Mike Mulligan, a 10-unit Jimmy John’s franchisee in Minneapolis, said the leaders behind a pro-union group of employees want to make an example of his company as part of their plans for a wider unionization movement of the restaurant industry.

Mulligan, who co-owns MikLin Enterprises with his wife and son, said business so far has been largely unaffected despite stepped-up actions by the Jimmy John’s Workers Union, a group of employees aligned with the Industrial Workers of the World. The union has made several unfair-labor complaints against MikLin and demanded raises, health care coverage and paid sick leave.

“With regard to the business itself, sales and customer traffic, our business continues to enjoy the acceptance it has had,” Mulligan said. “The more people learn about who we’re dealing with, the more sympathetic they are to what we’re going through. … We’re not dealing with a traditional union; we’re dealing with people who want to make a political statement.”

For the past several weeks, the JJWU has made paid sick leave the focus of its pressure campaign. Members of the union wore “Sick of Working Sick” buttons during their shifts and sent a letter to Mulligan and his son, Rob, saying that if MikLin officials did not meet with a delegation from the JJWU, the group’s members would plaster thousands of copies of a union-created poster across Minneapolis.

“The owners are ignoring our voices and our health,” employee and JJWU member Dan Rude said in a statement. “This leaves us no choice but to go public with this issue and call upon customers to let owners Mike and Rob Mulligan know that paid sick days are an important issue for workers and customers alike. If Mike and Rob continue to refuse to talk with us, we will take dramatic action to ensure the public knows about our struggle.”

Paid sick leave is part of the JJWU’s “Ten Point Program for Justice at Jimmy John’s,” which also asks for workplace accommodations like paid parental leave, an across-the-board pay raise and health care coverage for at least 70 percent of employees’ medical costs.

“This latest issue is another example of [the JJWU’s] attempt to alienate our workforce from our family-owned management,” Mulligan said. “They consistently misrepresent our company and our people in contrived situations that make us appear to be the bad guys. We’ve been in business 10 years and had one unfair-labor-practice complaint before these guys showed up, and in the past five months, we’ve had more than 50.”

Paid sick leave remains top of mind for many restaurant operators given recent legislative developments. The Wisconsin Senate last week approved a bill that would essentially void a paid sick-leave measure in Milwaukee approved by voters in 2008. A recent report published in San Francisco, which became the first major municipality to require paid sick leave in 2007, revealed that many restaurants in the city are struggling to adhere to the law. Washington, D.C., is another major city requiring paid sick leave for local businesses.

The stipulations of the JJWU’s paid sick-leave demand include one sick day per month of employment for every worker, as well as the ability for workers to call in sick without a doctor’s note. Also, the employees have asked that responsibility to find a substitute worker for a shift fall on management, not the ill staff member.

“We don’t ask people to work sick,” Mulligan said. “We do not allow people with flu-like symptoms to work, and we’ve tried to demonstrate flexibility if they can’t show up.”

He noted that meeting the union’s demands for sick leave, higher pay and health care could bankrupt the company.

“The things we do are consistent with the industry in which we operate,” Mulligan said. “If we agreed to these demands, it would cost four times what the company made last year. … When I say, ‘The things for which you’re asking are not done in the industry in which we’re competing,’ they say, ‘Yeah, that’s the problem. We’re going to start with you and revolutionize the industry.’”

The JJWU tried once before to formally unionize the 10 locations owned by MikLin, failing by an 85-87 vote last October. Mulligan said the votes in favor of unionizing represented about 40 percent of MikLin’s 220 employees.

The union appealed that result, alleging that MikLin had engaged in illegal union-busting and intimidation efforts to sway the vote. In January, the National Labor Relations Board brokered a settlement between the two groups in which the JJWU withdrew its petition and MikLin admitted no wrongdoing. The JJWU has the option to call for a second unionization vote this spring by filing another petition.

Mulligan said the only thing an operator in his position can do is to treat employees fairly.

“I don’t know if there’s an end in sight,” he said. “We’ll just try to do the right thing by our employees and depend on them to make the right judgment about us.”

Contact Mark Brandau at mark.brandau@penton.com.