Businesses lobbyists are trying to capitalize on Republican’s power trifecta in Washington by reigniting a legislative push to settle the issue of joint employment once and for all.
With Republican control of Congress and the White House, the International Franchise Association is pressing lawmakers to codify a standard that would require an employer have “direct” control over aspects of the work relationship to be considered a joint employer, an approach that would largely limit employers’ liability.
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A coalition of Democratic states successfully sued the Trump administration over its previous efforts to regulate on joint employment at the US Department of Labor in 2020, arguing it allowed companies to “offload their employment responsibilities to smaller, less-sophisticated companies with fewer resources to track hours, keep payroll records, and train managers.”
“This is another perennial effort by ideologically driven lobbying groups like the IFA that every time they raise this issue, they can’t point to any cases where a franchise has been held jointly liable with the franchisee, because there aren’t any,” said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel and legal director at the National Employment Law Project.
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Read the full article at bloomberglaw.com.
