Many large companies maintain that they should not be required to bargain with employees of their contractors or franchisees, and that they should not be held liable for violations of those workers’ rights, if they exert control over the employees’ work conditions only in indirect ways, such as limiting what they can be paid for certain tasks. 
 
 The labor board explicitly rejected that logic. “It is not the goal of joint-employer law to guarantee the freedom of employers to insulate themselves from their legal responsibility to workers, while maintaining control of the workplace,” the Democratic majority wrote, addressing the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act. “Such an approach has no basis in the act or in federal labor policy.” 
 
 Wilma B. Liebman, a former N.L.R.B. chairwoman who wrote a crucial dissent in a 2002 case on the subject, said that the ruling was especially important because “sometimes the contractor is such a small entity, it exists on such a shoestring, that you have to get the lead firm to the table.” 
 
 The case the board ruled on involved a company called Browning-Ferris Industries of California, which the N.L.R.B. found was a joint employer of workers hired by a contractor to help staff the company’s recycling center. Unions are expected to seek to apply the ruling beyond the circle of companies that rely on contractors and staffing agencies, extending it to companies with large numbers of franchisees — even, some argue, to money managers who own significant stakes in corporations. 
 
 The joint employer designation could also make it easier to unionize in the first place. There have been instances in the past in which corporations appear to have terminated a franchise or contractor when that particular outfit was on the verge of unionizing, simply to avoid a union. This is legal for the corporation to do under existing law, but the franchisee or contractor cannot shut down on its own for this reason. As a joint employer, however, the corporation could no longer resort to this tactic. 
 
 “If you are a joint employer and you decide to shut down, there may well be liability,” Ms. Liebman said. 
 
 The ruling may have an immediate effect on a case the labor board is litigating against McDonald’s and several of its franchisees. In that case, the N.L.R.B.’s general counsel, who essentially acts as a prosecutor, asserts that the company is a joint employer along with a number of franchisees, making it potentially liable for numerous reported violations of workers’ rights, like retaliating against those who have tried to organize unions. ||||| More companies may be held responsible for labor-law violations committed by contractors and forced to negotiate wages and benefits with their workers under a decision by a politically split U.S. labor board. 
 
 The National Labor Relations Board, in a closely watched case, on Thursday unveiled a new standard for determining which companies are “joint employers” of workers paid by another business such as a franchisee or contractor. 
 
 Previously, employers were responsible only if they had direct control over working conditions. The standard, in use for three decades, is “increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships,” the board ruled. 
 
 The case involved a Teamsters organizing drive of employees at a staffing facility who were working in a recycling facility owned by Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., a Houston-based waste management company. The case drew attention from labor, businesses and Republicans in Congress, who vow to try to block the panel’s decision. 
 
 The decision will be applied in separate cases pending against McDonald’s Corp. in which the labor board’s general counsel has accused the restaurant chain of labor violations at its franchisees. 
 
 Temporary Employment 
 
 The board cited a rise in temporary employment in its decision. Almost 2.9 million Americans had jobs through temporary agencies in 2014, or 2 percent of the workforce, up from 1.1 million in 1990, the board said. 
 
 The NLRB’s change means that companies that have the power to influence the conditions of workers through contracts or franchise agreements may be deemed joint employers. Business groups said now companies would become less efficient by tying them more directly to their contractors or other businesses that are now a step removed. 
 
 The International Franchise Association, a Washington-based business group, said the decision is a “seismic shift” in labor law. 
 
 “If allowed to go into effect, the impact of this new joint-employer rule would be sweeping and widespread, create havoc for the franchise industry and, ultimately, would inflict serious damage to our nation’s economy,” Steve Caldeira, the group’s chief executive, said in a statement. 
 
 ‘Unprecedented’ Obligations 
 
 The decision was derided by the board’s two Republicans, who wrote a 29-page dissent -- eight pages longer than the opinion -- saying it will “subject countless entities to unprecedented new joint-bargaining obligations.” 
 
 The three Democrats said the Republicans’ dissent was “long and hyperbolic,” and misstates the standard “and grossly exaggerates its consequences.” 
 
 Chuck Cohen, an attorney at Morgan Lewis in Washington and former member of the board, said the standard is likely to be challenged in court. 
 
 “This doctrine is so far-reaching, I’m assuming it will end up in the Supreme Court,” Cohen said. 
 
 The NLRB decided to move away from criteria used for three decades in a case involving Browning-Ferris and the Teamsters union trying to draw the company to the negotiating table along with a staffing company, Phoenix-based Leadpoint Business Services. 
 
 The board found Browning-Ferris was a joint employer. 
 
 Wilma Liebman, a former head of the labor board who advocated for the new standard, said shifts in the workforce threatened to make basic protections provided by labor laws “illusory.” 
 
 Often the company with deeper pockets that hires a subcontractor sets conditions of employment through a contract, she said. These companies should be at the bargaining table, she said. 
 
 “The nature of employment and the nature of the economy has changed a lot,” Liebman said in an interview. ||||| 
 
 Unions have been campaigning to get McDonald’s to pay higher wages — and to take responsibility for the labor law violations of their franchisees. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri) 
 
 A federal labor board voted Thursday to redefine the employee-employer relationship granting new bargaining powers to workers caught up in an economy increasingly reliant on subcontractors, franchisees and temporary staffing agencies. 
 
 The decision by the National Labor Relations Board could upend the traditional arms-length relationship that has prevailed between corporate titans such as McDonald’s and its neighborhood fast-food franchises. And it comes as concerns are growing about a generation of new Internet-fueled business such as Uber and Lyft that depend heavily on independent contractors. 
 
 In a case that drew intense lobbying by both business and union groups, Democratic appointees on the panel split 3-2 with Republicans to adopt a more expansive definition of what it means to be an “joint employer," making it more difficult for companies to avoid responsibility through various forms of outsourcing. 
 
 In doing so, the panel sided with labor advocates and academics who have described an increasingly “fissured�? economy, in which whole industries have been built on business models that offer workers few of the protections of a traditional employer relationship. 
 
 “With more than 2.87 million of the nation’s workers employed through temporary agencies in August 2014, the Board held that its previous joint employer standard has failed to keep pace with changes in the workplace and economic circumstances,�? the Board said in a release accompanying its decision. 
 
 The board’s action is just the latest to tackle the trend. The Department of Labor has cracked down on employer misclassification of independent contractors, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has directed inspectors to consider whether principal employers might be at fault for the safety violations of their subcontractors. Courts, meanwhile, have been scrutinizing companies like FedEx and Uber for their use of contractors. 
 
 Employers are pushing back. Businesses that might be subject to the new joint employer definition have warned that it could undermine longtime business models that have kept the U.S. economy competitive by holding down labor costs. 
 
 As a result of the decision, some businesses may be able to distance themselves from their partners to avoid joint employer status, but others may find they need to exert more control. 
 
 Corporations are “trying to have it both ways — have the benefits of the control, and not the disadvantages,�? says Timothy Glynn, a professor at Seton Hall University Law School. “Where I think it would be very difficult to give up control is circumstances where there’s some exacting need for quality, timeliness, or consistency in the product.�? 
 
 Like a fast food franchise, for example. While this case did not address franchising directly, the new standard will apply in a major series of cases against McDonald’s scheduled for arguments in the fall. The International Franchise Association has been lobbying against the anticipated decision for more than a year, arranging public hearings, airing ads, and rallying franchisees to make politicians aware of the decision’s potential implications. 
 
 “The Board’s tortured analysis will undoubtedly be met with skepticism and will be rejected by local franchise owners, legislators and, ultimately, the courts,�? said IFA president Steve Caldeira in a press release. “IFA and its allies are asking Congress to intervene to halt these out-of-control, unelected Washington bureaucrats to preserve the established joint employer standard.�? 
 
 Congressional Republicans have already obliged, attaching a rider to the budget that would prevent the implementation of a new joint employer standard, among measures meant to block other recent NLRB decisions. Responding to the decision, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) vowed to “roll back�? the NLRB’s shift, while Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions committee chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced he would introduce a bill to “invalidate�? the ruling. 
 
 The case concerned a recycling company called Browning-Ferris Industries in Milpitas, Calif., which used a temporary staffing agency called Leadpoint to provide workers. A Teamsters local tried to organize the employees, but did notjust want to negotiate with Leadpoint — it wanted Browning-Ferris to qualify as a “joint employer,�? figuring that bargaining wouldn’t be effective unless it also included the larger company that determines the conditions of the working environment. 
 
 A regional director disagreed, and the Teamsters appealed. This time, the NLRB’s general counsel sided with the union, recommending in an amicus brief that the board ignore a standard in place since the 1980s and instead apply a broader definition of what it means to be an employer. 
 
 The Board’s Democratic majority agreed and struck down earlier cases that had articulated the previous standard, saying that the growth of the contingent workforce has rendered the definition out of step with the core purposes of the National Labor Relations Act. In doing so, it returned to an even earlier standard, the abandonment of which fostered the growth of independent contractor relationships in industries like trucking and taxis. 
 
 The Board also reversed the regional director’s decision, saying that Browning-Ferris exercised sufficient control over hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, and work hours to qualify as a joint employer under the new standard. It ordered that ballots impounded after the Teamsters’ election in April 2014 be counted, which — if the union wins — would allow it to bargain directly with the recycling company as well as the staffing agency that hired them. 
 
 “Today’s decision is another step to show that companies can no longer claim they are not employers when problems arise,�? said Ron Herrera, Director of the Teamsters Solid Waste and Recycling Division. “Instead of pointing fingers if a worker gets hurt, companies will now be accountable. It’s the decent and reasonable expectation that workers should have at work.�? 
 
 The issue has not just been a bone of contention between unions and employers. It also created sharp disagreements within the labor board: The two Republican appointees authored a blistering dissent, alleging that the new standard goes beyond the body’s authority and could affect a vast swath of new employers. 
 
 “Under the majority’s test, the homeowner hiring a plumbing company for bathroom renovations could well have all of that indirect control over a company employee!�? the dissent read. “We suppose that our colleagues do not intend that every business relationship necessarily entails joint employer status, but the facts relied upon here demonstrate the expansive, near-limitless nature of the majority’s new standard.�? 
 
 This may not be the end of the matter, however. Browning-Ferris Industries has the option to appeal to either the 9th Circuit or the D.C. Circuit Court. “We are currently evaluating all of our available options regarding this matter with the objective of not being unlawfully forced into collective bargaining negotiations with another employer’s employees,�? said Darcie Brossart, a spokeswoman for Republic Services, the waste company that owns Browning-Ferris. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Bracing for labor board decision, employers spend recess courting Democrats 
 
 A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for? 
 
 Fast food workers score a big win against McDonald’s 
 
 Franchises fear a ‘devastating’ change to their business model 
 
 Fast food companies are invoking ‘Main Street’ to fight unions
– In what the Washington Post calls a "landmark" case, a federal labor board has just made it easier for workers at fast-food restaurants and other franchise operations to negotiate for better wages and working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board changed a three-decade-old definition about which companies should be called "joint employers," reports Bloomberg. The term now covers companies that use subcontractors or other middlemen operations to supply employees, meaning unions can now negotiate with the parent company as well as the subcontractor that hired them, explains the New York Times. The old rule is "increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships," declared the NLRB, which split 3-2 along party lines. The ruling stems from a recycling company that used a temporary staffing agency, but it will be applied to pending cases involving McDonald's. In fact, it "could upend the traditional arms-length relationship that has prevailed between corporate titans such as McDonald's and its neighborhood fast-food franchises," says the Post. The ruling has been anticipated for a while, and the industry says it will fight to overturn it with help from Republicans in Congress.