Unions for Big Businesses: Why the NLRB is attacking America's franchises

National Review ^ | 08/04/2014 | James Sherk

[SeekAndFind]

Would you like to own a small business someday? If so, sorry — the Service Employees International Union would rather you didn’t. SEIU has convinced the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to eviscerate the franchising model that many small-business owners rely on.

Under the current model, these small-business owners pay for the right to use a corporate brand. The franchising corporation researches appealing products. It also does marketing to promote the brand. In return, the local franchisees agree to produce those products to fit certain price and quality specifications. The local franchisee handles all the hiring and employment.

This division of labor of labor cuts the risks of starting a small business, because the franchisee can focus on running the business without having to develop a market niche from scratch. A franchisee opening a new restaurant, for example, doesn’t need to market a new menu. The corporate brand has already done the work. The franchisor similarly does not have to operate thousands of local restaurants remotely.

Many businesses, from Burger King to Jiffy Lube to the Hair Cuttery, use franchising. It enables many Americans to run small businesses that would otherwise never get off the ground.

However, unions hate this business model. They find it much easier to organize big businesses than small ones.

Unions claim they organize most workers today without secret-ballot elections. Instead, they pressure firms into accepting “neutrality” and “card-check.” Neutrality means the business stays silent during the organizing drive. Workers hear only the union’s sales pitch — they learn nothing about uncomfortable subjects unions train their organizers to deflect. Card check means workers vote in public, in front of union organizers. Unsurprisingly, under these circumstances unions almost always win.

Unions wage negative campaigns against big businesses to damage their reputation and pressure them into accepting card-check and neutrality. They find it much harder to vilify small businesses the same way. Consequently, franchising makes union organizing more difficult.

The Burger King and Jiffy Lube brands don’t employee the franchisee’s workers. Local small businesses do. Unions would rather the brand do the hiring so they can pressure it into staying silent and forgoing a secret ballot.

[Beagle8U]

We need a National RTW law, no forced dues = no more unions!