Having our say at the White House: outnumbered minority business owners aim for lawmakers recognition

Black Enterprise, May, 1995 by Rhonda Reynolds

Next month, Roy Hastic is going to Capitol Hill to win friends and influence people. Fearing that black businesses are losing out, Hastic's mission is clear: to make lawmakers aware that small black enterprises are a force to contend with.

Hastic, president of the 900-member Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce in Brooklyn, N.Y., will be part of a larger group participating in the White House Conference on Small Business to be held in Washington, June 11-15. The forum will be the launching pad for a comprehensive agenda addressing the needs of small business owners.

Over the last year, each state has held conferences to appoint delegates to the White House meeting. There will be 1,130 elected delegates and 589 delegates appointed by Congress. But the minority business community is worried that its voice will not be heard, since the majority of delegates are not people of color. Many feel further isolated since franchise companies have snagged a major portion of the delegate slots.

Hastic believes that black delegates should band together to form a political front. "We need to look at our recommendations as a minority business community. Even if it means getting there a few days before [the conference] to confer with each other," he suggests.

A number of major issues must be addressed, according to John Robinson, president of the National Minority Business Council in New York. In the forefront of the small black business owners' agenda, he emphasizes, should be increasing procurement and international trade opportunities, maintaining the inroads of affirmative-action policies and receiving financial support for employee education.

This is not the first administration to address the needs of the small business community. Two previous White House conferences on small business were held in 1980 and 1986. Nearly two-thirds of the recommendations from the 1980 conference and 43% of the suggestions from the 1986 session have been acted upon.

A sampling of these legal triumphs include: the Prompt Pay Act of 1982, the Small Business Innovation and Research Pro ram Reauthorization Act, the Equal Access to Justice Act and the Minority Business Opportunity Reform Act.

What is new, however, is that franchise owners have been allowed to participate. Earlier White House conferences viewed franchisees as extensions of their parent companies, not as independent small business owners, explains Susan Kezios, president of Chicago's American Franchise Association. Now, franchise owners are hoping to get 200 spots, Kezios says.

Some franchisors have been accused of attempting to use the event as an excuse to grandstand. For instance, New York is slated to have 93 delegates at the Conference, of which 21 are Pepsi franchise owners. "The IFA is against franchisee participation because it detracts from small business owners' concerns," says Terrian Barnes, vice president of research and diversity for the International Franchise Association in Washington.

Whether the concerns of franchisees overlap with those of small, independent business owners is debatable. Regardless, an independent commission, created by Congress, will weigh the demands of small business owners in order to sensitize lawmakers to their concerns.

"We should have banded together on the front-end," says Hastic, summing up the sentiment of the black business community. "However, we still have time to contact our Congressional leaders and White House conference delegates. With our small numbers, we need to talk to everyone who will listen."

For more information on the White House Conference on Small Business, call 202-724-0891.