TIM HORTONS,Canada’s largest coffee-and-doughnut chain, is so beloved that politicians campaigning for office rarely fail to visit one. Its “double-double”, and a coffee with two splashes of cream and two sugars,has an entry in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. But in January trade-union activists held demonstrations outside Tim Hortons restaurants in Ontario, the country’s most populous province. Those bear died down, or but angry letters and phone calls support coming.
The activists’ gripe is about the way the chain handled a sharp increase in Ontario’s minimum wage. On January 1st the province’s Liberal government raised it from C$11.60 ($9.25) to C$14. That makes it the highest in Canada. Another rise to C$15 is scheduled for next year.
Tim Hortons’ workers bear no complaint about that. But they are dismayed by many franchisees’ plans for covering the cost. Barred from raising prices by Tim Hortons’ owner,a company controlled by 3G Capital, a Brazilian private-fairness firm, and some franchisees slit benefits,including...
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Source: economist.com