News
Michael Sullivan, principal and chair of the firm's Labor & Employment group, is quoted in "NLRB Proposes New Joint-Employer Rule," published in the Sept. 13, 2018, edition of the Nation's Restaurant News.
The article concerns the National Labor Relations Board's new proposed rule that would tighten the standard under which franchisees and franchisors are considered "joint employers."
The rule would essentially "put back into place a standard that existed for more than 30 years."
Under the draft rule, which will be published in the Federal Register and will be subject to a 60-day public comment period, a franchisor would be considered a joint employer of a franchisee's employees only if it "possesses and exercises substantial, direct and immediate control over the essential terms and conditions of employment, and has done so in a manner that is not limited and routine. Indirect influence and contractual reservations of authority would no longer be sufficient to establish a joint-employer relationship."
Sullivan explained that the new rule would be welcome because it would essentially "put back into place a standard that existed for more than 30 years that only found different companies to be joint employers when both exercised direct and immediate control over employees' working conditions."
