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The argument has been brought up, and not dispelled, that the FAB doesn't actually have the jurisdiction to make this choice. So the answer to that question is a wrather complex political answer, but simply 'because they have apear to be legitimate'.

The Tim Hortons in the SLC buys it's products at the same cost as every other franchise, and it sells them at the same price. It indeed does more bussiness than many other branches, but the complaint is simply that one number is different in the equation, and that's labour cost. I don't know what the average employee at the SLC tims makes, but if a baker is making 17 bucks an hour, that's almost twice what he would make in a normal franchise. I think the near slave wages most franchises pay their employee's is dispicable, and am quite happy to hear that our SLC does better... but 17 dollars an hour for unskilled labour? The reason the SLC timmies would be non profitable is clear, it's built on a corperate model which stipulates a much lower rate of pay for employees.

There are two ways to fix the situation, one is to cut back the hours, thus paying out less wage. The other is to cut back wages. Incredibly unpopular, but if you ask me, a better solution. After all, would we wrather give a few students very good wages, and screw over the student population in general. Or take a middle ground and give more students (because the tim's will be open longer, it can employ more people) a decent wage, while ensuring a 24/7 tims on campus.

What's a decent wage? I don't know. It sucks, but let's face it, there are plenty of students who work shitty jobs off campus and get paid minimum wage for shitty hours. When they come home to campus at 1 AM, I would like to think the Tim Hortons is open for them. The timmies does a remarkable amount of bussiness, I know it can afford to pay it's employee's more than standard wages. The proper amount should be worked out between the union and the management, and the union should have acess to the books. This shouldn't spill over onto the campus population like this.

Subject: There are full-time union workers and then part-time student workers.

The unionised workers are the full-time non-student workers; the student employees at SLC Tim Hortons are part-time non-unionised and make a lower wage. At Waterloo, Food Services workers — and plant ops workers — are members of CUPE 793.

Clearly, another solution to high labour costs at SLC TH is to have more student hours. In that case the union may again be an obstacle.

Also, since Food Services has to pay Feds for the space, it benefits less or not at all from a profitable SLC Tim Hortons. Food Services would make more money, or lose less, if it concentrated its higher wage workers in the SLC TH and moved lower wage workers to other Tim Hortons.

By raising the SLC TH's share of Food Services' fixed costs, payments to Feds are decreased.

Of course an alternative to that strategy is to "not provide financial figures."

uws'ers:
Hey can the allowable number of characters in comments subjects be increased to more than 64?

Ahh, I thought there was something odd with the idea that students could be making 17 bucks an hour on campus. Well then, since i'm now (hopefully) informed, and thankfully, free from the responsibility of speaking for anyone but myself.

Fuck the union, fuck food services. FEDS contract is clear that the timmies is 24/7, and that can't be changed without feds aprooval. It's time for our leaders to step up and play hard ball with food services and the union. Obviously loosing the tim hortons is not in anyones best interest, but it's not in students best interest to cow-tow to food services and union interests. Perhaps students would be more willing to work the tim hortons shifts if they were payed something closer in line with union pay. I bet you'll have no problem keeping the thing staffed with students if you offered 12 bucks an hour.

I understand Food Services staff are unionized, but that doesn't mean they have to loose money over all.

For example you say Food Services has to pay Feds for the space, but that simply isn't true. The university owns all the space, and allows the SLC to be managed by a group of Admin and Students. The only reason gets money from the Tim Horton's was to show Food Services didn't want to make any money off the store. Which apparently wasn't a problem.

We need real information about the financial before we can really have a discusion, though I guess we can randomly blame the estabilishment.

Fed's is a blind partner in the SLC TH, we have all sorts of stipulations about how we want the place run, but we have very little information about how it IS being run. FS has not shared the financial information with us. The only stipulation we have clear information on (that the tim hortons be 24/7) has been violated, and feds has prooved impotent so far to do anything about it.

I heard from Renjie that Marek from GSA actually voted for the Feds hours, but he wasn't counted.

Yes, he did. I confirmed with him over e-mail a couple weeks ago but I had forgotten to update the story. It was updated June 21 with the correct information and the explanation.