We are loathe to continually write about unionizing within the QSR industry, but it’s imperative that franchisees are aware and well-informed of this growing threat. As you know, Starbucks has replaced McDonald’s as the poster child for unionizing individual fast food stores and it is now looking at union representation elections in as many as…
Read More »National Labor Relations Board NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo this week launched a new initiative targeting employers that work against union organizing efforts. In a new memorandum, released on Tuesday of this week, Abruzzo instructs regional offices of the NLRB to quickly pursue injunctions against employers opposing union organizing campaigns “where the facts demonstrate that…
Read More »Regrettably, it seems the broad subject of unionization and what organized labor is doing is becoming a regular feature in Small Regular No Sugar! of late. This week, two more Starbucks stores in the Boston area (now totaling 4 in Boston market) as well as a store in Tallahassee Florida filed for union representation elections…
Read More »We may collectively be looking past the current unionizing troubles befalling Starbucks, but franchisees who do, do so at their own peril! Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certified union representation for the second Starbucks store in the Buffalo market. The union effort that ended on December 8 was originally reported to have…
Read More »A handful of Republican Senators answered our prayers last week in urging the White House to withdraw the nomination of David Weil for the position of Administrator of the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. A staunch opponent of the franchise business model and all things franchising, Wei, an academician and anti-business author, was…
Read More »Newly unionized Starbucks workers in the company’s Elmwood New York store wasted n time in flexing their new union muscles, walking off the job this week and forcing the company to close that store for the day. The six scheduled employees who walked out then formed a picket line outside the store. The Elmwood store…
Read More »With a handful of QSR chains – Starbucks in Buffalo New York included – now being unionized, and against the backdrop of the very pro-union Biden administration, it behooves us to keep a watchful eye on unionizing issues in general. Toward that end, the NLRB last week announced a settlement with Amazon in the wake…
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At one time, omicron was known by most people as a Greek letter. The word literally means “little O.” But today, the word has followed the virus it is named for as a phenomenon that swept the planet. In many ways, governments and business have responded the way they did nearly two years ago, when…
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Increased Worker Stress Creates ‘Fertile Ground’ for Union Organizing The Unions are Coming! The Unions are Coming! Many franchise owners are hearing this Paul Revere-type refrain in their heads after learning that workers at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, N.Y. voted to form a union—making it the first of more than 8,000 corporate Starbucks locations…
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It’s been a long journey since the coronavirus pandemic reached our shores back in early 2020. Over the course of those first few months, governments ordered non-essential businesses shut, indoor dining was banned and people who left their homes were told to wear masks (even for a solitary jog). Houses of worship were ordered…
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