The success of the franchising format of small business ownership has led to a significant imbalance in the relative bargaining power of franchisors and franchisees.
The goal was to stabilize industrial relations by forcing concentration of bargaining power and responsibility in the formal union leadership, using the courts.
The bargaining power of the typical blue-collar worker eroded as technology and globalisation handed bosses a whole toolkit of ways to squeeze labour costs.
The advantages of corporate bigness have long been understood -- size gives a company resources, bargaining power with suppliers, influence with politicians, relationships with millions of customers.
Inequality of bargaining power is not in itself a ground for nullifying exemption clauses; nor does the principle of good faith operate as an independent criterion.
