a general counsel joins u, and elizabeth carlson, sa partner in a law firm, specializing in employment war, and joseph mccartin is the director of george town universities initiative on labour and the working poor. >> isn't it the - the pattern, isn't it a widespread practice to turn workers into some kind of subcontractors. not just in places like mcdonald's, but if we go into office buildings, and talk to the cleaners, they don't work for the lapped lords, they -- landlords, they work for someone else, a dispersal of authority and lines of demand throughout the workforce. >> it's common and takes a number of different forms. there's subcontracting, in the case of jan torial companies. they don't work directly for the buildings they clean, they work for subcontractors. franchise operations. various types of fissuring, distancing, fracturing of the employment relationship. the concept of joint employment, which is at issue in the mcdonald's case is an old concept that you can have more than an entity. even entities that are at arm's leptionz, who -- length, who share or codetermine wag