Chick-fil-A owner gives employees 5-months pay while restaurant is closed for renovations

[davidn3600]

A Chick-fil-A owner recently had to shut down his Austin, Texas, restaurant for five months for renovations.

Instead of temporarily laying off his 50 workers, Jeff Glover shocked his staff by continuing to pay them during the entire five months the restaurant would be closed, ABC affiliate KVUE reports.

Glover even gave them a $1-per-hour raise for sticking with him.

Starting pay at Glover's Chick-fil-A is $11 an hour and he pays full-time workers roughly $3,600 a month before taxes, according to KVUE.

"It would be a real financial crisis for the 50 families represented by the workers here to have to go five months without a job," Glover told the station.

At least one employee wasn't surprised by the gesture.

"I wasn't expecting less than that — he is always taking care of us," the worker told KVUE.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chick-fil-owner-shocked-employees-194620368.html

[cwydro]

1. Wish there were more like him. nt

[Demonaut]

2. nice gesture but he would have been liable for unemployment for those same employees

and would have had to train different employees when the store reopened

[Ms. Yertle]

4. UC

doesn't come out of the business owners' pockets. They pay UC premium, which is probably just a fraction of what he actually paid. His premium would have gone up, based on the history, but still wouldn't have amounted to nearlly what this is costing him out-of-pocket.

Actually, the employees may be able to get UC besides their interim pay. It's possible, depending on the state laws.

[Demonaut]

6. no but his unemployment insurance can go up..which might be high already and lawsuits

"The employer is concerned that their unemployment insurance rates may increase. After all, the employer (not the employee) pays for unemployment insurance. The amount the employer pays toward unemployment insurance is based in part on the number of claims made against the employer by former employees."


"The employer is concerned that the employee plans to file a wrongful termination action. The unemployment application process can be valuable in discovering the employee's side of the story, and it can also provide an excellent opportunity for gathering evidence -- both from the employee and from witnesses."


http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/unemployment-benefits-contesting-employees-claim-30348.html

[WillowTree]

9. Still wouldn't amount to anything close to paying full wages for 5 months.

[Demonaut]

10. offset the annual increase of insurance and take into account new employees and training a new crew

and the drop in business if it's publicly announced (social media)that he remodeled and laid of everyone (fired)
but if he paid them to wait while the remodel was completed and was shown on social media (notice it's national news)

[Saphire]

3. 5 months to renovate??? hell, they build one from

the ground up in one. Why 5 months??

[Lee-Lee]

5. Most of the day food places do level and start over these dys

That's pretty common around here.

Evidently with uograded fire and building codes around commercial kitchens, as well as how a new building is treated under the tax code vs a remodel, it's often faster and cheaper to level the building and start over than to try and retrofit an older building to new codes. Because once you spend over a certain percentage of the buildings value you have to meet all current codes regardless of the buildings age.

The speed it can be done is often critical- if it is even one month faster to level it and start over that one less month of missed income can play a huge factor in the decision.

[ncjustice80]

7. Nice of him. Still won't eat there.

[Camel_Camel]

8. Been a long time....

Makes me want a sandwich...