Posts tagged subcontractors
This New Labor Rule Could Be Trouble for McDonald’s
October 5, 2023 // McDonald’s and other franchise companies have made it clear they believe the stakes are high. The “reality is that our business model is under attack,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said of possible joint-employer regulations in a speech at a franchising industry conference in Las Vegas earlier this year, in remarks he also published on LinkedIn. Changes by the NLRB, he said, would transform franchisees “from independent small-business owners to employees of the parent brands.” Heightened joint-employer liability could hurt the franchise model in two main ways, according to the International Franchise Association. One possibility, along the lines of what Kempczinski described, is that a franchisor would exert more control over the franchisees. That undercuts one of franchisors’ big selling points to potential franchisees—that they’re offering a path to running their own business, with all of the freedoms that provides. It could also add compliance costs, and potentially, legal and liability expenses. Those increased costs are also a frequent worry for franchisees, says restaurant consultant John Gordon, principal at Pacific Management Consulting Group. Franchisees typically pay franchisors a percentage of their sales, and their profit comes after those fees and their operating expenses. Franchisees are “justifiably afraid of the franchisor passing costs onto them that weren’t part of the franchise agreement,” he says, and wary of joint-employer liability for that reason.
In Philly, VP Harris details new labor rules for federal construction projects
August 9, 2023 // Vice President Kamala Harris, on Tuesday, visited Philadelphia to announce changes to labor rules that could give higher wages to construction workers on federal projects. At the headquarters of labor union DC 21, in Northeast Philly, Harris detailed the Labor Department's first update in decades to the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, a law that requires the payment of prevailing local wages on public works.
NLRB’S RADICAL JOINT EMPLOYER STANDARD WILL DESTROY SMALL BUSINESS AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
October 11, 2022 // The NLRB is pursuing a new joint employer rulemaking that has the potential to destroy small businesses, the American Dream, and the economy. Under this expanded standard, nearly every contractual relationship between businesses will trigger joint employer status, making businesses responsible and liable for the employment practices of their franchisees, suppliers, vendors, contractors, and subcontractors. Under this new rule, businesses will be forced to protect themselves against significantly more liability and obligations under the law. The franchise business model, for example, would be gutted, as the larger franchisor will move to end or limit their support to franchisees or exert increased authority over them, essentially turning those small business owners into employees. The new standard would also force larger companies to subsume local small businesses rather than work with individually owned enterprises, stifling entrepreneurship, business innovation, and flexibility. The expanded standard even hampers businesses’ efforts to encourage “corporate responsibility” among their business partners to the detriment of workers, consumers, and their communities.
‘They Should Be Ashamed’: Understaffing at NYC’s Beloved Museum of Natural History Pushes Workers to Unionize
March 28, 2022 // The union campaign arrives during a wave of organizing at museums and other cultural institutions across New York City and the United States, such as the Guggenheim and the Art Institute of Chicago.
It was a ‘watershed’ year for workers building power, Maine labor leaders say
December 27, 2021 // In a year that saw a wave of strikes erupt around the U.S. and hard-fought unionization campaigns within some of the biggest companies in the world, Maine workers also made headlines.