Well, here in Olympia we have a really ruthless family owned Pizza parlor. One of the employee forgot to turn a heater off. So as punishment the owner decreed that from now until forever the kitchen would remain unheated. (Even with the ovens on, the kitchen gets down to 45. and you can't wear anything but thin gloves to cook with.) So some of the local community is boycotting, not enough to pressure the owner to change so far. At any rate an example of how small business can not only be ruthlessly exploitive, but irrationally ruthlessly exploitive. Never understood the love for small business. Because this is area is a mixture of rural and suburban, we still have a lot of small family owned sweatshops. We have a local felting shop with 25 employees that makes custom fabrics for Broadway and Las Vegas shows, and decor for cruise lines and that sort of thing. Employees don't have health care, have to (illegally) wait months for their money, develop all sorst of muscle and repetive stress injuries from the work. And the Pizza joint is not the only local eatery that treats their workers like shit, just one that became famous for it.
I do know some small business owners who treat their employees as well as structural conditions allow. But they are a lot more harried and stressed out than the owners who treat their workers like shit, and I bet would be happier in a socialist society.