Rick Berman
The king of the astroturf corporate front group is playing a key role in a recent outrage campaign against the National Labor Relations Board's decision that, since McDonald's controls how its franchisees run their businesses and schedule and pay their workers, McDonald's should be considered a
joint employer of those workers and
held responsible for abuses and labor law violations. Of course, having the CEO of McDonald's crying about how the multibillion dollar company might be held responsible for the stuff it does wouldn't make a great woe-is-me PR campaign,
so instead:
In January, viewers catching the morning shows on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC met Heidi Ganahl, the bubbly founder and CEO of a national doggy day care chain called Camp Bow Wow.
"I've worked hard and played by the rules to make my franchise business a success," Ganahl said in an ad that ran on all three networks, as video showed her fawning over a golden retriever. "Now, unelected bureaucrats at the National Labor Relations Board want to change the rules. As Americans, we deserve better. Tell Washington, 'No.'"
The ads come from "the Job Creators Network," which includes 2016 Republican presidential hopeful
Carly Fiorina and 2012 Republican presidential also-ran Herman Cain. But whatever former or current CEOs are the public face of the Job Creators Network, the fingerprints of Rick Berman—the aforementioned king of the astroturf corporate frontgroup—are all over it, Molly Redden reports:
The network's media contact, Ted Peterson, notes on his LinkedIn page that he is employed as a digital-media strategist at Berman and Company. Berman and Company's in-house web developer, Chris Herbert, included the web site of the Job Creators Network's latest campaign, a project called Defend Main Street, in his online portfolio as an example of his work. An executive associated with the Job Creators Network confirmed Berman's longtime involvement with the group.
And really, it wouldn't be anti-worker astroturf
without Rick Berman, whose
sockpuppet "nonprofit" front groups (from which his for-profit PR firm directly profits) include the Employment Policies Institute, which basically exists to argue against raising the minimum wage ever, as well as the American Beverage Institute, which fights the lowering of legal blood alcohol limits, and the Center for Consumer Freedom, which works to defend high-fructose corn syrup. Defending big corporations from being held jointly responsible for their franchisees' labor abuses in cases where the big corporations exert significant control on the franchisees' labor practices is classic Berman.