Starting this year, employees who receive severance pay in excess of 40% of the average annual wage in Pennsylvania will have their unemployment compensation benefits offset. Currently, that 40% number is $17,853.00. As Jonathan Segal, Legislative Director for PA State Council of SHRM, notes here, employers should be very careful…
Articles Posted in Pennsylvania
Your favorite “The Employer Handbook” posts from 2011
As the year draws to a close, let’s take a look back at the most popular posts at The Employer Handbook in 2011, based on number of hits: 5. Social media and the workplace. School teacher Natalie Munroe made several appearances on the blog this year. Remember her? She…
Your employees’ “private” Facebook posts are not private
What is this? A broken record? Yesterday, I blogged about a recent NY appellate decision in which the court held that an employee who had sued her employer would have have to turn over her Facebook postings that related to the case. Today, we head south down 95, and then…
Say what?!? Not returning employee calls may be FMLA retaliation
An eligible employee may take up to 12 workweeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act in a 12-month period. If an employee exhausts all of her FMLA leave and fails to return to work after the 12 weeks are up, can’t the company simply fire the employee?…
An employer’s response to a social-media nightmare. Thoughts?
Earlier this year, a local teacher was suspended after her school learned about nasty comments on her personal blog concerning her students. And that story became national news. More on the history here, here, and here. Now, word has it that the school is considering a social-media policy. Well, it’s…
By The Numbers: Employment laws by total employees
With so many employment laws out there, it’s not easy to keep track of what those laws say — let alone under which of them your business may be covered. Well, who loves ya! After the jump, it’s employment laws by the numbers — number of employees that is —…
Philadelphia’s Mayor vetoes a proposed mandatory-sick-pay bill
Yesterday afternoon, in a letter to City Council, Mayor Michael Nutter vetoed the “Promoting Healthy Families and Workplaces” bill. This bill, discussed in a previous blog post, would have required businesses to provide paid sick leave to employees who work a minimum number of hours in Philadelphia County. On June 16,…
Legislation introduced to expand FMLA coverage in PA
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a federal law, entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take up to twelve workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for: the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth; the…
Could the Beastie Boys collect overtime pay in Pennsylvania?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE If Cochese and Bobby, “The Rookie” were working mall security in Pennsylvania, would their employer have to pay them for the time they spend keeping those uniforms looking 80s-spiffy? If it were up to one Pennsylvania federal court, they would be SOL. You’ll see what I mean once you…
A “social media specialist” gets fired for a Twitter gaffe at work
Fueled by the remaining adrenaline from the Bruins 4-0 beating of the Canucks — 2 more wins… just 2 more — I am banging out this blog post just before the clock strikes 12. I have news of a new Twitter firing involving a “social media specialist” and an update…