Trump appointees hand McDonald's a win in labor case, this week in the war on workers

Donald Trump’s conflict-of-interest-plagued National Labor Relations Board handed McDonald’s a big win in the fight over whether the company shares responsibility for workers and working conditions in most of its restaurants. The board allowed a $170,000 settlement between McDonald’s franchisees and workers, overruling an administrative law judge who had said the settlement was inadequate.

The lone Democrat on the NLRB dissented, saying that the judge “reasonably exercised her discretion to reject settlements that fail to resolve the joint-employer status of McDonald’s, and instead serve to advance the policy view of the current General Counsel, who has attacked the Board’s current joint-employer standard at every opportunity as he litigated this case brought by his predecessor.”

Under Trump, the NLRB has moved to let companies like McDonald’s off the hook as a joint employer of workers who work in their facilities but on paper are employed by franchisees, temp services, or other third parties. McDonald’s notoriously exerts tight control over every detail in its restaurants, including details about workers, yet claims not to be their employer when it comes to labor law violations and other problems. And the Trump NLRB agrees.

● Orlando's public transit is failing workers, who may travel for hours to get to work.

● How I get by: A week in the life of a McDonald's cashier. Cierra Brown is an activist who says “here in North Carolina, it’s a safe bet that they don’t have union protection at work. So when I’m fighting for $15 and union rights for all workers, I’m doing it for them too. Since I became a leader in the Fight for $15 and a Union, whenever I meet a worker I see someone who could join our fight.” She too travels for hours on public transit to get to work, by the way.

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