Human Resource Blog

Discrimination and Favoritism In Pennsylvania

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Is there a law about an employer being consistent in Pennsylvania? A two part question. Several people in my office have been told that they cannot work from home because the boss would rather us being in the office (I guess to ensure that we are working). One woman is currently permitted to work from home because she recently had a baby. There is another woman who we all thought was only part time but it turns out that she is permitted to work from home as well to bring her to full time hours. There rest of us would like to have this as an option as well. We don’t have an HR dept to direct this query to. Part two: this same woman who we all thought was part time has also been looking for medical coverage for the company. She has told several ppl in the office that she is looking for the best coverage for her because she has two children. The rest of us didn’t have any say in which insurance was chosen but the boss went with the one that seems to favor having children since this is the one she wanted. Is this illegal at all?

It sounds like this employer is showing favoritism, but that’s not necessarily illegal. Favoritism in the workplace is not illegal in

Pennsylvania or any other state.

It’s important to distinguish between illegal discrimination and favoritism.

Illegal discrimination occurs when one or more employees is treated poorly based on their race, color, religion, national ancestry, sex, age (over 40) or disability. As long as those factors are not the cause of employees being treated differently, it is probably not illegal.

An employer could treat all the employees who worked on the evening shift badly, and all the day shift employees well. This wouldn’t be illegal discrimination, unless it singled out workers of a protected group.

Favoritism is when the employer treats one employee better than the others, and it is legal. It can be for any number of reasons. Tom may hire his wife or his daughter and treat her better than the other employees. Or, he could show favoritism to an employee because they are personal friends, have an intimate relationship, or because he thinks she’s pretty, or for almost any other reason.

If Cindy is the only Caucasian employee, or the only woman, and she is treated better than others, that may be illegal discrimination. But if Cindy is treated better than other Caucasian or female workers, that is simply legal favoritism.

Often, supervisors show favoritism to workers based on their performance, or on the supervisor’s perception of the employee’s performance. There is nothing wrong with this – in fact, it’s perfectly appropriate to discriminate between employees who do a good job and those who do not.

It’s perfectly reasonable for an employer to have a policy that employees are not allowed to work from home.

However, in some cases, the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act, can require that an employee with a health problem be permitted to work from home as a “reasonable accommodation” of the employee’s disability. While the “part-time” employee may not be covered under

ADA, the employee who recently gave birth almost certainly is.

Both the ADA and HIPAA require that the employer keep the worker’s medical information confidential. So, the employer may not be at liberty to discuss why an employee is being allowed to work from home part-time and in the office part-time.

Even if ADA is not a factor and the employer is making an exception to the “no working from home” policy for one or two employees, that doesn’t make it illegal. It also does not mean that he or she has to permit every employee to work from home.

Some companies have policies against favoritism or nepotism, but most do not.

As far as insurance goes, there is no law that employers are required to offer health insurance to workers. If they do, the employer is completely free to choose the plan offered.

If you and your coworkers are not satisfied with the health insurance, you could certainly research alternative plans and, as a group, express your preference for a different plan. The employer would be free to decide if he wants to switch plans or not. Generally health insurance is not a democratic decision where every employee gets a vote. The employer chooses the plan offered, and employees can take it or leave it.