Congress narrows worker protections against franchisors and staffing brokers
H.R. 4366 — Save Local Business Act · Filed by James Comer (R-KY) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 14, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill narrows when two or more companies can be held jointly responsible for workers' employment conditions under federal labor law. It requires that for joint-employer status to apply, each employer must directly, actually, and immediately exercise significant control over essential employment terms—hiring, firing, pay, benefits, day-to-day supervision, scheduling, and discipline. The effect is to make it harder for workers to hold franchisors, staffing agencies, or parent companies liable for labor violations committed by their contractors or subsidiaries.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to narrow joint-employer liability by imposing a strict 'direct, actual, immediate, significant control' standard. This shields franchisors, staffing agencies, and parent companies from labor-law liability for conditions they influence indirectly—a classic liability carve-out dressed in clarifying language.
What the text implies
- Franchisees and franchisors may no longer be jointly liable for wage theft or labor violations even when the franchisor sets prices, labor standards, or operational requirements that force wage cuts.
- Staffing agencies and their client companies may escape joint liability for unsafe conditions, wage violations, or misclassification even when the agency controls assignment and the client controls work conditions.
- Workers injured or underpaid may lose the ability to sue the economically dominant party (franchisor, parent company, staffing broker) and be limited to suing the direct employer, who may be judgment-proof.
- The 'direct, actual, immediate' language may exempt companies that exercise control through contracts, franchise agreements, or operational standards rather than day-to-day management.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Workers lose legal recourse against companies that exercise indirect but substantial control over employment conditions (e.g., franchisors setting wages and schedules, staffing agencies controlling work assignments). The new 'direct, actual, immediate' standard is narrower than current regulatory practice and shields companies that exercise control through contracts, policies, or operational standards rather than day-to-day supervision.
Who stands to gain
- franchise systems (QSR, retail, logistics)
- staffing and temporary-labor agencies
- parent companies and holding companies
- gig-economy platforms (if classified as non-employers under the standard)
Named in the bill
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Department of Labor, franchise industry, staffing agencies, Section 2(2) NLRA, Section 3(d) FLSA
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Republicans.
- Jul 14, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 14, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
- Jul 23, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jul 23, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute by the Yeas and Nays: 20 - 16”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
32 lobbying clients named this bill on 49 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $57,676,316 in lobbying spend. A filing names 25 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 98% of bills with at least one filing.
James Comer, the sponsor, reported $486,900 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $37,710,000 on 2 filings
- National Retail Federation — $3,881,000 on 2 filings
- Fedex Corporation — $2,930,000 on 1 filing
- American Hotel & Lodging Association — $1,680,000 on 2 filings
- Nfib (national Federation of Independent Business) — $1,670,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 23, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,650 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 23, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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