As of 8:00 p.m. Thursday evening, March 19, 2020, all “non-life-sustaining” businesses throughout Pennsylvania must close its physical locations in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, according to a new order issued by Gov. Tom Wolf.
The new mandate, which is a follow-up to the administration’s recommendation that all non-essential businesses suspend operations to…
Yesterday, President Trump signed into law historic legislation that will have a significant impact on a many employers nation-wide. The legislation, called the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, has many provisions. We will focus this discussion on the workplace issues that most employers can expect to face.
Paid Sick Leave
The law includes the Emergency…
Coronavirus (COVID-19) has dramatically changed our daily lives, at least for now and the foreseeable future. What tomorrow (or the next hour) will bring is a bit uncertain. In an effort to assist employers faced with unique challenges in the context of this pandemic, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a new…
Federal government contractors will need to be aware of the Fair Chance Act, a recently enacted statute that is scheduled to go into effect on December 20, 2021. The Act is a “ban-the-box” law that prohibits covered employers from inquiring about an applicant’s criminal history in the early stages of the hiring process. The Act…
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it has been named, is a respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in late 2019 during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China. Cases of coronavirus have…
Lately, products containing CBD (from beer to skin cream to oils that can be diffused and vaped) seem to be all the rage. Why are CBD products suddenly turning up everywhere (your local Sheetz convenience store for example)? Blame it on the Farm Bill! The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (otherwise known as the U.S.…
Two years ago, the first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Pennsylvania. Since that time, well over a hundred thousand Pennsylvania residents have become certified to use medical marijuana, additional conditions were added to the listed of qualifying serious health conditions and employers started to field questions from employees who wanted to use (or already were…
As a follow up to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in April 2019, the US Department of Labor (DOL) announced on January 12, 2020, the issuance of a Final Rule to revise and clarify the standard for joint employment status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The DOL explained that the Final Rule…
If your business operates in California, you need to be aware of AB 51, a law that will take effect January 1, 2020. AB 51 precludes employers from requiring any applicant or employee, as a condition of employment, continued employment, or the receipt of any employment-related benefit, “to waive any right, forum, or procedure”…
A lot of times, determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee is tough. Different laws have different standards, and government agencies and the courts often apply different tests in addressing this question. Under any test, the analysis is highly fact intensive, and the consequences of misclassification can be steep.
Luckily, the…
