It's not just for Papa John's, Applebee's, and Olive Garden anymore. The scheme to avoid providing healthcare benefits by cutting employee hours "popularized" by these restaurant serving unhealthy food by unhealthy employees is so attractive that Gov. Bob McDonnell has decided to implement it for Virginia state employees.
Republican governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell has slipped language into the state's budget bill requiring hourly employees to work no more than 29 hours per week, making them ineligible for healthcare benefits as required by the ACA. Of 37,000 workers this would affect approximately 7,000 employees, including adjunct state college professors.
The 29-hour limit is on its way to becoming state law, thanks to language inserted into the state budget at the request of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration. The language appears in both versions of the budget adopted Thursday by the Senate and House of Delegates.[...]
Anticipating legislative approval of the policy, the state Department of Human Resource Management has advised all state agencies to implement it now.
The state has more than 37,000 wage employees. More than 7,000 of them have been working at least 30 hours a week, according to a recent survey taken by the department.
This move by the pizza chain has been shown to have
negative effects on Papa John's reputation. But government employees are "
evil" according to right-wing conservatives, so it's not clear that Virginia could suffer any such blowback.
This leaves state employees with the option of trying to buy health insurance on the upcoming public exchanges, on part time salaries. And bidding goodbye to the middle class.