The Fight for $15 is ending the year on a high note. The protest movement, which began in New York City two years ago with fast-food workers demanding at least $15 an hour and the right to unionize without retaliation, has spread to more than 100 cities and many industries, including retail, home care, hospitality and airport services.  On Friday, the federal government validated the workers’ concerns when the general counsel’s office of the National Labor Relations Board issued 13 complaints, containing dozens of charges, against the McDonald’s Corporation and many of its franchisees for violating employees’ rights to press for better pay and working conditions. The alleged violations involve coercive conduct against workers who supported the protests, including threats, surveillance, interrogations, firings, discriminatory discipline, reduced hours and excessive restrictions on conversation about unions or work conditions. Managers were also said to have offered promotions in exchange for giving up the fight.  Memo to McDonald’s: Wouldn’t it be easier just to bargain over the terms and conditions of employment?  The N.L.R.B. complaints hold McDonald’s jointly responsible for the labor practices at its franchisees’ restaurants. The “joint employer” designation undercuts the corporation’s longstanding claim that the treatment of McDonald’s workers is not its responsibility, but the sole responsibility of franchise owners.  There is ample evidence that the corporation exerts substantial control over the terms and conditions of employment at restaurants bearing its logo. But its efforts to deny responsibility are one of the reasons that the complaints now being issued have not been settled. Absent settlement, litigation will begin in March, and administrative law judges around the country will determine if the violations occurred and, if so, who is responsible. Numerous appeals are possible, so the process will likely be long.  In the meantime, the Fight for $15 will continue. In the face of the protests, McDonald’s and other low-wage employers continue to defend abysmally low pay despite healthy corporate profits. But they are able to pay less than subsistence wages — and boost their corporate bottom lines — because taxpayers are picking up the tab to help the workers in the form of tax credits for the working poor, food stamps and other public aid. That is the warped norm that the Fight for $15 movement is attempting to change, with remarkable progress so far.  A version of this editorial appears in print on December 22, 2014, on page A26 of the New York edition with the headline: Workers’ Rights at McDonald’s. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The movement pushing for unions and better pay got some validation from the federal government, which issued complaints against the fast-food chain.