Health care shifts get a narrower worker test in Ohio

Ohio is redrawing part of the employment map for two very different corners of the labor market: health care shifts picked up through digital platforms and the franchise businesses that run under a parent brand. Under the proposal, a health care worker would not be the employee of a health care worker platform or a health care facility for purposes of specified laws under certain circumstances, and a franchisor would not count as an employer just because of its relationship with a franchisee or that franchisee’s workers.

The distinction is not just semantic. Worker status can affect overtime, liability and other labor obligations, which is why the measure ties its key terms to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage-and-hour law. Employer, employee, employ, person and independent contractor would keep the same meanings they already have there.

The label does the work

For health care workers, the bill is aimed at the jobs that arrive through a platform rather than through a traditional hiring hall. The practical question is whether the worker is treated as an employee for the laws the measure reaches, or instead falls outside that lane when the bill’s conditions are met.

That matters most when the work is short-term and scheduled around shifting demand, where the old employee-versus-contractor line can decide who owes what and who is responsible if something goes wrong. The proposal does not create a broad new labor code. It narrows the definition in defined situations.

When a franchisor still counts

The franchise side is narrower still. The bill says "Employer" does not include a franchisor with respect to the franchisor's relationship with a franchisee or an employee of a franchisee, unless the franchisor agrees in writing to assume that role or a court finds that it exercises a kind or degree of control that is not customarily exercised by a franchisor.

That leaves ordinary franchise arrangements outside employer status while preserving a path for cases where the parent company goes beyond the usual brand-level oversight. In other words, the line stays open for unusual control, but not for routine franchise structure alone.

Volunteers stay outside the rules

The definitions section also says employ and employee do not include a person acting as a volunteer. That keeps volunteers outside the labor-status rules the measure is rewriting for health care workers and franchisors.

For readers, the core change is simple: Ohio would narrow when a job is treated as employment, but only in the settings the bill specifically covers.