here they are looking out FOR YOU and jobs. this is what your UNION dues go for. killing jobs for yourself and you children
SNIP:
Regulators Aid Union Effort to Kill Franchising
Washington Free Beacon ^ | 9/2/2014 | Bill McMorris
Posted on
9/2/2014 4:47:51 AM by
markomalley
Several key Labor Department regulators participated in a liberal conference focused on unionizing subcontractors and franchise employees.
Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division Administrator David Weil delivered opening remarks to a room full of union organizers and activists from the National Employment Law Project, a pro-union group partnered with the liberal millionaires and billionaires from the Democracy Alliance, in May.
“I view my task as helping to work with the people in the agency and in concert with worker advocates,” he
said.
Weil told the gathering that the department has “undertaken a bunch of specific initiatives in particular industries,” in order to crack down on employers. The department, he said, has focused specifically on “the hotel industry, the restaurant industry, construction, the agricultural sector, [and] healthcare.”
Weil’s enforcement strategy will focus not just on specific complaints from employees of wage theft and workplace violations, but in tackling the structural nature of workplace regulation, he said.
“We’ve developed over time specific approaches to dealing with that and approaches to dealing with that and again approaches that are not just informed by saying ‘industry X has a lot of problems,’ but also ‘here’s how industry X is structured and here is how we can really affect change—how we can really make sure that when we go in the effects of that investigation ripple outward,” he said.
The attack on business structures has manifested itself in the current battle over joint employment standards and fast food franchising, which is undergoing extensive scrutiny at the department, as well as the National Labor Relations Board. Labor watchdogs and industry groups slammed Weil’s participation at the conference.
“This further proves what we’ve been saying all along: these things aren’t isolated incidents, but concerted actions by the administration, the NLRB, the Department of Labor to promote the union agenda,” said Angelo Amador, VP of Labor and Workforce Policy at the National Restaurant Association.
Labor groups have campaigned for years to unionize fast food workers, who would add hundreds of thousands of dues-paying members to their ranks. These efforts have met little success: Many fast food workers are young and there is high turnover.
However, the biggest obstacle has been the franchising system, in which small business owners pay parent companies like McDonalds to operate under the company trademark. While the corporation controls issues like menu options, the franchisees handle hiring, firing, and setting wages. Labor law has traditionally considered franchisees as separate entities from parent companies, which means that unions would have to organize restaurants piecemeal.
This system, as a NELP
white paper reports, is difficult for unions to crack. Franchise owners earn low margins on their investments and increasing labor costs through collective bargaining could prove disastrous for the business owner and union member alike.
“Fast food franchisees themselves are in many cases unprofitable,” the report says. The ultimate goal, according to these activists, is to bypass individual franchisees and bring multi-billion dollar parent companies to the bargaining table. Unions could leverage individual worker grievances against franchise owners to bargain with parent corporations directly. They also could more easily organize the entire fast food labor force at once, rather than just individual restaurants.
“By breaking down the joint-employment barrier what unions are hoping to do is spend a lot of time and money to organize one franchise, then demand that McDonalds’ corporate headquarters come to the bargaining table,” said Glenn Spencer of the Workforce Freedom Initiative. “That makes it worth the time and money. They’ll ratchet up pressure on the corporate brand.”
Labor groups have received a huge boost from the Obama administration in eliminating that last obstacle. In July, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Richard Griffin, a former union attorney, said in a legal brief that McDonalds could be held liable for the actions of its franchisees even if the parent company had nothing to do with the employment policies at issue.
The NLRB, the federal labor arbiter that oversees unionization, could decide on whether to preserve the firewall between franchisees, subcontractors, and corporations later this year in the Browning Ferris case.
all of it here:
