The battle between Tim Hortons and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne continues, with a store in Whitby blaming the politician for the changes certain owners have made to benefits and paid breaks.
In a letter sent to employees in November, owners Susan and Jason Holman, who own a number of stores within Whitby and Ajax, place all blame regarding changes to benefits and pay on the province. They urge employees to contact the Premier directly to complain.
“I encourage you to let [Wynne] know how your workplace will change as a result of her new law and that you will not vote Liberal in the coming Ontario election in June 2018,” the letter reads. Included was the phone number and email for the Premier’s office.
Pettiness aside, the fact that store owners, or rather employers, are trying to influence the political association of the people who depend on them for their pay check is despicable. To those who may not know better, this could be seen as an instruction on how to vote in the next election. Even more than that, it makes a correlation between an employees benefits and paid sick leave, with their political decision come June 6th.
To be absolutely clear: no employer has the right to sway the votes of their employees. It’s absolutely deplorable.
Women’s Post has previously written about how Tim Horton’s is coming across as a large greedy corporation who is slashing health benefits and reducing paid breaks in order to maintain their bottom line. And instead of stepping up and helping owners by raising prices by 10 cents, the Tim Horton’s head office is simply playing the blame game, putting the onus on government and private store owners to figure it all out.
The letter mentioned above was sent out in November, two months prior to the minimum wage increase. This just proves the store owners had no intention of trying to make this raise work.
The Premier responded in twitter by saying:
When I said franchise owners should take their fight to me, I didn’t mean they should use their employees as pawns. I’m happy to talk to any business owner about the minimum wage but taking it out on employees is not fair and not acceptable. https://t.co/nuHvNnkoun
— Kathleen Wynne (@Kathleen_Wynne) January 19, 2018