Pizza Punks pt. II

After Sam & I got in the Camaro--much shittier than the one Papa John sold to open up his first store--to head to my doctor's appointment, I brought up with him the boycott. He still works for Papa John's, managing a franchise store owned by a third-party corporation. A really, really reasonable point he brought up: boycotting his store is not going to have any effect whatsoever on whether or not he or his employees have health insurance.
     I giggled, "Yeah, I bet some Madison kids are going to stop eating their food thinking they're doing something, but it's just going to end up hurting local employees."

Sure enough...

The ensuing thread was so ludicrous that it involved my gay friend being called a bigot for calling the original poster gay. A fine example of Madison's PC social justice culture infecting the minds of reasonable thinkers, preventing them from looking at social situations from a more individualized perspective, and jumping them to conclusions.

Papa John's, in three states now, has paid a portion of my rent for the last two years. However, Papa John himself only paid my rent in one of those states: Kentucky, when Sam & I worked for corporate-owned stores. If everyone in our neighborhood who usually eats Papa John's decided to boycott the product, here's who would be affected, in order of severity:

1. Sam & I, and his employees, would start losing money. Manager hours would be cut as the store failed to sustain its present business hours, drivers would begin losing tips, and we'd continue to not health insurance because the corporation that actually owns the franchise store only offers it to general managers and up.
2. The third-party corporation that owns the franchise store would take a hit, certainly--but it owns so many other stores, many of which are located in way more profitable locations, that it wouldn't have as successful an impact.
3. Papa John's Pizza, the corporation, is barely impacted. It would take shutting down several hundred stores before Papa John himself cares. This is because he has already made money off of the store's initial opening, and continues to make money off of the store by having it buy his product.

In order for a boycott to actually have a dramatic enough effect on the corporation itself, thousands of workers--let me take a moment to italicize the word workers--and their families would have to deal with the backlash.

So, before you feel real good about yourself for ordering Chinese tonight instead of tipping a Papa John's driver, just remember that John Schnatter is still going to be in his nice-ass Z28.