Big Mac Joint Employer Attack

An attack against the franchise model and specifically against McDonald's by the Service Employers International Union (SEIU) is underway seeking to hold McDonald's as a "joint employer" alongside its franchisees. If the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) views McDonald's as a joint employer with its franchisees, SEIU will strive to get workers to unionize en masse.

As we previously reported in August, on July 29, 2014, SEIU won a victory in front of the Chief Prosecutorial Officer (CPO) of the NLRB. The CPO held that McDonald's is a joint employer with its McDonald's franchisees. As such, McDonald's, as a franchisor, can be liable in lawsuits filed by a franchisee's workers. The claims in that matter involve the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), wherein the franchisee's employees asserted that they were forced to work off the clock and were not paid overtime. McDonald's is appealing and maintains that the decision goes against years of established law regarding