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The War Inside 7-Eleven

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41–50 of 122 posts

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#41
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but this kind of display is emblematic of a fascist government Enforcing immigration law passed by a democratically elected congress is fascist? Really?

No, a corporation using a federal law enforcement agency to target owners who were disfavored by the corporation is typical of fascism. I'm not even interested in this fake debate that was stirred up about immigration. Of course we have to have enforced borders. Of course we need immigration laws that will be enforced. What concerns me is the collaboration between corporations and state power, all taking place in an…

Would you see it the same way if it were related to taxes? As in, if 7-11 found out certain franchisee's were skirting tax laws using their brand name and they reported it to the IRS to avoid any collusion claims ahead of time would that be fascist? If not then how is that different?

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#42
post #21
post #3

While there seems like a desire to blame 7-Eleven here, they are completely right to not want to have their franchisees violating federal immigration laws. While they are insulated by the contractor-contractee relationship, the government is humourless about these sorts of things. The violations are easy to prove (either you have proper employment documentation or you don’t) and enforcement is politically popular. Th…

While I agree with you, I also feel that 7-Eleven Corporate has taken the wrong approach to this. They've made it "me vs you" rather than "us vs the problem". They're pushing the franchisees in aggressive ways to extract more money out of them to start and then hiring a police force to spy on them. Now it sounds like they're sending out ICE against anyone who criticizes them, even those not breaking the law. That's n…

> Now it sounds like they're sending out ICE against anyone who criticizes them, even those not breaking the law.

I guess the article's author were successful in fooling readers. Nowhere in the article does it say that happened ever. Only that rumors about that became widespread (now even more with this article).

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#43
post #36

Are these claims below true? I was under the impression that a in a franchisor - franchisee relationship, the franchisee owns the business, and they are paying the franchisor to use the brand according to whatever standards are agreed upon. But I've never heard of a franchisor being able to "take over" a business, or do payroll for a franchisee. I've only ever heard of a a franchisee having to stop using the franchis…

Yes. My parents and brother own 7-Eleven stores. 7-Eleven almost always owns or leases the land and builds the store. They also own all the equipment. It is their store that they give you right to run. Every few years franchises are given a new contract that they must either sign or lose their store(s). The new contracts are always worse for the franchisee.

Wow, then it just sounds like an elaborate way for corporate to avoid paying for overtime or being liable for unemployment premiums and other employee liabilities, and having plausible deniability that 7-Eleven employs people without work authorization.

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#44
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which generation? This is being planned and executed by the same people that conducted (and failed) the war on drugs.

Why do you think it failed? I imagine failure of the war on drugs would be a revolution. That didn't happen, so the war on drugs didn't fail. War on drugs was never about drugs.

Good point. The War on Drugs stated goal of getting rid of an arbitrary subset of drugs and their users failed. The real goal, oppression and mass-incarceration of dark skinned and poor people, was a pretty resounding success.

They’ve at least dropped the pretext with the War on Immigrants. The stated goal is the real goal: oppression, deportation and mass-incarceration of (primarily dark skinned and poor) foreigners and immigrants.

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is at generationally low levels, I don’t see how you could blame it for lack of wage increases. What about the stagnant minimum wage, record corporate profits or union busting; might they play a role? “American society” and “our values” are by-products of immigration, how would more immigrants ruin that?

> What about the stagnant minimum wage, record corporate profits or union busting might they play a role? I don't discount that these are major contributors to the problem. Adding additional labor supply, supply willing to work for almost nothing, does not help the problem.

Growing the pie has always helped everyone in America. Is there something that has fundamentally changed in your view to alter this trend? Are there Americans out there who want to do these types of jobs?

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#46

"The company’s 2017 disclosure documents give the example of a store in Chicago with $1 million in annual sales. After all the fees and costs and taking into account that the company’s share of the take rises as revenue increases, the franchise owner took home $37,000 before taxes. “7-Eleven always sold its franchises as a gold mine,” says Hashim Syed, a former 7-Eleven franchisee and ex-president of the Chicago fran…

$37k to the owner on $1M in revenue would be a profit margin of 3.7%. This looks higher than the average profit of ~2%. The $1M sales figure doesn't include the cost of what they're selling, their rent, or wages for their workers.

[1] https://retailowner.com/Benchmarks/Food-and-Beverage-Stores/...

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed franchised businesses weren't owned by the brand that was franchising. Sounds like a terrible deal for the franchisee if all they're doing is renting a license to operate a business and not gaining any equity. I thought the whole point was so that the could work and gain a bit of equity in their business while using the marketing and quality assurance of the brand they franchise.

Depends on the business. CFA handles a lot of the upstart and operating costs such as land, building, equipment, technology, branding, liability, etc for it's operators. As such, they take a large chunk of the profits and maintain strict rules for brand integrity.

Then I'm confused as to what the franchisee is getting out of the situation. It sounds like being a mid level manager, without any benefits that a normal employee would get, that is liable if things go wrong, but almost never shares in upside since royalties can just go up if the business does well.

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#48
post #24
post #6

I know there are folks on here who will roll their eyes, but this kind of display is emblematic of a fascist government. Fascism is the bonding of state and corporate power, driven by nationalism, authoritarianism, and a (usually) charismatic leader. For the record, I'm not a radical. I'm not even particularly partisan. I'm an average, middle-class American. But I've read enough history to know which way the wind is…

> Fascism is the bonding of state and corporate power ... only if you define "corporation" the way Fascists did: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm > In the last half of the 19th century people of the working class in Europe were beginning to show interest in the ideas of socialism and syndicalism. Some members of the intelligentsia, particularly the Catholic intelligentsia, decided to formulate an a…

It's fascinating that "fascism" today means nothing like what it did originally, even though the definition hasn't changed -- the definition of the words in the definition changed!

"Fascism" is a bad word simply because Mussolini came to power when Fascism was popular in Italy, and Nazism became "Fascist" because Hitler allied with Mussolini.

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#49
post #24
post #6

I know there are folks on here who will roll their eyes, but this kind of display is emblematic of a fascist government. Fascism is the bonding of state and corporate power, driven by nationalism, authoritarianism, and a (usually) charismatic leader. For the record, I'm not a radical. I'm not even particularly partisan. I'm an average, middle-class American. But I've read enough history to know which way the wind is…

> Fascism is the bonding of state and corporate power ... only if you define "corporation" the way Fascists did: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/corporatism.htm > In the last half of the 19th century people of the working class in Europe were beginning to show interest in the ideas of socialism and syndicalism. Some members of the intelligentsia, particularly the Catholic intelligentsia, decided to formulate an a…

While what you describe happened in Italy, at least in the Mussolini's early years in power, that is decidedly not what happened in fascist Germany, where business powers closely cooperated/collaborated with state powers. We can call it those business powers "industrialism" if the word "corporate" is bothering you.

Re: The War Inside 7-Eleven

#50

"The company’s 2017 disclosure documents give the example of a store in Chicago with $1 million in annual sales. After all the fees and costs and taking into account that the company’s share of the take rises as revenue increases, the franchise owner took home $37,000 before taxes. “7-Eleven always sold its franchises as a gold mine,” says Hashim Syed, a former 7-Eleven franchisee and ex-president of the Chicago fran…

It does not until you know the operating margins. Why did not they name company's share of profits explicitly?
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