People who own franchises of popular fast food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC may need to start paying more attention to the health and safety procedures that they put in place for the staff on their premises.
There have been many lawsuits against McDonald’s, for example, from people who have attained grease burns or who have had incidents using machinery on the premises. These people felt that the company did not provide adequate training or take good enough care of the people’s health and safety – as reported on here by Capital OTC. There have also been complaints that the software used on the till systems in branches forces staff to work at unsafe speeds, and they can be penalized if they are not able to do this.
Why Is This Not Always The Responsibility Of The Owner Corporation?
While in many of the legal cases where people have tried to bring the owner company, for example, McDonald’s, to trial, often the company escapes being found culpable for the incident due to the fact that the franchises are operated by the franchise owners, and not the McDonald’s Corporation itself. This can be problematic for franchisees who have to operate according to McDonald’s policies, but also have most of the legal responsibility for the people who work for them.
What Can Franchise Owners Do?
People who have taken on the operation of franchises for companies like McDonald’s are obliged to follow normal industry health and safety standards and remain compliant with the law. They are also required by the companies whose brands they use to provide the training provided by those companies. If a franchise owner feels that the minimum amount of training recommended by the owner corporation is not sufficient to keep their staff and customers safe, then they may need to implement additional training policies of their own. However, the most important thing is that franchise owners are aware of where their legal responsibilities begin and end, and where things become the responsibility of the major brand.
Are Legal Cases Brought By Staff Of Companies Like Mcdonald’s Indicative Of Any Major Shift In The Fast Food Industry?
The fast-food industry is one that has hit the headlines quite a lot of times recently, and not in any small part due to minimum wage debate – given that fast food workers are often in the minimum wage category. It has been noticed that in many major brands some of the normal roles carried out by minimum wage employees are being gradually replaced by touch screen systems and other self-service innovations. It could be that the issues coming from staff from a legal perspective are a factor in pushing companies to try and streamline their operations to involve fewer risks of staff injury and court cases.
It will be interesting to see how things continue to change in the fast food service sector as self-service becomes more common, and as lawyers push for companies to take more responsibility for what happens on their franchised premises.
