On Thursday, July 15, senators in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) addressed the nomination of Dr. David Weil to be the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) at the Department of Labor, along with Gwynne Wilcox and David Pouty to be a Members of the National Labor Relations Board. The joint employer rule and franchise arrangements, as well as worker classification and independent contractors were addressed by Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).
As the summer heat sets in and people race for vacation destinations, many will need to find a daycare center for their pets, making pet daycare franchises a hot investment.
During the pandemic, we saw a spike in pet ownership as people combatted loneliness in quarantine with a new companion, making pet training franchises primed for a surge.
With the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) running its course at the end of May, it is important to be aware of grants and programs that may help small franchise business owners during our continued recovery from the pandemic. A helpful starting point is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s list of supported small business grants and programs. The thirty-three listings cover general, identity-dependent, and industry-specific opportunities that are important to review your applicability for.
On July 9, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. The order affirmed the Administration’s aggressive approach in enforcing the nation’s antitrust laws and in reducing the harmful impacts of monopolies within certain industries, namely the Internet platform, healthcare, repair and agricultural industries.
Indoor entertainment franchises are a cool investment to beat the summer heat in 2022, and the rise in these family friendly activity locations looks poised to hit new heights.
As people leave the sedentary quarantine lifestyle behind and become more active, many will look to massage therapy to relieve aching muscles unaccustomed to hard exercise, making massage franchises a top franchise investment in 2022.
The franchise industry is facing its greatest challenges in its history, challenges that strike at the heart of a successful business model that has allowed trademark owner franchisors and trademark licensee franchisees entrepreneurial opportunities to build wealth. The vibrancy of the franchise industry is well-documented: nearly 800,000 franchised businesses employ 7.5 million workers; people of color, women, and veterans comprise more than 30% of franchisees, and franchised businesses generate revenues of approximately $670 billion. In short, franchising is a vibrant, progressive and very successful industry.
While franchisors and franchisees alike have enjoyed the clear disclosure requirements of the Franchise Rule for over 30 years, some advocates have urged that franchisors also disclose the financial statistics of their franchisees in the form of a Financial Performance Representation (“FPR”). Historically, disclosure of an FPR under “Item 19” of the FDD, has been a voluntary decision for franchise brands. Yet, in April 2021, Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto sought to change that by introducing a bill called the “Small Business Administration (SBA) Franchise Loan Transparency Act (S. 1120), to require franchisors to provide: 1) The average and median first-year revenue for all franchise locations for each of the preceding three years; and 2) The average and median revenues for all locations of the franchise for each of the preceding three years of operation.
IFA’s Mike Layman talks about the implication of having franchise critic David Weil serving as the head of the Wage and hour Division at the Department of Labor.