Jurors in Pennsylvania are notoriously generous to fired employees. And that’s just the beginning. Aggressive attorneys don’t stop with federal laws like FMLA, ADA and FLSA: they use state and local living-wage statutes, rural codes, plus discrimination and other laws to sue employers for sky’s-the-limit damages. This Pennsylvania-specific newsletter arrives monthly to help sue-proof every aspect of HR. Written in plain English, it’s your insurance policy for staying in step with current interpretations of state and local laws – and staying out of court. Learn more about HR Specialist: Pennsylvania Employment Law and the free report you’ll get when you subscribe...
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The HR Specialist: Pennsylvania Employment Law
Before you approve a termination based on an employee’s apparent violation of an unwritten rule, decide whether the reason can stand up to scrutiny.
Does your company employ salespeople who are responsible for meeting certain benchmark goals? If so, be sure you have some way to check that everyone competes on an even footing. That includes ensuring that things like territories and leads are distributed in a way that doesn’t favor members of one group at the expense of another.
A Pennsylvania House of Representatives committee has begun considering legislation that would require all employers to provide some paid sick leave for employees. The Healthy Family, Healthy Workplaces Act would require employers with 10 or more employees to provide at least one hour of sick leave for every 40 hours worked, up to a maximum of 52 hours per year.
Employees who complain about alleged discrimination and experience retaliation can sue even if it turns out they don’t have a valid discrimination case. And almost anything that would dissuade someone from complaining in the first place is retaliation.
Some employee lawsuits just won’t go away. Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh is still embroiled in litigation it thought had ended three years ago—because a savvy employee has added new claims to an old sex discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit.
An EEOC administrative law judge in Philadelphia has agreed to allow a group of disabled workers to bring a class-action discrimination lawsuit against their employer, the Social Security Administration. The suit alleges the SSA has created a glass ceiling for employees with certain targeted disabilities.
The Doylestown Borough Council has unanimously passed an ordinance banning discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on sexual orientation. The law protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people from discrimination.
Jeffrey Abramowitz had worked his way from law student to named partner at the Center City firm of Klevan & Abramowitz. That all came to an end last December when senior partner Mitchell Klevan discovered evidence that Abramowitz had been depositing client funds into his personal account and diverting firm funds for his own purposes.
The FMLA provides 12 weeks of leave per year, but employers have flexibility for determining when those 12 weeks start and end. Choose one of four possible calculations and let employees know which one you’re using. Otherwise, courts will use the one that gives employees the best deal.
Final rules are now in place for enforcing Executive Order 13496, the White House decree requiring all federal contractors and subcontractors to notify employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act—the primary federal law governing the relationship between private-sector employers and unions.