90 | BusinessWorld |August-September 2014
An IFA news release said Seattle's new
minimumwage law treats franchisees not as
the small, locally-owned businesses they are,
but as big , out-of-state businesses .
Franchisees with fewer than 500 employees,
including those with even just one
employee, must adopt the higher $15
minimum wage on the same expedited
three-year timetable as big businesses, such
as The Boeing Company, with more than
500 employees, beginning in April 2015.
The new law calls for non-franchised
businesses with fewer than 500 employees
to phase in the $15 minimum wage over
seven years.
The provision, the IFA release said, was
added at the behest of SEIU, according to
statements and emails filed in court as part
of a lawsuit by the IFA.
“It's high time the public knows about the
SEIU's real motives behind its campaign to
increase the minimum wage in Seattle and
around the country,” said IFA President &
CEO Steve Caldeira. “The SEIU's concern
is not for the employees working at
franchise businesses, but the union's real
mission is to force these hard-working
employees to join the SEIU's dwindling
membership ranks in order to get dues
deducted fromtheir paychecks.”
As the new radio ad says, “The last thing a
low-wage worker needs – even ones making
$15 an hour – is a monthly bill for union
dues.”
The IFAfiled its lawsuit in June to challenge
the provisions of the city's new minimum
wage law.Earlier this month, IFA requested
a preliminary injunction to stop the part of
the new law that classifies small franchise
bus inesses as larg e bus inesses .The
preliminary injunction would halt the
practice by enabling small franchise
business owners to pay the same minimum
wage as other small businesses while the
litigation is ongoing.
If the minimum wage law were allowed to
take effect as written, the IFA said, small
franchise businesses would be forced to pay
