John Schnatter: Papa John’s CEO Says Company Cutting Back Employee Hours Because Of Obamacare

John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John’s, said the pizza company is cutting back on employee hours and Obamacare is to blame.

Schnatter, who had previously threatened to cut back on hours if President Obama was re-elected and Obamacare upheld, said that in order to pay for health care increases he will likely reduce workers hours, The Huffington Post reported. In the summer John Schnatter told shareholders that if Obamacare were to go through, he would also be forced to increase the price of Papa John’s pizza by between 11 and 14 cents.

“I got in a bunch of trouble for this,” Schnatter told the Naples News. “That’s what you do, is you pass on costs. Unfortunately, I don’t think people know what they’re going to pay for this.”

John Schnatter is not the first CEO to threaten employees over the re-election of President Obama. On the day after Election Day, Murray Energy CEO Robert E. Murray read a prayer laced with anti-Obama rhetoric to employees and then immediately announced that there would be layoffs.

Murray, who earlier in the summer had been accused of forcing his company’s coal miners to attend a Mitt Romney rally, blamed Obama’s “war on coal” for the more than 150 employees who were fired.

Darden restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, has also experimented with cutting back hours in anticipation of Obamacare.

Oddly enough, John Schnatter hasn’t tied his threats to any criticism of President Obama. He actually noted that the Affordable Care Act had its positives, and that “the good news is 100 percent of the population is going to have health insurance.”