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Articles Posted in Pennsylvania

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Pennsylvania, yes Pennsylvania, announces new overtime rules that are more generous than federal law

Image Credit: Photofunia.com About a year or so ago, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced a plan to direct the Department of Labor & Industry (PA’s version of the DOL) to change the overtime rules in PA: The first step will raise the salary level to determine overtime eligibility for most workers…

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Get your damn story straight if you’re going to fire someone who just returned from medical leave.

Image by DigitalShards from Pixabay I’ve talked a fair amount recently about retaliation claims (here and here), mostly focusing on timing as the possible link between a protected activity (such as a complaint of discrimination) and an adverse employment action (like a firing). The plaintiffs in those cases were unsuccessful…

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When do (or don’t) Facebook posts create a hostile work environment?

By Nut-hardware.jpg: Muke derivative work: Xoristzatziki (talk) – Nut-hardware.jpg, Public Domain, Link I can tell you this. It takes more than a few posts from a couple of ‘Wingnuts.’ Some mean-spirited Facebook posts. The plaintiff, in this case, worked for a unionized airline. The plaintiff ran to become the union president.…

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SCOOP! PA businesses may have to allow employees to use medical marijuana outside of work

Image Credit: Pixabay.com This definitely caught me flat-footed. An implied duty to accommodate? I think not. Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana law specifically states that no employer must “make any accommodation of the use of medical marijuana on the property or premises of any place of employment.” But the law is silent…

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PA Supreme Court will decide whether two businesses can agree not to poach each other’s employees

Image Credit: Pixabay.com (https://pixabay.com/vectors/resume-unemployed-job-unemployment-2163673/) Company A and Company B work together from time to time on certain projects. Both companies have invested a lot of time, money, and other resources into their respective workforces and do not want to risk employees switching companies. So, they enter into a no-hire or…

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I can do better than yesterday’s weak sauce “72 police officers” post

By Zuzu – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link “72 police officers in trouble over offensive Facebook posts is your wake-up call to reeducate employees about responsible social media.” Yeah, that takeaway stinks. I should have focused on the conscious bias instead. Yesterday, at the SHRM Conference, I was talking…

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72 police officers in trouble over offensive Facebook posts is your wake-up call to reeducate employees about responsible social media.

By Zuzu – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link I’m typing this post in Las Vegas at the 2019 SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition. Several years ago, the intersection employee use of social media and HR compliance spawned several sessions on the topic. I should know; I delivered many of…

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You can’t fire an employee while on FMLA leave. Except when you can.

Image Credit: Pixabay.com Yesterday, I was reading this case about a woman who was fired while taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. She later sued, claiming FMLA interference; i.e., that her employer had denied her FMLA benefits to which she was otherwise entitled. An employee fired while…

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How in the world did a DEAD person get suspended for racist behavior?!?

Uncredited [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsNot only that but two different employers disciplined the same dead person on the same day. Last Friday, I was on the road in Cleveland doing some anti-harassment training for managers and supervisors. Minutes before my second session, I glanced down at my phone to…

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285,000 reasons that your company president shouldn’t ridicule an employee with a disability. Especially not in email.

Lorimar Productions/NBC [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsIn 1976, Sally Field played Sybil in the eponymous TV movie. Sybil was a teacher who suffered a breakdown in front of her students, only to be diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Throughout the movie, Sybil exhibits multiple personalities — 16 in all. Some…