Papa John's Manifesto
Recently, statements were
attributed to Papa John's regarding its opposition to Obamacare and it was
disheartening to learn about the callousness in which the company treats its
employees. There are a variety of political
ideologies and views in
This is not a situation of a
company with painfully thin profit margins that is struggling to stay afloat,
let alone expand. Papa John's owns or franchises approximately 4,000
restaurants and plans to add another 1,500 in the next six years. The
juggernaut pizza franchise finds the prospect of increasing its number of total
locations by nearly 40% to be much more appealing than providing the very
people who will make this growth possible with affordable health care. As the
company increases its market share, the money funneled to the CEO, executives
and large franchise owners through salaries, bonuses and stock options will
proliferate; that is the point of expansion. The money is there, Papa
John's simply does not want to use it to provide affordable health care to the
backbone of its enterprise. The company
is currently giving away two million free pizzas in a football season promotion.
For further proof, one need only turn to CEO John Schnatter, who
proclaimed, "We're not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in
our industry. But our business model and economics are about as ideal as
you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare." The deflection
of accountability notwithstanding, this translates into: Our business model is
ideally suited for providing affordable health care to our employees, we simply
do not want to.
If required to provide affordable
health care to its employees, Papa John's has no intention of absorbing the
costs by reducing its profit margins. It
wants no responsibility for the welfare of the work force that makes its
continued success a reality. A lot of
these employees are probably living near the poverty line and Papa John's would
rather keep them on Medicaid (if they qualify) and pass the burden of providing
health services to its hardworking, underpaid employees on to the Government at
the taxpayers' expense. Even more unfortunate, Papa John's most likely
leaves employees that do not qualify for Medicaid, even those with young
families, to fend for themselves. Franchise owner Judy Nichols of
Stepping away from Papa John's for
the moment, its objectionable position is a microcosm for a broader issue that
needs to be addressed.
Comfortable: The New Standard for the Middle Class
Throughout history, members of the
oppressive class have always feared the masses and for good reason. The
power they hold over them is tenuous and often maintained by an illusion of
dominance sprinkled with a healthy dose of false promises, idle threats and
misinformation. They know they are hopelessly outnumbered and even a strong
military state must draw a significant amount of its force from the general
population. This dynamic creates rampant insecurity among the oppressive
class; they are aware of their limited ability to withstand an uprising.
One of the most baffling attributes of this phenomenon is the premise
that: the masses, collectively, want what the aristocracy has. This
faulty assumption has created untold amounts of grief and suffering.
There is a myriad of theories as to why the oppressing class continues to
repeat this mistake, perhaps their lust for power and wealth renders them
incapable of viewing the world through the eyes of people not consumed by
greed.
For the most part, the
masses do not desire an extravagant lifestyle defined by wealth and excess.
Sure, there are exceptions, but the average person simply wants to be
comfortable. He wants to be able to provide his family with adequate
food, clothing and respectable shelter. She wants to shield her kids from
the ugliness of destitution that too many children in this wealthy nation have
experienced. Parents want their kids to have a decent education that will
allow them to become self-sufficient, contributing members of society.
The standard of living that the common people will accept as comfortable
is relatively modest. For millennia, the oppressive ruling class has
failed to realize this simple fact and opted to impose less than desirable
living conditions on its subjects. What constitutes less than desirable
living conditions is subjective, but one constant in this power dynamic is: the
working class is subjected to a standard of living that is below the respective
society's definition of comfortable.
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