A Ruling with a bonus for fast-food workers

The “Fight for $15” campaign is about more than higher pay for fast-food workers. It is also about fighting for the right of workers to form strong unions without retaliation. That goal looks much more achievable this week after a National Labor Relations Board ruling that may force corporate parents, like McDonald’s or Yum Brands, to take responsibility for workers at franchises.

The case before the board was about Browning-Ferris Industries of California, a large waste management company. The ruling said the company was a “joint employer” of workers hired by a contractor to run its recycling center. Unions are sure to assert, and rightly so, that the joint employer designation also applies to corporate parents of fast-food franchises.

At stake is the balance of power between low-wage workers and powerful corporations. Under existing law, a corporate parent could simply close a franchise if workers tried to unionize. As a joint employer, however, it would be against the law to interfere in union organizing. Similarly, corporate parents have held for decades that franchisees have sole control of workers’ pay. But as joint employers, corporations could be held accountable for pay and working conditions, and be required to bargain in good faith with unionized employees.

Greater accountability was the norm before the 1980s. Since then, regulatory and court decisions have increasingly allowed corporate parents to shift responsibility for workers to franchisees. A result has been a vast and growing work force that has no sway with corporate management on basic issues like pay, hours and health and safety. Franchise owners often do not have the resources or will to change workers’ circumstances, while corporations, which have become profitable while worker pay has languished, have shielded themselves legally from responsibility for the workers.

This week’s ruling recognizes that the work force has changed dramatically in recent decades, and, by imposing the joint employer label, the labor board has responded forcefully. It correctly pointed out that to do its job of protecting the right to unionize, it has the duty and obligation to adapt labor law to the new patterns of work life in America.

The United States Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations have argued — and will surely continue to argue, in court and in Congress — that corporations do not exert enough control over franchises to be deemed joint employers. That argument has been rebutted by evidence showing that corporations routinely impose rules, policies, fees and technology on their franchisees that effectively determine how and how much fast-food employees work and, by extension, how much they are paid.

Corporations will resist, but, at long last, they may be forced to be better employers.