The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals officially revived a case regarding a Starbucks corporate policy that requires an employee to clock out before uploading data about employees’ hours, sales, and other information. The federal case follows a separate state Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that determined that Starbucks must pay workers for the off-the-clock work. I may be biased in saying so, but McDonald’s franchisees finally woke up to the wisdom of an Independent Franchisee Association this week when over 400 of them got together and decided that they needed to create an independent franchisee association to represent their best interests with the franchisor. Unrelated to that smart decision, we noted that the company began testing cold brew coffee this week in San Diego.