a much higher wage than their fellow small
businesses that aren't part of a franchise,
putting those franchisees at a significant
competitive disadvantage.The result could
be closedbusinesses and lost jobs.
It said SEIU's push for a $15 minimum
wage in Seattle is part of a national effort by
the union to break the franchise model and
unionize franchisees' employees. After
intense pressure and lobbying by the SEIU,
the general counsel of the National Labor
Relations Board last month overturned
decades of federal and state legal precedent
by saying that McDonald's Corp. can be
designated as “joint employers with its
franchisees.” This decision, if upheld,
would mean that thousands of small-
business franchisees would lose control of
the businesses they worked so hard to build
and the jobs ofmillions of workers would be
placed at risk.
If franchisees and their franchisors are
considered joint employers, the IFA said,
then the SEIU can more quickly and
effectively unionize their employees and
expand the union's power. The union has
failed at its attempts to recruit workers at
small franchise businesses, but if these
locally-owned businesses were suddenly
considered national corporations, SEIU's
August-September 2014 | BusinessWorld | 91
