Odd Lots · Friday, July 24, 2026
Brian Calachi notes that franchised locations tend to offer lower wages and poorer working conditions compared to company-owned establishments within the same chain. He points to research indicating that the removal of anti-poaching agreements in Washington State led to wage increases, suggesting that franchise structures can suppress worker compensation and rights.
“One is that if you're a wage worker, now there's work from Krueger back in the nineteen nineties. There's David Wile, who's I should have mentioned it before. He's like the economists on this stuff. He wrote a book called The Fishered Workplace, where we do know that if even within the same chain, you want to be get the company owned one, not at the franchised one, because your wages will be higher.”
“Wage profile, meaning you're going to get promoted and your wage is going to go up more over time. And also franchised establishments violate their workers safety and other rights at a much higher rate than ones that are company owned.”
“So we have my work. We have one we were able to take advantage of a really nice natural experiment where Washington State entered a consent decree with McDonald's and a bunch of other chains to get rid of those no poetry agreements I mentioned earlier, and we found I mean, maybe not surprising, but there's a causal effect. Once they got rid of those no potra agreements, wages went up.”