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 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 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.
Employers with operations in Pennsylvania may want to take note of significant changes in the pipeline to the state’s wage and hour rules.
On April 30, 2018, Judge Goldberg of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an order granting in part and denying in part a motion brought by the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia for a preliminary injunction seeking to block the City of Philadelphia’s wage equity ordinance.
On January 17, 2018, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced an initiative to “modernize” Pennsylvania’s overtime rules.
On December 15, 2015, Mayor Michael Nutter signed a bill amending Philadelphia’s “ban the box” law, formally titled the Fair Criminal Records Screening Standards Ordinance, which was enacted in 2011. With these amendments, Philadelphia’s ordinance joins New York City’s Fair Chance Act as one of the most expansive and restrictive ban the box laws in the country. The legislative intent of the ordinance is to mandate that employers consider the whole person and the relation of the offense to the duties of the position sought before making a hiring decision.
