The drumbeat of union representation elections continued loud and clear over the past few weeks, notably within the Starbucks chain and within Amazon warehouses. Speaking to Starbucks’ ongoing unionizing issues, the Starbucks Workers United (SBU) caught a big fish last week when the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in New York City officially voted to unionize by…
Read More »Change can certainly happen quickly and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is a prime example. Under President Biden, who famously promised unions during the campaign that he’d be the best friend organized labor ever had in the Oval Office, there seems a significant push to broaden union organizing efforts and punish businesses that seek…
Read More »Tempering some of the pleasure of Amazon workers at a plant in Alabama overwhelmingly rejecting unionizing is the ongoing effort to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (the PRO Act as it is known). With workers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer voting over the course of the seven-week representation election against…
Read More »Speaking of government imposing bans on certain activities, we took note of a new possibility in the wake of Amazon shelving its plan to open part of its HQ2 in New York City. A number of states are looking at creating a compact that would prohibit those governments agreeing to the compact from offering financial…
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The flourishing realm of voice activation isn’t quite up to these last tasks – yet. But for Dunkin’ Brands, voice-activated ordering is a clarion call towards sales growth and forward-thinking. Nearly one in four 16 to 24 year-olds use voice search on their mobile devices, according to the Global Web Index. And by 2020, half…
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Congress is getting ready to welcome scores of new members from both parties in the wake of the recent midterm elections. But while some of the faces and names will change, lawmakers in Washington are expected to take up the debate anew on some core issues for Dunkin’ and other franchise owners across the land.…
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“Alexa, open Dunkin.” “Alexa, order me a pumpkin spiced iced coffee.” “Alexa, drink my coffee for me and bring me my slippers and newspaper.” The flourishing realm of voice activation isn’t quite up to these last tasks – yet. But for Dunkin’ Brands, voice-activated ordering is a clarion call towards sales growth and forward-thinking. Nearly…
Read More »The city of Seattle responded to the stoppage of business expansion by corporate giant Amazon.com by voting to repeal the $275 per employee “head tax” the municipality had just adopted only a few weeks ago (on May 14). Amazon had stopped construction of a new building just 2 weeks before the council voted the tax…
Read More »As courts strike down more of the Obama administration’s revised regulations, one of them that may most directly impact franchising served as the basis for another class action suit this week as more employees with a grievance try to get the “deep pockets” into court for liability. This case was brought in Cook County, Illinois…
Read More »Starbucks will be hiking their beverage prices by as much as $ .30 beginning next week, almost exactly one year since the company last raised its prices in July, 2015. This time around, the increase actually came to light because of a computer glitch in that the new prices were added to the POS system…
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