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The advertising would have us believe that Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution and icon that we should all revere as patriotic citizens. Who can forget the role the coffee and donut emporium has played over the years in bringing caffeine comfort to early-morning hockey dads, sending underprivileged kids to camp, and, gosh darn, just being here, there, and everywhere (including Afghanistan), doing all of us proud. (Be still, my beating heart!)
Well, sad to report on this fine Sunday morning, the corporate mask has slipped a bit.
According to a report in the The Toronto Star, today, June 1, marks a new phase in the relationship that some franchisees have with their employees. Because today is the day in Ontario that the minimum wage rises to $11 per hour, it appears that the very profitable coffee giant is intent on cutting benefits to compensate for the higher wage:
A Toronto-area Tim Hortons worker, who didn’t want her name or outlet location identified for fear of reprisals, said her employer posted a memo notifying staff he was ending breaks with pay to recoup costs.
“Given this new increase, as well as continued economic and competitive pressures, increasing commodity costs and minimal increases in menu pricing, effective June 1, we will be shifting all hourly team members in the restaurant to unpaid breaks,” the memo reads.
“We are not pleased we have to make this adjustment to the break policy and have held off making this change for several years,” it said.
I suppose, given the tone of this apologia, that workers should be grateful to the giant that it has withstood all of the above pressures so valiantly until being 'forced' into this action by a premier who finally remembered the working poor.
I guess Timmy's vote won't be going to the Liberals on June 12.
And one can't help but wonder whether the enthusiasm evident in this video might now become muted at best:
One word - "boycott"
ReplyDeleteBoycott, and barrage head office with letters of 'concern' about these practices:http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/inquiries.html
DeleteTime for some old-time home remedy - collective bargaining. The union movement has been horribly suppressed in our country and our provinces in particular for far too long and this Tim Horton's bullshit is testament to that. Fast track organization laws are woefully overdue. If employees could organize and vote in a union in, say, 30-days and then give the employer another 30-days to negotiate a first collective agreement, employers would think long and hard about pulling these stunts. I was never a particularly keen supporter of unions but the pendulum has swung much too far the other way and has been held there. Enough.
ReplyDeleteA fair, living wage for all workers is essential if we're to have the sort of cohesive society our children and theirs will need to get through the challenges of this century. Those who treat them as economic carrion, including all three major parties in Parliament, are grievously damaging our nation.
Well-said, Mound. I have never read of any serious efforts at unionizing Tim Horton's employees, despite the ubiquity of the coffee purveyor. The same, I guess, is true of many in the fast food industry. Likely one of the reasons is that so many of their employees are part-time, and hence wouldn't don't feel they have much power or influence.
DeleteAs Mound suggests, Lorne, there are other places where you can buy a double double.
DeleteOne hope this occurs to the legion who seem to have pledged fealty to this 'institution,' Owen.
DeleteLike Mound, I was never a big supporter of unions, living in England just prior to the Thatcher times I saw just what damage they could do.
ReplyDeleteHowever, having arrived in Canada in 2007 I have, unfortunately, only lived here under the thumb of Harper and, here in BC, Campbell and Clark. Not the Canada I thought I was coming to would be an understatement!
My opinions on unions have definitely changed, there is very much a need for them here. The 'walking all over the workforce' I see as an epidemic, but sadly is part and parcel for the current government agenda. When will some one really stand up for this beautiful country and lead us out of the banana republic. People matter, how can this be disputed.
While unions have sometimes been guilty of unseemly behaviour, Inse, they are, as you say, necessary to counterbalance the steamrolling greed that seems to characterize so much of capitalism. Until a real equilibrium can be struck between the needs of labour and business, unions are one of the few bulwarks against rampant and ruthless exploitation.
DeleteAdd lousy coffee and their contributions to obesity and urban litter to a growing list of why I never buy from Tim's.
ReplyDeleteCompelling reasons indeed, Anon, to withhold your patronage from the corporate giant.
DeleteAgain I fall back on my personal Koran, Teddy Roosevelt's speech in Osawatomie, Kansas in August, 1910 when he channeled Abraham Lincoln:
ReplyDelete"...the man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. He said:
"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."
And again:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Lorne, I think the question that we really must ask, because it weighs heaving not just on worker rights in Canada but every other challenge that confronts us, is how we lost our way? There's an operating selfishness in us that drives an indifference to our fellow citizens. We display behaviours today that evidence a detachment and leave us vulnerable to the politics of division - manufactured grievance, inculcated fear and ready manipulation. And it speaks volumes that Harper uses those instruments not on his rivals (or, as he casts them, his enemies) but on his own supporters. The more likely you are to vote for him, the more apt Harper is to turn on you. There is something dark, even Orwellian in that.
I was saying to my wife the other day, Mound, that given all of the violence, cruelty and indifference so evident in the world, it is almost as if we have a design flaw. (Of course, I was speaking metaphorically, since, while I believe in a transcendent reality, the idea of 'intelligent design' is a risible notion.)
DeleteI think that our more basic animal instincts far too often prevail; that they can be overcome is evidenced by some of history's moral giants, the most recent of whom, in my view, was Nelson Mandela. However, the opportunities for such growth seem woefully lacking in our society, and the blame for such is widespread, including, of course, governments like our current one and a corporately compliant mainstream media, disseminating more and more an orthodoxy that is tearing us apart and making our failure as a species the most likely outcome.
I read somewhere the other day a quotation from Dwight Eisenhower:
"Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen."
There is a lot of wisdom in that assertion, but I am not hopeful that the level of engagement it suggests will ever be possible in our fractured world.
I already boycott Tim Hortons and all other fast food including McDonalds and have been for some time.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Anyong. If more people followed your example, head offices and franchisees would not be so cavalier in their treatment of employees.
ReplyDelete