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Comment by andrewlgood | Hacker News Reader

Not quite a balanced representation of what happened. The store had been closed for a month due to an inability to hire people. Washington Post article has fuller explanation of both sides - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/20/chipotle-...

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Isn't it kind of weird that a Bezos owned media outlet is publishing an anti-union argument? "There's two sides to the story" falls apart when your siding with Corporate over Fast Food workers.

I did not get the impression that the article was "siding with Corporate over Fast Food workers". Can you quote the sections of the article that made you think differently?

That link is paywalled for me, here's one that's not, which claims that the location had "about 20" employees: https://www.boston.com/news/business/2022/07/19/chipotle-clo...

To see whether 20 is a low number, I searched for how many employees an average Chipotle branch has, which brings up this page (from 2018), where multiple commenters leave estimates that all hover around 20: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Chipotle-Mexican-Grill/faq/how-ma...

Regardless of how close it is to the target staffing: was it open (and presumably operational at some level of customer satisfaction) or closed at the time it was shut down? What does it mean to have 20 employees but closed for a month? Wouldn't those employees be seeking other employment already?

We can also ask, was the store closed for a month in an attempt to force out the union-sympathizing employees? Does the fact that it still has 20 employees after a month of closure suggest there were even more employees a month ago? The last time the store opened was on June 17th, and the vote to unionize was held June 23rd. All that upstairs needs to do is not send a manager with the keys.

The gist of the Washington Post article is they could not hire sufficient staff for the store. They dedicated two recruiters to the task and were still unsuccessful. For the staff they did have, there was "excessive call outs and lack of availability..." I do not have any facts beyond the article, but would not surprise me that an understaffed store (described as in a remote location) would enter a downward spiral that leads to a shut down.

The company representative described it as remote. The journalist described it as in a strip mall just off the highway in Augusta. Augusta is the capital.

It would not surprise me if the store couldn't hire workers because of a reputation for poor working conditions. It would not surprise me if call outs and lack of availability were proportional to excessive call ins from an under staffed store.

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