Biden vetoed a rare bipartisan pro-business measure

Washington politicians too often talk about things they know nothing about. Take President Joe Biden and the economy. said all the right things During the recent National Small Business Week, State correctly Biden stressed that small businesses “embodied the American spirit and boundless potential.” But he didn’t just pay lip service to them. When those businesses needed him most, he let them down. His veto The bill has broad bipartisan support.

Not surprisingly, 34 percent of Americans have a favorable view of “Bidenomics.”

Biden has been in public office for 50 years, but my story is different. Long before I was in public office, I Pig farm I started the company in 1996 to buy our first McDonald’s restaurant. From that point on, I started signing on both sides of the payroll. Over the next decade, I grew the business to 24 franchise locations and employed thousands of people in the Tulsa area.

This process is known as the franchise model. Aspiring entrepreneurs like me (the franchisee) may not have the experience or capital to start a business from scratch, but instead can buy into an established brand like McDonald’s (the franchisor). For a fee, the franchisee gets to benefit from the trademark, license, and everything that comes with it.

Franchises are small businesses. In fact, over 80% of franchise owners operate only one store.

But a franchisee’s success isn’t guaranteed. Not at all. Franchisor and franchisee may share a name and logo, but they are separate entities. The system is designed so that each unit makes its own day-to-day decisions about staffing, schedules, growth, and how to run the business.

If Biden has his way, the independence of the relationship that makes the franchise model special would disappear overnight, as Biden’s political appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Extended version Short for “Joint Employer.” As the name suggests, joint employers turn franchisees into subordinates to the franchisor. Employees at each location report to a corporate boss in a faraway city, rather than a local face. Local entrepreneurs who took the gamble by investing in the franchise (some putting their entire fortunes into it) are reduced to middle management, reporting to the corporate body.

The motivation for Biden and other joint employer advocates is simple: it eases the path to unionization and expands liability risk to attractive targets. Biden has boasted that he is the “most pro-union president in history.” Joint employer is the total capitulation to the union bosses he needs in November. When the rule first went into effect last October, the AFL-CIO called it a “It’s an important win.”

Thankfully, both houses of Congress Voted to repeal It was a powerful bipartisan move to create joint employers. Biden could have triumphantly signed the bill, but he shamefully vetoed it and failed to mention the impact on small businesses in the process, an insult to the franchise industry and the more than 800,000 small businesses that operate as franchises.

Joint employers have been proven to stifle economic growth, an area Biden is desperate to win in. When the same rules were in place under the Obama administration, 376,000 jobs lost.

My story would be very different without franchising. I’m not alone. The franchise model There are currently over 8 million jobs in the United States..

Like anything else, the franchise model isn’t perfect. Recent policy proposals These guidelines, put forward by the International Franchise Association, the official industry group for franchising, are meant to bring common sense improvements to pre-sale negotiations between franchisors and prospective franchisees and help franchisees understand exactly what they are investing in.

A strong relationship between the two is crucial to our future success. It is incumbent on all parties to protect it, and we must do it right.

Franchises are what make America special. They give people from all walks of life, even people like me who grew up in poverty, a chance to succeed and experience the American Dream.

“A franchise doesn’t work with joint employers. Joe Biden may not understand this, but hundreds of thousands of franchisees across the country certainly do. Having battled soaring inflation and economic uncertainty over the last few years, they are watching the situation closely and will never forget it.”

Kevin Hearn is rRepresentative for Oklahoma’s 1st District since 2018. Chairman of the Republican Study Committee and co-chair of the Franchise Caucus.