GGRA members accused of hypocrisyNews that GGRA has decided to file an en banc appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling upholding the City’s Healthcare Security Ordinance got supporters of the City’s ordinance expressing dismay and puzzlement.
They also declared themselves troubled by what they call the apparent hypocrisy of GGRA members who express their support for the ordinance in surcharge notices.
Tim Paulson, San Francisco Labor Council executive director, believes that the City's healthcare ordinance creates a level playing field for employers.
“It gives credit to employers who already offer healthcare to their employees and also allows other employers to comply without disrupting ERISA plans," Paulson said. "The Healthcare Ordinance is sound business policy as well as a win for San Franciscans."
Calling the Ninth Circuit's September 30 decision to uphold the City's ordinance, "a huge win for hard-working men and women in San Francisco who are currently without access to healthcare," Paulson said, "We need more healthcare in San Francisco, not less."
Paulsen said he was “particularly troubled by the apparent hypocrisy of GGRA member restaurants for expressing public support and admiration for a program that provides health and well-being to thousands of restaurant workers, while their GGRA membership dues pay the legal fees to dismantle it."
Paulson was referring to the fact that some GGRA member restaurants have issued surcharge notices that contain comments that appear to be supportive of SF's healthcare program, while GGRA seeks to overturn the ordinance.
IGGRA members Catch, Pomodoro, AsiaSF, Bar Bambino and Luna Park have issued notices in which they express support for the ordinance and explain that they are adding a surcharge to each check to cover these new healthcare related costs. The notices do not mention GGRA's lawsuit.
The surcharges vary. Catch and Bar Bambino have added $1.25 per guest, Luna Park has added $1.00 per guest, and AsiaSF has elected to add a 4 percent San Francisco Healthcare Fee to all guest checks.
Rafael Mandelman, President of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, says he is proud to live and work in a city that provides universal access to healthcare and was happy to pay a few extra dollars at Luna Park to support it.
“When I eat in a restaurant, I want to know that the people who cook and serve my food have access to health coverage, Mandelman said. “But I was not happy to learn that Luna Park is using my dollars to support the Golden Gate Restaurant Association lawsuit trying to overturn San Francisco's pioneering universal healthcare program."
Luna Park and AsiaSF’s managers were not available to take calls, and the owner of Bar Bambino was in Italy. But Catch’s manager Kenneth Hansel talked at length in an effort to explain how Catch can state on its surcharge notice that its staff and management are "proud to embrace this program as it takes a monumental step towards solving this plaguing problem and results in all of our employees having access to healthcare,” while Catch's GGRA membership dues help support GGRA’s appeal of the CIty's healthcare ordinance.
“Realistically , we have to be supportive of the ordinance, because it benefits our employees,” Hansel said. “We don’t want to talk negatively about it, because it’s mandated. We want to be supportive of it, until the court overturns it.”
Hansel says that in the last month, customers have no longer been questioning these new surcharges so much, as they become familiar with the program, whose website and phone number is posted on Catch’s surcharge notice.
“They know we are doing something legit,” Hansel said.
Noting that they only want to charge enough to recover their mandatory healthcare expenditures, Hansel says Catch settled on $1.25 per client, based on their previous year's customer counts.
“We were thinking, maybe when the economy goes up, we can afford this and won’t have to do the surcharge, but then the economy took a turn for the worse last October, and 99 percent of Catch’s employees signed up for the City’s plan," Hansel explained.
He says that Catch's mandated healthcare spending requirements total about $60,000 a year.
“We are supportive of the program, while it’s going on, but honestly it’s really hard to do business in San Francisco,” Hansel said.
A few customers really complained about the surcharge when Catch implemented it, Hansel noted.
“But now most people know about it, unless they are tourists or from out of town, places where they don’t do health care,” Hansel said.
Some of Catch's employees considered taking pays cuts, Catch’s new owner didn’t want to raise menu prices because of the restaurant’s Valencia Street location, and Catch servers were afraid that surcharges would mean customers would cut back on tips, Hansel recalled.
“And sometimes, when it was a table of six, who each got charged $1.25, they did. But now customers know that this is what happens when you go out to eat in San Francisco, and servers see other restaurants that are charging even higher surcharges.”
Hansel said he doesn’t think GGRA ever called and asked Luna Park what it thought of the restaurant’s lawsuit against the City.
“But I think GGRA is speaking for all the restaurants, because the majority of us didn’t want to go there. Like I said, we’re talking positively about this and supporting it for now.”
So, just how likely is it that the Ninth’s Circuit’s ruling will get over turned?
Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, says that he believes the ruling is, overall, very good.
“One of the things we looked at was the case in Maryland, where a healthcare ordinance was over turned. The question there was, would one employer have to change their healthcare plan in order to comply? And the answer was yes, because no rationale employer would give money to the state and get nothing back in return. But in San Francisco, employers have choices, they don’t need to change plans, and can simply pay into the City’s plan for the mandated spending not accounted for by their plans.”
Jacobs notes that 950 employers have decided to pay into the City’s plan, so far.
Jacobs says he’d be surprised if GGRA were to prevail on the Ninth Circuit, because the City’s ordinance is “very well-written, solid and pragmatic.”
“It’s effective, it’s working, employers are complying, and 30,000 San Francisco residents have signed up, so far. Restaurants are still opening. I haven’t seen any dislocations. The concerns GGRA has been raising have not been borne out.”
digg •
del.icio.us •
sphere •
google
•
