WASHINGTON (Nov. 9, 2023) – After House and Senate lawmakers introduced a bipartisan resolution aimed at overturning the National Labor Relations Board’s destructive joint-employer rule, American Hotel & Lodging Association President & CEO Chip Rogers released the following statement:

“AHLA welcomes this Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn the NLRB’s disastrous joint-employer rule. The NLRB is intentionally taking a wrecking ball to one of America’s great economic engines – the franchise model – and jeopardizing millions of small business jobs,” said AHLA President & CEO Chip Rogers. “We thank Sens. Cassidy, Manchin, and Leader McConnell, along with Dr. Foxx, Rep. James, and Speaker Johnson, for their leadership in this important fight against NLRB’s job-killing joint-employer regulation.”

Background

Last month, the NLRB released a final regulation unjustifiably expanding the “joint-employer standard” under the National Labor Relations Act. The standard is used to determine when two or more employers are jointly responsible for a shared group of workers’ essential terms and conditions of employment and thus jointly liable for violations of the National Labor Relations Act and have joint bargaining responsibilities for unionized employees.

For decades, a company was only a joint employer if it maintained “substantial direct and immediate control” over workers’ terms and conditions of employment. The NLRB’s rule codifies a new standard that establishes indirect or unexercised control as sufficient to trigger joint employer status.

The regulation will create new liability for hoteliers and potentially invalidate existing franchise agreements. It will cause businesses to reevaluate relationships and marginalize franchisees’ control over their own operations. It may also lead to fewer opportunities for small business owners to enter the market by causing consolidation in an effort to mitigate risk.