The new “Joint Employer” designation found in a revamped franchise agreement may extend to all employee behavior. It had been assumed that the franchise employee wage fraud scandal might be limited to a franchisor’s responsibility for a franchisee to comply with local minimum wage laws. Now employees who complain of sexual harassment may have a case not only against the franchisee but also the franchisor. The wage fraud scandal was brought about by franchise giant 7-Eleven’s global underpayment of employees.

Female workers at McDonalds have filed 15 sexual harassment complaints with the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The complaints are against both franchisees and the home office. The complaint alleges that the women have been sexually harassed while on the job by McDonald’s store managers and supervisors and have been physically groped and propositioned for sex in exchange for money. The women claim that their complaints within the company have been ignored.

One women’s complaint alleges that a California McDonalds store manager cut her hours down to an unlivable level to punish her for complaining to him that her supervisor groped her breasts and emailed a sexual proposition to her.

McDonalds claims to have a “zero-tolerance” policy with regard to sexual harassment, but has settled claims of sexual harassment in the past. McDonalds franchise Missoula Mac, paid $1 million to 10 female employees in 2012 after the women, mostly teenagers, claimed sexual harassment against their supervisors in a case to the EEOC. This was also the case against a Durango, Colorado McDonald franchisee who was found to have substantially ignored sexual harassment complaints by female teenage employees.

The case before the EEOC today includes, for the first time, the parent company as a defendant. Changes to the franchise agreement may require parent companies to assume legal responsibility for all of the company’s employee behavior and not just the payment of a minimum wage.