BTW, I'm too over-committed on local political crap to have time to read up on this strike, but I'm guessing that the strike is intended to make the franchisees miserable in addition to getting lots of media attention because it makes people on the left feel good to see a fast food chain get crushed (they hope). (Side note on the dumb ass David Packman below).
If you can get franchisees pissed off, many of whom are very powerful because they wield so much purchasing power (not only do they pay fees, but they help 'corporate' make a profit the supplies they sell to the franchises). If the franchisees say, "Look, assholes, we can't take the hit or we're out of business," especially the big ones who are in it as *an investment* and will just as soon turn around pull their money out and invest in something else, they'll use that to threaten corporate.
I have no idea if the strikers also want a boycott, but my guess would be that this is one of the few times that a boycott - and a very visible one at that - would work in conjunction with a labor strike.
But hopefully someone in the know from SEIU or something will correct my assumptions here.
Meanwhile, that dumb ass David Packman.. I was bored with the morning news, so I looked at that dork at 5 a.m. Oiy. He's babbling on about the strike and about how he doesn't understand why people eat the icky food at a fast food chain. Why don't they go to a food cart vendor, or a food truck, or an independent restaurant nearby.
Uhhhhh? Right. Because the people running those outfits pay their employees top dollar and benefits, right? Nevermind that the food trucks in NYC are increasingly run by chains themselves - Stouffers, for instance - or are simply the 'start up' of some top chef who wants his food truck to *become* a franchise.
I was on vacation recently. Asked people if they could recommend a great local eatery that wasn't a franchise. They'd name franchises. Apparently, people don't even know what a franchise is anymore. Which isn't surprising since the model for a restaurant is rationalized to the point that you have to use all the same methods to be successful.
Plus, one of the other things that's going on is the rise of the franchise that looks like it's local. The chains started this schtick twenty years ago. I forget the name of the one chain that pioneered the technique. They hire decorators whose sole job is to haunt local second hand and antique shops for memorabilia that is local to the area. Hang it on the wall. Voila: local.
IIUC, the argument is that the reason why the profit margins are slim at the franchise level is that they pay a shitload in franchise fees. These franchise operations are in business to filter the money up. That's why, as I wrote years ago, you get theft - with managers part of the theft system - at the store level in a fast food restaurant. For small franchise units - single owner/one store (as opposed to franchise operations that own several) -- one of the enemies is, actually, "corporate."
I recently worked at a franchise operation, in their headquarters. A franchise operations actually treats their franchisees like their customers. They sell a business ownership dream to these people, some more savvy than others, and their goal is to serve _them_. All the money went into making franchise operators happy. They'd been sold something, so you had to make it right. In my case, it was the software to run the business - perform the service that they sold to customers. I was working on the software that consumers used: I might as well have been working in a cost center as they say in the business.
At any rate, the point about the fast food strike is that the target is the profits made when "corporate" sells the franchises everything they need to do business. Depending on the model, you buy everything from corporate: the food, the uniforms, the decor, the signs, equipment, software, cash registers, and you sign on for their marketing. When you run a campaign with whirlygigs you have to hand out, they charge you for that shit too. Of course, depends on the franchise operation as to the degree to which they force franchise operators to do this.
but you see the scheme is about extracting profits in these middle layers. Imagine the efficiencies involved if you actually got rid of that middle layer where you sell, at a profit, BK special sauce, burger patties, and bags of lettuce to franchisees who then turn around and try to sell, at a profit, the burger made of those ingredients.
OTOH, the current model sets up antagonism between franchise owners and "corporate." Corporate is seen as a kind of enemy for the small owners who have one or two stores. Almost in the way that middle management might snark about the C level executives: they're on the same side, sort of, but then again, they are also their bosses and often make them do stuff they don't want to do.
Same with the franchisees who see corporate as all about making a profit while trying to screw over the customers - the customers, in this case, are the franchise operators. Every month, when it comes time to write the check to "corporate" to pay your franchise fee, the savvy individual owner grumbles. Within the franchise system, you'll then have operators who occupy status levels based on how many stores they own. These guys can be really demanding with "corporate."