The biggest challenge facing small business owners in New Hampshire is finding enough workers willing to fill positions. Go downtown Nashua right now and you will see stores and restaurants with “Closed Due to Staffing Shortage” signs right next to “Help Wanted” signs in their front windows. Never before has the situation in our town, state and country been so challenging for small businesses.

As someone who owns and operates 32 franchise locations, I know the pressures these business owners face. We employ roughly 500 hardworking people, and we could not operate effectively without them. When you factor in rising costs due to inflation and the persistent supply chain crisis, you begin to wonder how some small businesses have managed to survive at all these past two years at all.

We need our leaders in Washington to help our economy and make it easier to business in the Granite State and across our nation. Too often, politicians in Washington act blindly on their ideological beliefs or to curry favor with special interests instead of looking at reality, and listening to the voices of the voters back home.

This is sadly the case in personnel too like the anti-franchise nominee to the U.S. Department of Labor Department, Dr. David Weil, who would have the power to unilaterally regulate labor and industry – and in bad policy proposals like the PRO Act and the hidden business fines placed into Build Back Better.

The PRO act would ruin the franchise model which has lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and enabled underprivileged and minority populations a chance to work hard and live out the American dream. This would all be crushed by the PRO Act which would recategorize all locally owned and operated franchise employees as part of one big corporation. That is simply not true, and it is not good for employers, employees, or our local communities. And it’s not just franchisees, many who work in tech and as independent contractors are also threatened by the PRO Act.

What’s worse is that some in D.C. are trying to take all of the financial provisions in the PRO Act and use them to pay for Build Back Better or other unrelated legislation so that they can pass it along partisan lines with just 50 votes. Currently there are provisions in the bill which would give the National Labor Relations Board new powers to impose civil penalties of up to $100,000 on employers if they are deemed to have committed unfair labor practices. The proposal is vague, and an unfair labor practice could be as innocent as mistakenly hanging union election posters in the wrong location in a workplace. This is exactly why people get frustrated with Washington and our leaders.

None of these proposals would help business – and no one in New Hampshire are asking for these provisions. We are asking our leaders from both sides of the political aisle to work together to find solutions to the real challenges that exist in our labor market and economy. That does not include giveaways to special interests or union bosses, but it does include a fair and sensible immigration policy that would allow hard working people from around the world to help fill the jobs so desperately needed on our Main Streets and across our country.

John Motta is the chairman of the Coalition of Franchisee Associations. He resides in Nashua.

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