The one-two punch of state and federal employment standards activity poses an existential threat to franchising; many commentators, including this one, have acknowledged that fact. But why? Did the California legislature or the Obama Department of Labor intend to deliver a knock-out punch to a very popular business structure that creates tens of thousands of
Hot on the heels of disappointing AB-5 news from California, a federal district court in Manhattan delivered a stinging rebuke to the Department of Labor (“DOL”), invalidating the control-based joint employment rule issued by the Department only 6 months ago.
The DOL Rule adopted a control-based test of joint employment for purposes of federal employment
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the recent actions taken by Congress regarding the PPP program as well as the efforts by the Fed. In today’s post, we dig deeper into the challenge by state Attorneys General to the Department of Labor’s final joint employment rule moved forward in the Southern District of
In my recent post commenting on the Department of Labor’s joint employer rule, I wondered whether the NLRB would follow suit. Now we know, and the answer’s positive. It’s very good news for franchising!
As we noted in a blog post earlier this week, the NLRB, after a major rulemaking process in which it received
The wait is over: This morning the NLRB announced that it will issue its final rule governing joint-employer status tomorrow, February 26, 2020. According to the NLRB itself, the “final rule restores the joint-employer standard that the Board applied for several decades prior to the 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris, but with greater precision, clarity,
Recently, we lauded the Department of Labor’s return to the control test of joint employment. Perhaps presciently, we 
wondered whether the NLRB would follow the same course.
The latest turn in the NLRB case involving McDonald’s and the “Fight for $15” group should give us the answer to that question – but not
I admit I was among the scores of franchise lawyers whose blood pressure skyrocketed with passage of California’s AB 5. If a Franchise Agreement establishes an independent contractor relationship between franchisor and franchisee, will the A-B-C test render the franchisor the employer of the franchisee? And if that’s the case, how is the franchisor
As noted in our first post on this topic, California’s AB-5 codified the employment test set forth in Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, 4 Cal. 5th 903 (2018). Although the full implications of this new law are unclear, it will like have a major impact on the franchise industry.
If, as
“Some day, California’s going to fall into the ocean” usually refers to the San Andreas fault. Now it may refer to AB-5, and the future of the franchise industry in California.
The California legislature has now passed AB-5, and Governor Newsom has signed it into law. AB-5 codifies the Court’s decision in Dynamex Operations West
A wage and hour case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, is the latest front in the joint employer battle. In Vazquez, unit franchisees of a janitorial service system alleged that they were employees of the franchisor. The District Court granted summary judgment to the Franchisor, based