Cintas CEO Sends Email To Employees Condemning ObamaCare and Over-Regulation

Scott Farmer, the CEO of uniform manufacturing giant Cintas, sent an election email message to employees last Friday attacking ObamaCare and excessive regulations.

Its contents were posted at AliciaNewton.com:

1) According to the Supreme Court, the new health care law amounts to the single largest tax on Americans and business in history.  We have spent a lot of time over the past months trying to understand the impact that the new law will have on our company.  Currently, Cintas spends $130 million providing competitive healthcare benefits for our partners.  Under the new law, we estimate that our health care costs will increase by over $50 million, taking the total we would need to spend to provide the same level of coverage we are currently providing to $188 million.

-   While one of the original intents of the new health care law was to provide broader access to health care for all people, the law is actually set up to allow companies to eliminate their health care coverage and instead pay a penalty of $2,000 per employee.

-   Cintas understands the importance of competitive, comprehensive health care coverage to the health, well-being, and engagement of our partners and has no intention of dropping coverage at this time.  For perspective, consider that this penalty would cost Cintas about $50 million – that’s about 30% of what Cintas’ health care costs ($188 million) would be if we continue to offer health care coverage to our partners.   Now consider the potential impact that the law could have on the many smaller and/or less fiscally solvent companies that make up our communities.  These businesses are our customers and they employ our friends and family.

2) The second key issue is the potential of government to increase current tax rates. Taxes are like any other cost to businesses.  Ultimately, they are passed on to customers as higher prices for products and services.  This would mean that we could all be paying more for the things we purchase every day such as milk, bread, gas, clothing, etc.  For Cintas specifically, this would mean that our customers ultimately have less money to spend on uniforms, first aid cabinets, floor mats, fire extinguishers or document management services.  This obviously leads to less money for Cintas to reinvest in our business and our partners.

3) Finally, while some government regulation is needed for all businesses, the current economic uncertainty faced by many of our customers prevents them (and Cintas) from growing in the way we would like.  The over-regulation that business is facing today from the various administrative agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Security Exchange Commission (SEC), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and others is suffocating many companies.  This uncertainty felt by many of our customers about their ability to run and grow their businesses prevents them from adding jobs which hurts our ability to grow and add jobs.

Our www.CintasVotes.com website allows you to register to vote, learn more about the candidates and issues as well as show you where to vote on Election Day. Additionally, the attached Issues Guide shares the differences that exist with the two candidates for President.

Farmer then urged his employees to vote on November 6.

For those not familiar with Cintas, it was originally founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1929 as the Acme Industrial Laundry Company.

Through expansion and acquisitions, it has become the nation's largest manufacturer of uniforms with 34,000 employees and 430 facilities throughout North America.

It had sales of $4.1 billion in fiscal 2012.

With this correspondence - apparently his third "GOTV - Election Message" - Farmer joins a growing list of CEOs and business owners apprising employees of issues affecting them in the coming election.