Coalition of Franchisee Associations

November 4, 2015

Update From Bloomberg on the NLRB Battle

McDonald's Fights to Avoid Employee Status for Franchise Workers
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just a few wrongs in the article most of the charges if not all are not for “fired or suspended employees” they are supposedly for actions within that specific restaurants; actions simple as having a pizza party where one union sympathizer said that was to find out union information or interrogate employees. Currently the NLRB administrative law judge will not hear any of the charges whether they are true, false or having any merit the NLRB is moving forward first with the joint employer charges because they obviously could care less about the underlying charges as they have really no financially liability to the franchisees or restaurants.

This is by far unprecedented territory the NLRB is moving into under the direction of the current governments’ administration. McDonald’s and their franchisees are most certainly going to lose all the arguments at the NLRB level but establishing arguments currently for an appeal to US Court of Appeals and ultimately the US Supreme Court. The current action against the franchisees as stated in the article is not about “how McDonald’s told the franchisees to respond to unionization participation” it is far from that, it is more about E*labor, McDonald’s scheduling programs franchisees are required to use, the ISP and how much control that has over your restaurant, all the paperwork from your ISP why does it say at the bottom “this document belongs to McDonald’s Corporation”, (this has been changed now a couple of years back but look at your old ISP paperwork), this is about your business review and does McDonald’s tell you how many managers and crew to have, does your BC tell you if your under/over staffed, do they speak with you about daily activity reports just read the subpoena all the information they are asking to be turned over. This is about how much control does the Franchisor have over the Franchisee does this control ultimately affect the profitability and the hiring, paying etc. of employees?

You can see from above this can be interpreted in a lot a ways and the final outcome could ultimately be determined by who is in government at the time of appeals. These cases are going to change the way franchise businesses are looked at operated in the United States you think McDonald’s has control over your business now wait till they are found as a joint employer and if you do not feel this could happen you need to grasp the reality of our politicians and the way our country is going. You will truly not be an independent business person free to make your own decisions.