Posts tagged franchises
Federal and State Leaders Take Aim at Empowering America’s Flexible Workforce
July 16, 2025 // However, while federal leaders build support for national reforms to help workers all across America, states are not sitting idle. They know that not only do self-employed workers support greater access to portable benefits, but their residents in general think this warrants policy reforms as well. Instead, many are forging ahead with legal pathways for flexible, portable benefits, maximizing what they can do at the state level in ways that will be further enhanced by federal reforms when they occur. Many states introduced legislation this year to legalize voluntary benefits, but several pioneering states now have laws enacted.
Op-Ed: Follow Trump 45 Labor Policy, Not the Teamsters Union
November 21, 2024 // By pushing Rep. Chavez-DeRemer for secretary of labor, O’Brien is essentially asking the winner of the 2024 presidential election to concede to the loser on one of the most important pieces of domestic legislation after the winner has already won in exchange for nothing. Rather than taking labor policy advice from a union boss, President Trump would do much better to follow the example he himself set in his previous term.
Republicans Should Beware the Big Labor Snake
July 31, 2024 // If presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wins in November, organized labor will tighten its grip on American workers. In 2020, Ms. Harris ran on banning right-to-work provisions, codifying “card check” union election theft and sectoral bargaining. If Ms. Harris imposes her radical agenda, organized labor will likely expand its tentacles into new frontiers, such as pharmacists and ride-hailing companies. Republicans should understand that the best way to win over union workers is by doubling down on Mr. Trump’s worker freedom agenda. Tax cuts and deregulation spur economic growth and job creation, a rising tide that lifts all boats. Right-to-work laws ensure that American workers are not forced to pay dues to a union boss to put food on the table. Strong protections for independent contracting allow Americans to make a living by being their own boss.
OPINION: Bidenomics Labor Agenda on the Rise in Time for 2024 Election
February 6, 2024 // This means entrepreneurs will lose the ability to open their franchise stores like a McDonald’s or Meineke auto shop. It also means many small mom-and-pop businesses like plumbing, baking, accounting and cleaning can’t perform mutually beneficial services for other businesses without being slammed by costly new regulations, legal threats and even targeted unionization efforts — not to mention the loss of their American Dream to have an independent business in the first place. In other words, more than 750,000 franchises and even more small businesses serving as contractors and vendors are now under threat, as are tens of millions of workers. The similar 2015 Browning-Ferris joint employer rule was estimated to increase costs by more than $33 billion and lead to 376,000 lost jobs for franchises, meaning the new rule in 2024 will be even more costly. Next, on January 10, the Labor Department published a final independent contractor rule that modifies the subfactors used in Labor’s “economic realities” test to create as many roadblocks toward independent contractor careers as Labor can without legislation.
This New Labor Rule Could Be Trouble for McDonald’s
October 5, 2023 // McDonald’s and other franchise companies have made it clear they believe the stakes are high. The “reality is that our business model is under attack,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said of possible joint-employer regulations in a speech at a franchising industry conference in Las Vegas earlier this year, in remarks he also published on LinkedIn. Changes by the NLRB, he said, would transform franchisees “from independent small-business owners to employees of the parent brands.” Heightened joint-employer liability could hurt the franchise model in two main ways, according to the International Franchise Association. One possibility, along the lines of what Kempczinski described, is that a franchisor would exert more control over the franchisees. That undercuts one of franchisors’ big selling points to potential franchisees—that they’re offering a path to running their own business, with all of the freedoms that provides. It could also add compliance costs, and potentially, legal and liability expenses. Those increased costs are also a frequent worry for franchisees, says restaurant consultant John Gordon, principal at Pacific Management Consulting Group. Franchisees typically pay franchisors a percentage of their sales, and their profit comes after those fees and their operating expenses. Franchisees are “justifiably afraid of the franchisor passing costs onto them that weren’t part of the franchise agreement,” he says, and wary of joint-employer liability for that reason.
The PRO Act is wrong for Pennsylvania
August 21, 2023 // Fortunately, there’s an alternative to the PRO Act that lawmakers can get behind. The Employee Rights Act–also introduced this year–would empower workers and bolster the small business community. Among provisions, the bill would guarantee that any vote to form a union would be done via secret ballot election, protect the autonomy of self-employed Americans, and preserve the franchise small business model.