How to make franchising fair for commerce workers

The aim of the two-year project “STAFF – Supportive tools for ambitious fair franchising” is to contribute to empower trade union officials and workers representatives to be able to anticipate, react and respond to challenges due to the growing trend of franchising in the commerce sector.

The project will establish basic principles and a common understanding and awareness of what ambitious fair franchising should look like, present solutions to the threat deteriorating working conditions and reduce the possible negative impact on workers of franchising.

UNI Europa, the European Services Workers Union, will coordinate the project and will count on the direct involvement of six key national affiliates: AVC Puls (Belgium), CFDT Services (France), KASZ (Hungary), Fisascat (Italy), FNV (Netherlands) and Solidarnosc (Poland).

As described in a call for tender just published, the project will benefit from the input of experts.

The first step of the project is conducting a research to identify underlying risks for workers and examples of good practices related to franchising in the commerce sector across Europe. The research will be completed by guidelines for trade unions on how to best deal with franchising.

The research and the guidelines will be the bases for two sectoral workshops addressed to UNI Europa commerce affiliates, who will use this opportunity to share experiences and good practices.

The outcomes of the workshops will feed the drafting of policy recommendation presenting UNI Europa commerce position and proposals on franchising. The project activities will be completed by a final conference.