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Comment by meragrin | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference between a McDonald's franchisee and an Uber employee? This ruling would seem to indicate a franchise "owner" is nothing but an employee of McDonald.

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A franchisee exercises management control that can affect profit and loss, can subcontract work performed,etc. The lack of these features are among the things cited as making uver drivers employees rather than contractors, so I don't get how you can say that this ruling would make McD franchisees employees.

A McDonald's franchisee has much more discretion in how they operate their business. They choose who to hire, how to manage them, where to run ads etc. They do have less freedom than someone running an independent restaurant, but it's very far from Uber's situation.

In addition to the other responses, McDonald's franchises require substantial investment on the part of the franchisee. You have to plop down hundreds of thousands of your own money, which represents entrepreneurial risk. This was found to be missing in Uber's case (according to the ruling) since there is precedent that bringing your own car doesn't qualify.

Additionally, McDonald's (or similar) locations are independently managed to a certain extent, that's why ads always say "at participating locations".

For one, the franchise contains multiple people so there is most definitely managerial work going on. I also imagine franchise owners possess some freedom in how they manage stocking and of various supplies, and might be free to choose suppliers.

You might be interested in how California is dealing with the franchise relationship as well[0] There are specific rules about that relationship that separates it from an employee.

[0] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240709

Is a Uber driver allowed to hire other drivers to do his job? A franchise owner can have multiple McDonald restaurants at the same time and hire workers. If no then they are not the same.

So hiring people to maintain the car is not the same?

Does Uber allows people to hire others to drive Uber cabs or not? that's the question here if you want to compare McDo with Uber. If I become a McDo franchisee, I don't have to flip sandwiches.

Seriously, read the above list of reasons, and the decision. Your question is already answered.

See the part about managerial tasks.

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