Lee Jun-seok, the presidential candidate from the Reform Party, on the 21st, announced a pledge to prevent the star-rating terror from black consumers and to protect franchise owners from unjust contracts with franchisors.
The Reform Party promised to introduce a 'Small Business Rights Protection Center' for each platform operator as a response to black consumers. The aim is to provide annual consultations on psychological, legal, labor, and contractual issues, as well as practical training through specialized agencies.
It also plans to institutionalize the requirement for a 'Review Mediation Committee' to investigate the facts surrounding reviews that may cause actual harm, such as false or malicious reviews, repeated low ratings, and suspicious cases from competitors, and to complete necessary measures like review deletions, account penalties, and damage compensation recommendations within 15 days.
The Reform Party stated, 'We will eradicate the market disruption activities of black consumers to provide transparent information to consumers and alleviate the grievances of small business owners, ensuring that small businesses providing quality services through platforms receive fair evaluations in the delivery market.'
Additionally, the Reform Party announced a plan to require franchisors to forcibly accumulate a certain percentage of the franchise fees, royalties, and differential franchise fees received from franchise owners.
If franchisors fall short of the expected minimum revenue presented and verify the normal business activities of the franchise owners, which satisfy conditions equivalent to the current waiver of penalties, the franchisors will introduce a 'Business Closure Compensation Responsibility System' that compensates closing franchisees.
The party expects that by sharing the risks of the food service industry between franchisors and franchisees, a fair market will be established, inducing franchisors to ensure that franchisees do not go out of business.