It is not uncommon for employers to focus their compliance efforts on federal laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but it is important for employers to remember that Pennsylvania has its own state-specific employment laws that, in an increasing number of instances, provide more robust legal protections for employees than their federal counterparts. That is important because, in such instances, local employers must apply the law that is more beneficial to their employees.
One area in particular where Pennsylvania has strayed farther and farther from the federal rules is wage and hour law, where the Commonwealth’s statute–the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA)–has been interpreted in some instances to require higher pay for employees than the FLSA does.
Case in point: Just last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Heimbach, et al. v. Amazon.com, et al, determined Amazon must pay its Pennsylvania workers for time spent waiting for and going through mandatory screenings after their shifts, even though a federal court had just ruled that the time spent going through the same screenings was not compensable under federal law. The court ruled that the PMWA imposed stricter requirements than the FLSA, so Amazon’s Pennsylvania employees were entitled to be paid for the time they spent in the screening process, while employees in other states were not.
Along similar lines, last summer the...
NEW YORK, April 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Levi & Korsinsky, LLP alerts investors in ImmunityBio, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBRX) of a pending securities class action naming a senior executive as an ind...