Nearly 2,500 SC restaurant workers see hours cut ‘significantly’ during coronavirus
Nearly 2,500 restaurant workers at Outback Steakhouse, Bonefish Grill and Carrabba’s Italian Grill locations across South Carolina have seen their hours reduced “significantly” because of the coronavirus pandemic, the chains’ parent company said Monday in a letter to the state’s Department of Employment and Workforce.
In accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, Bloomin’ Brands, owner of the Outback Steakhouse, Bonefish Grill and Carrabba’s Italian Grill brands, gave notice to the S.C. DEW about the change impacting 2,476 employees at 37 locations.
While those 2,476 employees were listed under “layoffs” in the state’s WARN report, Marquis Heilig, a lawyer for Bloomin’ Brands who filed the letter with DEW, said the company has not terminated anyone’s employment but sent the letter out of an “abundance of caution” that the reduction in hours could constitute a layoff under WARN’s definition moving forward.
Under the WARN Act, employers must give notice if hours are reduced by more than 50% during each month in a six-month period. In the letter, Heilig wrote that Bloomin’ Brands was dating the start of the “WARN event” from March 15.
In an email to The State, Bloomin’ Brands spokeswoman Elizabeth Watts said some employees had their hours cut all the way to zero, but that the company is providing four weeks of relief pay, reassessing its ability to provide that every two weeks, and continuing benefits to employees who had hours signficantly reduced.
On March 17, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster ordered restaurants across the state to close their dining rooms in response to the spread of COVID-19. Since then, businesses have only been able to serve food via delivery, takeout or drive-through. While McMaster allowed some businesses to re-open last week, he has also extended South Carolina’s state of emergency order and has yet to announce a timeline for restaurants to re-start dine-in services.
But the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association has sent recommendations to McMaster, suggesting such steps as outdoor seating and mandated space between indoor tables, starting in the month of May, according to WIS.
As states and local governments start to lift dine-in service restrictions, Bloomin’ Brands plans to bring employees back to work, Watts said. In the letter to DEW, Heilig wrote that the company hopes to restore pre-pandemic hours to employees.
Heilig also wrote that the company’s South Carolina employees are far from the only ones affected by the hours reduction — the change will impact restaurants nationally, meaning thousands of workers will lose wages.
There have been more than 5,700 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Carolina, along with 192 deaths. Nationally, South Carolina ranks in the bottom half of states in confirmed cases, cases per 100,000 residents and deaths from the virus.
