Sonic Works With Labor Agency to Keep Wage Violations Off Menu

The Labor Department and Sonic Drive-In are working together to root out wage-and-hour violations at the fast-food company’s franchisees, under a voluntary compliance agreement signed July 27.

The deal, patterned after an agreement the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division brokered with Subway in 2016, allows Sonic Industries Services Inc. to share government-designed training materials with its 3,500 mostly franchised stores on how to avoid minimum wage and overtime violations. In a key provision, the parties agreed that nothing in the accord “should be construed as an admission by Sonic that Sonic is a joint employer of the workers employed by ...