Fast Food Workers Fight Employee Poaching Non Solicitation Agreement

Employers in the fast food industry are accused of making use of an illegal employee poaching non solicitation agreement. This set of allegations is based on claims that certain fast food franchises have made agreements with one another not to hire each other’s employees.

An anti-poaching agreement could put workers at a disadvantage without the workers ever knowing it. It might also be a violation of existing laws. Antitrust legislation might allow those employees who allege harm due to the existence of an anti-poaching agreement to file a lawsuit and seek recovery.

An employee poaching non solicitation agreement in the restaurant industry could harm employees financially and could violate federal anti-trust laws. McDonald’s has been named in a recent antitrust lawsuit, accusing the company of fostering these no-hire agreements among its franchisees.

 The plaintiff who filed the employee poaching non-solicitation agreement lawsuit says that the fast food giant uses illegal agreements to prevent its franchisees from hiring each other’s workers away from one another. The federal antitrust claim was recently allowed by an Illinois federal judge as a proposed class action suit.

A previously-employed department manager at the McDonald’s in Florida is the lead plaintiff in this case, alleging violations of the Sherman Act. The employee poaching non solicitation agreement lawsuit claims that McDonald’s requires all of their franchisees to commit to a clause that bars them from taking or poaching workers from competing McDonald’s locations.

The judge denied the defendant’s motion for dismissal, finding that according to the plaintiff’s allegations, the no-hire policy appears to be a horizontal agreement that can divide the market for employees. The judge said that it was clear that this policy indicates usage of an employee poaching non-solicitation agreement that suppresses wages for workers.

The plaintiff in the employee poaching non-solicitation agreement lawsuit started working at a McDonald’s franchise in 2009 in Florida and ultimately was promoted to the department manager of Guest Services, making $12 per hour in 2011. The worker who filed this lawsuit said that she was working towards becoming a general manager.

When she was set to go to general manager training, she alleges that her supervisor found out that she was a few months pregnant and cancelled her training. That led the plaintiff to look for another managerial position and identified another McDonald’s location willing to hire her for that position at around $15 per hour, but she was allegedly denied the job because of the no-hire clause.    

Employees who discover the use of an anti-poaching agreement after possibly suffering the consequences of its use are within their rights to contemplate filing a lawsuit. The use of an anti-poaching agreement must be carefully considered with the help of legal representation in order to figure out what impacted employees can do in response. A lawsuit might be the only opportunity to stop the use of these agreements and to hold employers in violation of the law accountable for their actions.

The Employee Poaching Non Solicitation Agreement Lawsuit is Case No. 1:17-CV-04857 filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

Join a Free Fast Food Employee Poaching Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you work for Arby’s, Burger King, Jimmy John’s, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut or Domino’s and were prevented from moving to a different franchise that is part of the same company, you may have been the victim of a no-poach agreement. If so, you may qualify to participate in this employee poaching class action lawsuit investigation.

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