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7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

nytimes.com

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Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#61

Post by claudeganon »

anm89 wrote: post #28
claudeganon wrote: post #16

Prior to World War II, Japan had massive syndicalist groups and labor unions that caused enough disruption to win universal male enfranchisement. Now, they have “black companies” working people to death with near impunity, while online mobs of right-wingers celebrate their behavior. Quite a horrifying trajectory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi

How do you define "universal male enfranchisement“ and how do you prove that claim?

The standard definition? All men over age 25 were provided the legal right to vote. See the link jdale27 provided.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#62

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

tempsy wrote: post #44
harrisonjackson wrote: post #30

This would be fine if he was running a store without the 7-11 name/brand. As a business owner, I do empathize with him. He wants to be his own boss and make his own hours, but he still needs to keep his commitment or he needs to dissolve it the right way. As a customer - this would be piss me off so much. There is a 24 hour fitness that I used to go to that closed at 10 pm. HOW IS THAT OKAY?? (this was years ago and…

Uh 7-11’s name came from the fact it was open from 7am to 11pm originally, so being open 24 hr/day is not an inherent promise of the brand.

It's just a name. It does not have to perfectly 1-to-1 reflect all the current agreements and contracts they hold up in the franchise relationship. The name of the franchise is not the text of the contract. How are we even discussing this?

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#63

Post by wronglebowski »

p1necone wrote: post #6
geofft wrote: post #3

> He said that 7-Eleven had offered to pay for his remaining inventory — owners are responsible for buying their own products from the company at wholesale prices This feels like an American MLM scam, just tuned to be actually profitable for the "owner" under normal conditions and therefore sustainable. (Is this normal for legitimate American etc. franchises too, or is this specific to Japan's setup?)

Not really the same thing, but I used to work for a small food business that sold bottled/canned drinks from a fridge via a contract with Frucor (New Zealand), and the prices they charged wholesale to this small business were often higher than what you could buy the drinks for retail at nearby supermarkets.

This is what happens when the franchisee's are in what I will refer to as a "predatory" relationship. I've been involved with several Quick Service(Fast Food) Franchisee's in the USA and there's predatory relationships and then there's those where the franchisee's have some type of union or owners organization.

In McDonald's the Franchisee's have several different organizations they can join to represent themselves and bring grievances to to corporation. Cost of product is almost always a focus and you'd never be in a situation where you could buy product for cheaper anywhere else due to their scale. It's all about who has the leverage in the situation. I will say that reading that 7-11 offered to buy back all product is a very gracious move on their part. They had no incentive to help him out of the situation he no longer wanted to be in.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#64

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

michaelt wrote: post #58
austhrow743 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The entire point was that as a small franchise owner he has to work 24/7 on the clock every day of the week That's not the entire point of being a small franchise owner at all. He is allowed to have and has employees. He is supposed to run a schedule of them to keep the business staffed around the clock. That doesn't mean he has to personally be there for every single hour that it's open! How absurd. >off-loading al…

> He is allowed to have and has employees. An article that was posted to HN last year [1] profiled several convenience store franchise holders who, it sounded like, weren't making enough money to afford employees. After all, if your country has 1.5 jobs per job seeker, raising wages; and you're only making $20 an hour of sales on the overnight shift, you're going to be losing money on that shift. Of course, you might…

> the decision to close down might not be an easy one.

So what, we should adjust the laws, break the contracts and make everyone else jump hoops around him and give him special treatment because he has to make a difficult decision? This is not kindergarten, this is business.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#65

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

fzeroracer wrote: post #45
philtar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like you don't know seven eleven is supposed to be open 24/7/365. That's their whole shtick. If the owner didn't like it he could have opened a normal grocery store. No one forced him to go to 7-11.

And you sound like you didn't read the article, like the other poster I was responding to. The issue isn't necessarily that they're open 24/7. It's that they offload all of the risk and management of that onto their franchises. If a local 7-Eleven has trouble hiring people to work late night shifts, then the expectation is that the owner is supposed to work it 24/7. You MUST be open 24/7 every single day of the year…

> It's that they offload all of the risk and management of that onto their franchises. If a local 7-Eleven has trouble hiring people to work late night shifts, then the expectation is that the owner is supposed to work it 24/7. You MUST be open 24/7 every single day of the year and as the article demonstrates, shutting down for even a day means losing everything.

Yes, that's how franchises work, if they have a requirement in the franchise agreement, you have to keep it. If you don't like it, don't buy the franchise.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#66

Post by taurath »

peteretep wrote: post #35
taurath wrote: post #11

The other side of a culture of extreme duty is a culture of extreme shame. Its not the way for humans to live. We haven't yet seen the end of its self propagation.

Tying this to Japan when 7-11 runs a virtually identical model in Thailand seems weird.

Thailand is a relatively poor country where labor is super easy to find.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#67

Post by thebusby »

Markoff wrote: post #59

I don't get it, if he doesn't like 7-eleven franchise conditions, why he just doesn't open regular non-franchise convenience store? it's not like they have monopoly, article claims they have 40% of market, so he would join majority of other convenience store owners

Because 7/11 handles all the products and logistics to deliver items multiple times daily. Where would he get things to sell, and how would they get to his store?

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#68

Post by geofft »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #50
achompas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at no point did OP claim it was a scam? They even ask if this is normal for American franchises, instead of accusing 7-11 of predatory behavior.

> This feels like an American MLM scam OP pretty directly implied it.

Is one no longer allowed to say "I wonder why thing A has properties that resemble thing B" without pretty directly implying "Thing A is exactly thing B"?

My hope was to have a conversation about whether the franchise model is bad in ways that have overtones of scams, or whether MLMs are only scams by virtue of the MLM bit and not because of any of the other behavior that is often called scammy, or any such thing, but apparently that was too much to ask.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#69

Post by openfuture »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #43
forgingahead wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it helps one of the narratives they've been pushing for at least a decade: "business all bad, people being exploited, we are their/your champions", never mind any actual truth.

There is so much exploitation going on that surely they can find something that's actual exploitation.

If they did then they'd be ruffling feathers on some alpha predator they'd rather not piss off.

Re: 7-Eleven Struck Back Against an Owner Who Took a Day Off

#70

Post by austhrow743 »

thebusby wrote: post #67
Markoff wrote: post #59

I don't get it, if he doesn't like 7-eleven franchise conditions, why he just doesn't open regular non-franchise convenience store? it's not like they have monopoly, article claims they have 40% of market, so he would join majority of other convenience store owners

Because 7/11 handles all the products and logistics to deliver items multiple times daily. Where would he get things to sell, and how would they get to his store?

Wholesalers. The same way the other 60% of stores get things delivered.
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