would likely see TEN CENTS per pizza is not only a good value, but good business sense. Oven cooks, wait staff, and delivery drivers who can show up every day without illness is money in the bank. Retaining good workers, who have access to affordable medical care, is money in the bank. It means retaining good and reliable workers, who can help build the business from the bottom up.

Food businesses are always competing. Drive-thru-window meals compete with special-order delivery meals. Especially after normal 9-5 business hours, and weekends. Franchises aren't the automatic winners. Not even for their 0.10 savings. :donkey:

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I've been referencing the difficulty to compete with local independents as the alternative all thread long :o

For starters the independents almost certainly don't provide health insurance under this law as under 50 employees. For another thing, in my experience, independents tend to be dodgy with legal compliance.

For franchised businesses the franchisor takes a percentage of all sales (like the government does with sales tax, then corporation tax on top) and rigorously ensures all sales get computerised. Not recording a sale can cause the franchisor to revoke the franchisees franchise so they lose everything.
For independent businesses, cash in hand means you can pocket some orders (especially if nobody else is there right now) - thus keeping all the profit. The government loses sales tax and corporation tax on those sales and the government can't enforce it as well as the franchise does.

Secondly I know almost all independents locally pay some of their staff cash in hand too. This doesn't go through the books, so no payroll taxes. The employees don't declare it either so no tax on their side - plus can keep claiming they're unemployed and get benefits. A large number therefore pay some staff less than minimum wage too, because its cash in hand it is more valuable that to be earning less than minimum with no tax, plus untaxed tips and state benefits ... Than good wages minus taxes.

Thirdly the law requires anyone driving for a business to have business insurance, which is incredibly expensive. The legal onus being on the driver to get it, yet chains tend to provide this to their employees to ensure compliance. Independents frequently just leave the onus on the drivers who take the risk of not getting it.

Finally and less frequently many independents have disreputable businesses on the side: drugs, money laundering etc

So yes I agree there's a difference. The multinationals comply with the law, its just not worth it to get caught if one small place breaks it so they self-enforce it far more vigorously than the government ever could afford to.

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Originally Posted by EmperorNorton

Ignoring the fact that every other pizza chains will be required to follow suit.

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Just to be clear, the choice (in the eyes of Big Papa) is this:

1) Add 15 cents to the price of their pizzas to cover healthcare mandates in Obamacare (just for the first year)

2) Cut employee hours to get out of the Obamacare mandates

His competitors can take either option. So if he chooses to add to the cost of his pizza, his competitors can take choice #2 and develop a competitive advantage on price. And this gap could increase substantially in the long term -- in fact, the specific business concern is the gap could become much larger than 15 cents per pizza over the medium-term.

There's a bit of garbage in the notion that a company can just increase their prices by $0.15 (especially when the competitors don't have a simultaneous increase). Prices aren't generally set in pennies, they're set in whole dollars. How many PJ pizzas generally cost say $10.14 instead of $9.99 or $10.99?

None of Papa John's pizzas end in 99 cents :p

Their pizza's have never been competitively priced either. Their single topping large is $5 more than Dominos' 3 topping large.

This is bragging point for Papa John's, all their commercials use the tag "better ingredients" to justify the higher prices.


This is all localized information of course.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

None of Papa John's pizzas end in 99 cents :p

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What do they end in? Do they end in random numbers?

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This is bragging point for Papa John's, all their commercials use the tag "better ingredients" to justify the higher prices.

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PJ's doesn't really exist where I'm from. I don't think I've ever seen one and certainly never seen a commercial for one. Domino's is the expensive one here, more so than Pizza Hut but they don't deliver in my town.

Domino's here is quite different to Domino's in the States though I believe. Its all fresh, high quality ingredients here.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

None of Papa John's pizzas end in 99 cents :p

Their pizza's have never been competitively priced either. Their single topping large is $5 more than Dominos' 3 topping large.

This is bragging point for Papa John's, all their commercials use the tag "better ingredients" to justify the higher prices.


This is all localized information of course.

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They and the various other chains are all somewhat closer here. Our PJ's charges less for most individual toppings but more for the base pizza than Dominos so as you get more loaded pizzas it becomes the better choice. They also offer rather more variety but less deals and discounts

That's because you live 3000 miles from NY. :p I could get a giant pie that tastes far better than you get at the chains for $10-12 in Brooklyn.

Rand, franchises in the US can be treated as independent operators, depending on how they're structured (for tax purposes) and what's in their contracts with HQ.

That means certain "chains" are really a bunch of small businesses with a license to use the "name". If they have fewer than 50 employees, they're exempt from employer-mandated health insurance. They can pick their own suppliers and vendors, make their own employment rules, change their prices at will, hire drivers as temporary contract workers (not needing commercial driver's license), etc. Same is true in the hotel industry.

Papa John's started out as small local shop, expanded over time, then sold itself to investors and shareholders. (Wendy's started the same way). They could have remained a private enterprise, and still expanded into states and local markets, but decided to play with the big boys. His complaints are lame and misguided, all the way to the bank, IMO.

Many franchisees operate multiple franchises. It's also not hard to imagine how one franchisee who owns several PJs in a particular region can have more than 50 employees.

Separately, the Papa John's HQ has a few thousand employees. Though not sure that's what Big John was talking about.

Big John is blowing dollars out his ass, posing his flatulence as business moxie with afternotes of political power. Still stinky stuff.

My local Arby's franchise is "independently owned and operated" by a regional energy (oil and natural gas) company, ffs.

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Originally Posted by GGT

Rand, franchises in the US can be treated as independent operators, depending on how they're structured (for tax purposes) and what's in their contracts with HQ.

That means certain "chains" are really a bunch of small businesses with a license to use the "name". If they have fewer than 50 employees, they're exempt from employer-mandated health insurance. They can pick their own suppliers and vendors, make their own employment rules, change their prices at will, hire drivers as temporary contract workers (not needing commercial driver's license), etc. Same is true in the hotel industry.

Papa John's started out as small local shop, expanded over time, then sold itself to investors and shareholders. (Wendy's started the same way). They could have remained a private enterprise, and still expanded into states and local markets, but decided to play with the big boys. His complaints are lame and misguided, all the way to the bank, IMO.

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I understand the franchise system better than most I suspect. I think you're making multiple mistakes.

1: 50 employees is just two franchises here in my experience (you need at least about 25+ staff per store), certainly even three quite sites would require at least 50. I doubt there are many single-site franchisees at all so almost everyone would be covered.

2: I'd be truly shocked if they're allowed to pick own suppliers and vendors for anything significant (that's part of the franchise agreement in any industry I know here that you use approved vendors - typically Head Office for as much as they can supply). If PJ's are advertising about "better ingredients" then they must know there like they would here what ingredients are getting used - only approved ingredients from them I'd suspect. How could they ensure consistency of ingredients if each place just sourced their own ingredients locally?

3: Its bad PR to get into disputes with your employees and nobody in the media/Joe Public gives a damn that its the franchisees fault not the franchisors. Thus I expect that while the franchisee is responsible for hiring/firing/conditions etc I'd be shocked again if corporate HQ doesn't demand and enforce strict minimum standards over and above the legal minimum.

4: Unless the laws different to there than here anyone working commercially (even temporarily) needs a commercial licence. You can get a temporary licence to cover temporary employment and anyone who does even one delivery without one is here doing so illegally, I would expect its the same there (I don't see why US insurance companies wouldn't invoke the clause to avoid paying out because its temporary). If a PJ or Domino's driver runs over a child leaving them paraplegic and the driver's uninsured that'd be again horrendous PR so I would expect that HQ enforces covering them onto the franchisees.

5: One of the very big advantages for a HQ of the franchise model is that they can enforce standards upon the franchisees in order to let them operate to brand standard, without bearing the costs themselves. So there's no incentive on HQ not to enforce any of the above, while there's tremendous damage to the brand if they don't.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Many franchisees operate multiple franchises. It's also not hard to imagine how one franchisee who owns several PJs in a particular region can have more than 50 employees.

Separately, the Papa John's HQ has a few thousand employees. Though not sure that's what Big John was talking about.

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Well, if most PJ's are franchises, that likely is what he's talking about, no?

Creating negative public perception seems like bad business no matter how you crunch the numbers.

EDIT: Unless you're Chik-Fil-A, naturally.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-h..._front_top_art

Many in the media reported that I said Papa John's is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare. I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

[...]

•"The good news is 100% of the population (full-time workers) is going to get health insurance. I'm cool with that."
•"We're all going to pay for it. There's nothing for free."
•"And this way I get to provide health insurance and I'm not at a competitive disadvantage ... our competitors are going to have to do the same thing."

-John Schnatter.
Founder and CEO, Papa John's

Like I said, a bunch of smoke.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!! :'( living on the franchising edge... constantly fearing for your life knowing that it could end at the drop of 15 pennies... :'( :'(

You do Minx?

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Originally Posted by Aimless

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!! :'( living on the franchising edge... constantly fearing for your life knowing that it could end at the drop of 15 pennies... :'( :'(

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You don't seem to know what it's like to work in the private sector, do you. :bored:

Or running a business trying to keep it afloat in the private sector.

Not worrying about making ends meet and losing everything is something the public sector will never comprehend.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/...l-in-mediation Case in point.

I was considering starting a thread about that actually.

Go ahead. :o I'm still amazed that the union willingly took a path toward getting 18k of its members fired just so as to not lower median wages in the industry.

Without getting into the MBA part of baking and selling pizza's; who exactly makes his choice for a pizza dependent on a price difference of 15 cents?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Go ahead. :o I'm still amazed that the union willingly took a path toward getting 18k of its members fired just so as to not lower median wages in the industry.

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I think it goes a lot deeper than that. Silver Point did a lot of evil to that company and its employees. I'm not saying striking yourself into unemployment is a smart idea, but the company had already spent the employees self funded pensions, and was pushed even farther into debt after its first bankruptcy because it borrowed so heavily without first meeting with the unions on the concessions that they were going to require. This zombie hostess was killed by hedge funds, not an aggressive union.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/20...kies-bankrupt/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/1...stess-Bankery#
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49853653

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Not worrying about making ends meet and losing everything is something the public sector will never comprehend.

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Yes it is. Departments can and do fold when they fail to cover their expenses. My system fired every book shelver we had at one point in order to reduce our expenses one year. Last year was the first time we had to use book fines to cover the gap. I posted previous about the furlough, which affected everyone.