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Support Franchising
The franchise world has been up at arms recently with the joint employer rulings that have potentially destroyed the fabric of what makes the franchise community what it is and the business community successful. What is amazing to see is that the government and legal institutions don’t seem to even come close to understanding the ramifications of this joint employer idea. What would happen if every business owner in America was ruled as being part of one big system and all employees were governed as being employed by the same company. I get it, the federal government wants to control everything and doesn’t benefit from entrepreneurship in their eyes as much as everyone being a W-2 employee.
This is where you must realize the short-sightedness of the people in charge of our politics. People who in most cases have not run businesses, have not had to balance financials and definitely have not had that weeknight running through numbers over and over to try to figure out how to make payroll the next day. It seems so simple on one hand, let capitalism happen, let people build businesses. There is a reason that people come to the United States still from around the world to do business, it is not because they enjoy employment regulations and want to operate a business in a tax-heavy regulatory environment.
Today, more than ever, we need job creation, job growth, a business friendly environment that will support innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. I think that is easy for our Federal Government to say that they did something nice and business friendly by supporting the Fortune 500 in getting more of what they want. Trust me, a $15 minimum wage increase does not impact GE like it does the small business owner who 15 employees operating a café in Central California. In fact, you could argue that the Fortune 500 businesses are probably behind much of the anti-business regulations that we have seen recently. If the small players are removed from the competitive landscape due to rules that only larger organizations can sustain.
Take for example our most recent change to the healthcare system. Look at what is happening to the small practitioner who used to have a successful small medical business and now can’t survive with the way that insurance companies are paying and the restrictive compliance involved in Obamacare. More and more medical providers are finding that the only way they can stay in business is by taking a job with a large healthcare organization. Again, the trend is to push the small business owner into the larger organization.
Why is this trend scary? Look at economies like the majority of the Western European countries, or Canada for example. The small business owner is at a drastic disadvantage, creative growth is stifled, new business ideas come at an anemic pace. For obvious reason, the government thinks the best route to increased revenue from their standpoint is for everyone to be W-2 employees. In reality, what isn’t being considered is that without job growth and small business, the number of new jobs created will diminish, new businesses opened will slow and the overall competitiveness of the U.S. economy will steadily decrease.
It’s time to support franchising, support small business and help people make good small business decisions. The world is driven by small business and the franchise market is part of the vehicle that drives entrepreneurial thinking and supports people taking ownership of their future as opposed to waiting for someone to pay them
Christopher Conner
President
Franchise Marketing Systems
