President Obama and Staples (SPLS) are in a war of words over health care and jobs.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, the president laced into the office supply giant about a report the company is threatening to fire part-time workers who put in more than 25 hours a week and thus might qualify for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The President saying:
…when I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers’ wages, shame on them.
But Staples is firing back. In a statement to Yahoo Finance, company spokesman Kirk Saville says the president does not have all the facts and its policy regarding part-time employees pre-dates the passage of Obamacare by several years. And Staples is also getting in a jab of its own. Kirk adding: "It’s unfortunate that the president is attacking a company that provides more than 85,000 jobs and is a major taxpayer."
Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Aaron Task thinks this is probably a battle Staples shouldn’t be waging right now.
“It’s never a good idea to get in a fight with the President of the United States,” he says. “Especially when you have a big merger that’s pending with Office Depot (ODP) that could require anti-trust approval.”
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Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli points out the idea of limiting employee workweeks has been around a lot longer than the Affordable Care Act.
“There’s this general obsession that mostly retailers and restaurant chains and things like that have in trying to suppress number of hours worked,” he says. “You’re trying to maximize productivity, there’s software that does this, you’re basically managing the shift work to minimize labor costs. It’s just ingrained in the entire economy right now.”
Task agrees. He points out that because the Affordable Care Act requires coverage when employees hit 30 hours a week, we shouldn't be surprised firms are avoiding that number like The Plague.
“The software that allows companies to manage their hours so closely is relatively new,” he notes. “And they’re all looking to cut costs and so the CTO or some consultant says, 'Hey, buy this software package and you can make sure your employees work 29 ½ hours and don’t hit that threshold.' Of course that's what they're going to do."
Santoli says this kerfuffle between the president and Staples really has less to do with health care coverage and more to do with the overall mentality in the retail world today.