The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recently held unenforceable a no-hire provision in a service contract between a logistics company and a trucking firm. In Pittsburgh Logistics Systems, Inc. v. Beemac Trucking LLC, et. al., the court reasoned that the no-hire provision at issue was overly broad and undermined fair competition for employees in the shipping and logistics industry.
Philadelphia’s newest Public Health Emergency Leave law went into effect on March 29, 2021. Unlike the prior iteration of the law that sunset on December 31, 2020, this law will stay in effect “for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In Harrisburg Area Community College v. Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, No. 654 C.D. 2019, (October 29, 2020), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania recently examined the interaction between Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Act (MMA) and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA). Specifically, the court addressed whether the PHRA’s prohibition against disability discrimination required a college to accommodate a student’s lawful use of medical marijuana under the MMA.
Elections in the United States are scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Not only will the office of president of the United States be contested, but all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for grabs. At the state level, elections will be held for the governorships of 11 U.S. states and 2 U.S. territories.
On September 25, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania became the first federal court in the Third Circuit to rule that Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Act (MMA) allows an employee to bring a private lawsuit against his or her employer for taking an adverse employment action “solely on the basis of such employee’s status as an individual who is certified to use medical marijuana.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s (DLI) amendments to the regulations that exempt executive, administrative, and professional (so-called “white collar”) salaried workers from overtime requirements under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act of 1968 (PMWA) went into effect on October 3, 2020. The amended regulations were originally approved on January 31, 2020.
On September 17, 2020, six months after Mayor Jim Kenney issued Executive Order 3-20, a Declaration of Emergency Related to the Known and Potential Presence of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 in Philadelphia, he signed into law Bill No. 200303, a temporary amendment expanding the City of Philadelphia’s paid sick leave law—officially known as the Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces Ordinance—to establish public health emergency leave for individuals not covered by the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
On September 1, 2020, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations will begin enforcing a previously-enjoined provision of the city’s Wage Equity Ordinance, which addresses the disparity in the pay of women and minorities.
On July 1, 2020, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine signed an order expanding face covering–wearing requirements in Pennsylvania. Under the order, face coverings must now be worn almost any time an individual leaves home, including in most outdoor settings.
Philadelphia recently enacted a new city ordinance protecting whistleblowers who report unsafe workplace conditions related to COVID-19.
In Pennsylvania, noncompetition agreements must, among other things, be supported by adequate consideration to be enforceable. It is well established that an initial offer of employment constitutes adequate consideration. It is also well established that a noncompetition agreement presented to an employee after the start of employment must be supported by additional consideration, beyond the mere continuation of the employment relationship. But what about the regularly arising occurrence in which an agreement is orally agreed in connection with an initial offer, but isn’t signed until after the first day of work?
Almost every state has issued closure orders designating certain businesses as “essential” and allowing them to continue to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some states have recently issued orders expressly or implicitly regulating the safety and health of workers at those essential businesses. Are some or all of the provisions in these orders preempted by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act)? It depends.
On March 19, 2020, Governor Tom Wolf issued a broad executive order requiring the closure of “all businesses that are not life sustaining.” Simultaneously, the secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health issued a similar order, explaining “the closure of non-life sustaining businesses is necessary to protect the public’s health.”
We first wrote about Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek Employment Standards Ordinance shortly after it was signed into law on December 20, 2018. Now, with the Mayor’s Office of Labor having issued final regulations on February 3, 2020, and the ordinance having taken effect on April 1, 2020, we offer a brief overview of the ordinance along with additional information for retailers as they implement procedures to comply with the ordinance’s provisions. Enforcement of some aspects of the ordinance, such as its good-faith estimates requirement, will not go into effect until July 1, 2020.
On March 19, 2020, Governor Tom Wolf issued a broad executive order requiring the closure of “all businesses that are not life sustaining.” Simultaneously, the secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health issued a similar order, explaining “the closure of non-life sustaining businesses is necessary to protect the public’s health.”
California, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York have all issued statewide shelter-in-place orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and more states may follow. Employers that do not qualify for an exemption under the applicable state order or that decide to severely curtail or shut down operations may want to consider some of the following issues.
On January 31, 2020, the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission approved the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s (DLI) amendments to 34 Pa. Code Chapter 231, the regulations that exempt executive, administrative, and professional (“white collar”) salaried workers from overtime requirements under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act of 1968.
On February 6, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg’s prior order partially blocking the City of Philadelphia’s pay equity ordinance from going into effect.
In late 2019, Pennsylvania defected from the traditional use of the fluctuating workweek method used to calculate overtime rates for employees working fluctuating hours.
After a lengthy journey through the Pennsylvania legal system, the City of Pittsburgh’s Paid Sick Days Act is now on course to go into effect. The Act was signed by the Pittsburgh mayor in 2015, but its implementation was delayed due to legal challenges.
On December 20, 2018, Mayor Jim Kenney signed an ordinance that will raise the minimum wage for all Philadelphia municipal government workers, contractors, and subcontractors from the current rate of $12.20 per hour to $15.00 per hour by 2022.
Philadelphia enters the predictive scheduling mix with its newly signed Fair Workweek Employment Standards Ordinance, which will become effective January 1, 2020.
In 2019, a number of states’ minimum wage rates will increase.
If an employee in Pennsylvania is paid a salary, as opposed to by the hour, that employee is not eligible for overtime no matter how low the salary or how high the number of hours he or she works in a particular week, right? Wrong!
Twenty years ago, on a warm summer day, Hawaii enacted a restriction on employer inquiries into an applicant’s work history until after a conditional offer of employment. Intended to give applicants with criminal histories a fair shot at employment, the law—the first state “ban the box” law—crystalized a movement that, in time, would yield similar restrictions in 12 states and 17 localities (for private employers). The result is a crisscrossing jumble of requirements with little uniformity, putting employers in a difficult position when dealing with applicants (and sometimes even existing employees) in different jurisdictions.
On February 2, 2018, we reported that General Nutrition Centers, Inc. (GNC), the employer in a case brought by a class of salaried, nonexempt, current or former Pennsylvania store managers, assistant managers, or senior managers under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) (43 P.S. Secs. 333.101–333.115) had asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a 2–1 decision issued by the Pennsylvania Superior Court on December 22, 2017.
Employers with operations in Pennsylvania may want to take note of significant changes in the pipeline to the state’s wage and hour rules.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion in Minarsky v. Susquehanna County, No. 17-2646 (July 3, 2018). The decision, which vacated the entry of summary judgment in favor of an employer that had asserted the Faragher-Ellerth defense to a sexual harassment claim based upon a hostile work environment, provides some important lessons for employers.
On October 30, 2017, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania signed into law Act 43 of 2017. This new law provides that beginning July 1, 2018, Pennsylvania businesses that pay at least $5,000 in Pennsylvania-source nonemployee compensation or business income to a nonresident individual (or disregarded entity that has a nonresident member) are required to withhold from such payments the current applicable income tax rate (currently 3.07 percent).
