Some Tim Horton’s sent out a letter to its employees letting them know and sign that they have read and understood the changes to their pay system / incentive program.
Before you read this letter, please keep in mind that Daniel Schwartz the CEO of Tim Hortons made $6,173,993 in total compensation in 2016. Also note that most Tim Hortons small business owners make a net profit (after taxes, salaries, expenses etc. are paid) of roughly over $300,000 on each location they run.
Click here to read the full letter. Here is what the letter said:
DEAR TEAM MEMBERS:
It is with great regret that Ron Joyce Jr. Enterprises (Tim Hortons) finds it necessary to make the following changes to our incentive programs, paid breaks, and policies.
These changes are due to the increase of wages to $14.00 minimum wage on January 1, 2018, then $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2019, as well as the lack of assistance and financial help from our Head Office and from the Government. The decisions of the following are the results of intense discussions with management and numerous small business owners in our area and other franchise owners.
Breaks will no longer be paid. A 9 hour shift will be paid for 8 hours and 20 minutes: 8 hour shift will be paid for 7 hours and 30 minutes: 7 hour shift will be paid for 6 hours and 30 minutes: 6 hour shift will be paid for 5 hours and 30 minutes: 5 hour shift will be paid fir 4 hours and 45 minutes: 4 hour shift will nee paid for 3 hours and 45 minutes: 3 hour shift will be paid for 2 hours and 45 minutes.
The incentives of working on your birthday and the day off with pay after six months of not calling in are cancelled.
The incentives of receiving bonus’ for covering shifts when called on days off and a day of pay for death in immediate family will continue.
Dental and Health Benefits will continue, but members will be required to cover the cost of the benefits by the following.
Over 5 years of employment will pay 50% of the cost of their benefits.
Employees with 6 months up to 5 years will pay 75% of their benefits cost.
Any employee may cancel their benefits if they wish. Please let us know as soon as possible.
We apologize for these changes. Once the costs of the future are better known we may bring back some or all of the benefits we have had to remove. All the above will become effective January 1, 2018.
Click here to read the full letter.
Unionize!
Time to go to Starbucks exclusively! MacDonalds has a great lineup of coffees too! Many say they’re the best now!
Disgusting! Disappointed in Tim Hortons!
Poor old Tim Horton must be rolling in his grave. Let’s boycott this business and look for cheap coffee elsewhere…
I cannot stand to see New Canadians who work at Tim’s be treated like slaves.
I feel sad for the employees. This could be the nail in the Tim Horton’s coffin. The greed exhibited here by the owners who are in Florida is astounding.
I don’t understand why you mention “new Canadians”. Is it only new Canadians that work at Timmies? Do you only care about the new Canadians that work at Timmies and not others? Strange comment.
I agree with you totally. Tim Hortons should be gone out of the business long time now…The staff at the drive thru window, staff in store, have no customer service manners and act like “they are serving coffee and doing a BIG FAVOR!”.
Tim Hortons needs to understand that we are giving them business by buying their products. There are great competitors out there as well – better than TIM’s
People like you should make your coffee/food at home or better yet just stay home you’ll do society a favour! Respect goes both ways!
Going back a ways… I was never paid for lunch breaks and didn’t have any benefits working in this industry. Was actually quite surprised what Tims had been doing and don’t find it a negative that they are making these changes.
#SECONDCUP #STABUCKS #ANYOTHERTHANTIMMYS
Because greedy multi-millionaires ask everyone to cut down their prices, benefits or make other concessions, but they won’t take a 1 to 5M$ yearly pay-cut off of their 2 to 10M$ annual salaries to keep their employees happy and the company will still make billions in the end. At 1M$/year or more, I’m pretty sure they won’t have problems feeding their kids or keeping a house on top of their heads.
I do not work in the food industry, but have never been paid for my breaks, lunch or otherwise. I have always contributed a portion of the cost of my benefit package and never once had my birthday off, unless I used a vacation day. It sounds like these were nice benefits to have, but much better than others.
I work permanently, f/t @ a private sector (small business with less than 30 people) was being told I can go for a 1 hour paid lunch between my work hour from 8:30am-5pm.
All of sudden we all only get 1/2 hour paid lunch break once a new manager being hired on the floor.
I asked for clarification from Ministry of Labour and turned out it’s up to the company who offer one hour or 1/2 hour lunch break with ‘paid’.
I am still quite confused til now since the conversation with the rep. of Ministry of Labour !!!
I think the wage increase is going to bring lot of price increase.
This company has been doing shady stuff for years. They don’t even make food in store anymore. It’s all shipped in frozen and defrosted. Has anyone noticed their donuts are smaller and taste like garbage now?
Shame on you Tim Horton’s!!! I will personally no longer be going there anymore and will switch to McDonald’s coffee. It tastes better anyways!!
Devil’s Advocate–But is McDonald’s any better? They (like Walmart and many others) have been cutting employees altogether in anticipation of this by going to self ordering and self checkouts to save on employees and thus cost. If we think companies won’t find a way to stay competitive we’re delusional. Sure, he cut their benefits…but he didn’t replace them with a machine…so is that really worse?
Their tastes better than Tim Horton’s
I’m not sure how people thought this whole scenario was going to work out?? Raise wages by over 2 $ an hour with no changes, layoffs, cutbacks or price increases??? lets be realistic !
I’m not justifying Tim Horton’s doing here, as previously stated by people, with a $2 increase, how do you think businesses are going to cope?
BTW, I’ve worked in retail stores, our breaks / lunches were never paid.. so I’m actually quite surprised to hear that Tim Horton paid their workers for their breaks.
Tim’s was great for paying for breaks, employers are not required to pay for breaks and most companies don’t. McDonald’s does not pay for breaks either. They do let you have a free meal on break, we’ll see if that changes. I was never paid for breaks when I worked retail.
I expect staff will have to work harder as they probably won’t be able to have as many people on shift before the increase.
Nope you have to pay half price for your meal it’s not free
From what I understand this is at a corporate store not a franchised store. Does anyone know if it is different for corporate and franchised Tim Hortons with breaks and benefits? It is still not nice to lose something you have worked hard to receive.
For those of you stating that your breaks were never paid, I extremely doubt this. I agree with the lunches not paid but the breaks; some of you are pushing it. I’m surprised some of you didn’t say “we use to work for a few hours for free”.
I knew many from decades ago whom worked retail, breaks were always paid.
Some places don’t have a separation between breaks and lunch. When I worked in fast food over a decade ago, your breaks were your lunches. An 8h shift got two 20min breaks which were unpaid.
The part of all this that I find odd is that they have calculated breaks down to a 3h shift. According to the MoL, you only must be given an uninterrupted eating period after a 5h shift.
Based upon what info is available online if you figure the average Tim Hortons franchise owner currently makes $300K per location, then when you factor in the increase in wage costs ($100K – $150K) along with the increase in CPP costs ($20K-$50K) and then the constant increase in Electricity and gas. How much do you really think each owner can absorbe, since they can’t change their retail prices. The owners need to make cuts somewhere and the only area they have any control over is wages.
Honestly I dont blame tim hortons I blame Kathleen Wynn and the ontario government. How do they think even smaller businesses will have to cope with the higher minimum wages? it shouldn’t be 14 dollars anyways this is going to have an impact on consumers to employees to employers. soon we will be paying $3 for a coffee there and this is because of the government.
Distribution of wealth equals distribution of costs.
The government gave the raise so they get votes from the workers. Who is paying for that? The business owners. There is only so much a business owner can absorb on behalf of the generous government.
Unfortunately this is going to become the norm thanks to the minimum wage increase. If companies increase their prices they will lose customers, so its either reduce benefits or cut jobs… Which a LOT of small businesses will have to do. Total compensation for a CEO isn’t a fair number. That number is not reflective of money in his pocket. And while the money in his pocket is probably still a huge number I have worked with a lot of CEOs over the years and they deserve what they get paid.
I will be supporting Second Cup from now on… a truly Canadian coffee company. What the Tim Hortons owners are doing is bullying employees for the government implementing a more LIVING WAGE. The minimum wage of last years was a POVERTY wage. If you can’t afford to pay your workers a liveable wage, you shouldn’t be in business. It’s as simple as that. Perhaps the CEOs of these companies should look at their own multi-million dollar salaries and cut back some of that instead of cutting back a minimum wage worker’s paid break. Give me a break! It’s DISGUSTING. What happened to taking care of your hard-working employees?
Ah yes, the rich punish the poor and the poor blame the government.
Thank you Mark! This wage increase should have happened a long time ago with the rate of inflation. We still have a very long way to go. I don’t care to support a small business or large business if they can’t pay their workers a liveable wage. If they are greedy and they only care about profits and lining their own pockets then you won’t get my business. Now if only everyone would get together to boycott and strike and unionize then that would truly make a difference. As to those commenting about “proper customer service” I bet you wouldn’t like your job either if you endured low wages and degrading and verbally abusive customers. Make your coffee and breakfast at home! AND no the customer isn’t always right I’ve seen some disgusting behaviour by other customers while waiting in line.
The quarter hour wage deductions for breaks should not be going on for shifts less than 5h. Really, with the cost of commuting, one needs all hours paid if working 5h or less. Some municipalities have union contracts determining that the min shift time paid is 4h even if work short-cuts the shift for whatever reason. However, inside and outside workers (different unions) might be finding that min. paid hours for shift changing the next time their contracts are up for negotiation.
I discovered in 1988 while working a summer retail job that the electronic punch clock went ahead 15min to start my paid work time if I did not punch in prior to start hour or went back 15min if I punched out later than my stop time. Yes, I got 30min unpaid lunch if I had a longer shift over 5h. I usually got 4h shifts.