Signed into law on September 18, 2019 by Governor Gavin Newsom, Assembly Bill 5 (commonly known as AB-5), took effect on January 1, 2020. AB-5 codified the California Supreme Court’s June 2018 decision in Dynamex Operations...more
In recent blogs, we identified serious threats to the franchise industry – the Protect the Right to Organize (“PRO”) Act, joint employer standards, state ABC laws, and the new Biden Administration guard at the Department of...more
The California version of the ABC test is arguably the most hostile to franchising. Nonetheless, the risk is not confined to California.
This is because the ABC employee classification test, with variations, has been...more
The second troublesome threat is the joint employment standard. The Obama Adminstration DOL caused angst in the franchise industry in January 2016, when it adopted a joint employment standard that focused on “whether the...more
It was predictable – even inevitable – that the Biden administration would reverse much of Trump’s labor oeuvre. But no one could have predicted how quickly! In a little more than a month, the administration has:...more
2/26/2021
/ ABC Test ,
Biden Administration ,
Business Ownership ,
Contract Terms ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Franchisee ,
Franchises ,
Joint Employers ,
Managers ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Safe Harbors ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
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...more
Change is coming, but will it be a welcome change or a harbinger of woe?
Over the last 8 years or so, the ever-changing landscape of employment laws has arguably posed an existential threat to franchising. The franchise...more
12/9/2020
/ ABC Test ,
Biden Administration ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Joint Employers ,
Justice Scalia ,
Misclassification ,
NLRB ,
Safe Harbors ,
State Attorneys General ,
Trump Administration ,
Wage and Hour
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...more
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...more
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...more
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...more
In 2014, David Weil assumed the reins at the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division. Dr. Weil, an economic scholar, set his sights on the concept of joint employment. In academia, his work focused on what he termed a...more
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...more
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...more
My esteemed colleague Tami McKnew today filed the following comment on the NLRB proposed joint employer rulemaking, 83 FR 46681:
The proposed rule specifically acknowledges the effects of the 2015 shift in joint employer...more