Weil Approved by Senate HELP Committee on Party-Line Vote 

WASHINGTON, January 13– The International Franchise Association (IFA) today released the following statement opposing the renomination of Dr. David Weil to serve as Administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Weil was voted out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee today by a vote of 11-10. His nomination now heads to the full Senate for consideration. 

“There are few people as harmful to the franchising model as David Weil,” said Michael Layman, IFA Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs. “Dr. Weil has a long track record of implementing policies damaging to businesses and especially workers, and an unquestionable bias against the franchise industry. IFA has successfully fought once before to stop his nomination and urges the Senate to reject him before he has the ability to put the 7.6 million franchise workers in jeopardy.” 

IFA, along with 13 other organizations representing millions of workers, sent a letter on January 5th to HELP Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA) and Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-NC), opposing Weil’s nomination, saying, “Based on his previous service at DOL, and his track record of bias against the regulated community, particularly the smallest employers in America, we remain concerned that Dr. Weil would again implement policies at DOL that are unbalanced and would harm workers and small businesses, in particular women and minority-owned businesses that employ millions of Americans.”  

Contradictory to Weil’s comments about franchises, a recent IFA-Oxford Economics report illustrates how franchises: 

  • Report sales 1.8 times as large as comparable non-franchise establishments, on average. Black-owned franchises earn 2.2 times as much in sales compared to Black-owned independent businesses, on average. 

  • Provide 2.3 times as many jobs than their non-franchise counterparts, on average. 

  • Pass their success on to employees in the form of higher wages and benefits and greater opportunity for advancement. 

  • Pay 2.2 – 3.4 percent higher wages than similar non-franchises. 

About the International Franchise Association 

Celebrating 60 years of excellence, education, and advocacy, the International Franchise Association is the world’s oldest and largest organization representing franchising worldwide. IFA works through its government relations and public policy, media relations, and educational programs to protect, enhance and promote franchising and the more than 733,000 franchise establishments that support nearly 7.6 million direct jobs, $674.3 billion of economic output for the U.S. economy, and 2.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). IFA members include franchise companies in over 300 different business format categories, individual franchisees, and companies that support the industry in marketing, law, technology, and business development. 

Contact

Press Contact

Name:

Katherine Knight Patterson

Email:

kpatterson@franchise.org

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