"I think a lot of those employers, especially restaurants, are just going to ensure nobody gets scheduled more than 30 hours a week," Matthew Snook of the human-resources consulting company Mercer told the Orlando Sentinel.
Jumping the gun, Darden said in its statement that employees at restaurants where the pilot program was put in place will be limited to 28 hours a week.
A recent study by the nonpartisan Urban Institute found that companies with over 1,000 employees will only experience a 4.3 percent increase in overall spending due to added healthcare costs. Currently, some 75 percent of Darden's 180,000 employees are already working exclusively part-time and are not eligible for benefits.
Darden, which, ironically, bills itself as "the world's largest full-service restaurant company," made headlines last year when it started a "tip sharing" program requiring the waitstaff to share its tips with all other employees. According to the Associated Press, "That allows Darden to pay more workers a far lower 'tip credit wage' of $2.13, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour."