Hightower Report: Bosses Gone Berserk

The sky is falling! The end times are upon us! It's all over for America! And it's all because of you – you, the execrable voters.

This is the wretched wail of a few corporate chieftains who claim to be somewhere between flummoxed and furious that Barack Obama is back in the White House. With his diabolical Obamacare and tax-the-rich attacks on us wealthy job creators, they moan, this president is out to destroy American business. "There's a tsunami coming," cried one, so we must save ourselves.

How do these trembling titans of free enterprise intend to do that? By firing employees, thus sending a message to workers that voting for Democrats is bad for their health. "Elections have consequences," exclaimed a Las Vegas boss who offed 22 workers the day after Obama was re-elected. Echoing this self-serving political ethic, a Georgia executive told C-SPAN that his fear of Obamacare made him fire enough workers to exempt his business from providing health care. "I tried to make sure that the people I had to lay off voted for Obama," he spat.

Then there's Papa John's, the billion-dollar-a-year pizza chain. John Schnatter, the present "papa" of Papa John's, had warned this summer that he'd jack up the consumer price of the chain's pizza if Obama won, because he wasn't going to eat the cost of assuring health coverage for employees. Post-election, however, Schnatter has decided not to slap his customers, but to slap Papa John's workers instead, by cutting their hours to part-time so he doesn't have to pay for their coverage. "That's what you do," Schnatter snapped. "You pass on costs."

Yeah, that's what bosses like you do – and what an exemplary way for the millionaire boss to boost productivity, loyalty, and morale of those who do the actual work that make customers want to buy Papa John's pizza – or not.