00:00There are no poaching agreements between McDonald's. So if I'm a worker at a particular McDonald's franchise and I want
00:07to go work for another one, I have to get the permission of my current franchise owner in order to
00:13do that.
00:14Yeah, and they may have since dropped those, but they had them and a lot of chains did for a
00:19very long time. And that sort of gets at this weird niche that they've been able to occupy in antitrust
00:24and labor law.
00:25I would characterize it, I think, fairly as the absurdity of antitrust law, where there is this what is called
00:30the vertical horizontal distinction.
00:32And what that means is that for two McDonald's across town to pick up the phone and say, hey, don't
00:38hire any of my workers. I won't hire any of yours.
00:40That's a horizontal agreement. That is so, so illegal. You might go to jail for doing that.
00:45But if McDonald's from above tells them unilaterally, don't hire each other's workers, that puts it, it's not per se
00:52illegal.
00:52It gets put under what's called the rule of reason, which just means that it keeps people in my profession
00:57employed.
00:57But you have competing econometric reports. You know, it's it's very difficult for a plaintiff, for a worker to challenge
01:03these kinds of no poach agreements, though they have tried,
01:07because it's very difficult to win because that once it's vertical, now McDonald's can enter evidence that says, yeah, maybe,
01:13you know, it has a bad effect on our wages.
01:15But, you know, it helps us sell more hamburgers because, again, we're a single entity.
01:19You know, we should have this just makes it more efficient. And in that sense, low wages can be more
01:24efficient.
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