Supporting Small Businesses

In July we announced the drafting of two new pieces of legislation to support small businesses. Our City and our communities thrive when our small businesses and workers thrive. The Workers Opportunity to Purchase Act and the creation of Small Business Tenant Unions will empower our workers, stabilize our commercial corridors and protect our small businesses, helping to create more vibrant and successful neighborhoods and a more stable workforce.

This legislative package supports small business and their workers in two ways – by allowing small businesses to collectively negotiate with property owners and managers through Small Business Tenant Unions and empowering workers to form worker cooperatives (co-ops) to purchase the businesses they work at through the Workers’ Opportunity to Purchase Act. Below are specifics for each piece of legislation.

Small Business Tenant Unions

Modeled after the successful Union at Home legislation and Japantown merchant organizing, the legislation will:

Empower small commercial tenants to unionize in order to collectively bargain with commercial property owners and management.

Require property owners to recognize small business owner unions where members share the same property owners, especially in the negotiation of leases and cost increases.

Bolster small business owners’ ability to level the field and prevent displacement when they can collectively negotiate

Allow public resources, such as legal services to be leveraged to support small businesses more effectively.

Workers’ Opportunity to Purchase Act

Modeled after the landmark Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), the legislation will:

Incentivize owners to consider a succession plan and sell their business to workers who already know the business’ operation.

Empower workers to become entrepreneurs through a worker co-op.

Require advance noticing to workers when owners want to sell their business.

Create a Right to First Offer for workers, which allows employees a period of time to form a worker co-op in order to express interest in making an offer. If interest exists to form a worker co-op, the group is allowed additional time to finalize finances and submit an offer, although owners retain the right to reject the offer.

Create a Right of First Refusal for workers, which requires owners to notify workers before owners accept a third-party bid to buy the business or extend a sale offer, in order to give the worker co-op an opportunity to match or counter the offer.

This package of small business/worker legislation is expected to be introduced in September. After introduction it will be assigned to a committee for discussion before being forwarded to the full Board for a vote.

Our small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhood economies and they are the heart of our vibrant commercial corridors. Protecting our small businesses now will ensure that they are around for future generations to come.

Connie Chan represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She can be reached at 415-554-7410 or chanstaff@sfgov.org.