The factory in which I work (in the state of Pennsylvania) has decided to mandatory overtime for this weekend for both Saturday and Sunday. We run all 3 shifts at our factory, but they only mandatoried for first shift. Were I am questioning if what they are doing is legal is the fact that they went down through all 3 shifts and picked which employees they wanted to work and mandatoried those employees for that mandatory Saturday and Sunday overtime. If they are only going to mandatory for first shift should it not have to be all of first shift, not the employees from all shifts that they decided they want? No voluntary list was posted for employees to sign up.

They may use any criteria they want to decide who must work overtime, as long as they do not use any protected characteristic (race, religon, national origin etc.).

I was doing some further research and found Senate Bill No 863 and House Bill No 861 that from what I found states:

Senate Bill No 863
Definition: "Overtime" Any period of time that an employee is required to work in excess of eight hours within one day or 40 hours within one week.
Section 3 - Right of refusal: An employee shall have the right to refuse to work overtime.
Section 4 - Termination: No employee who refuses to work in excess of eight hours within one day shall be terminated or otherwise discriminated against on the basis of that refusal.

House Bill No 861
Section 4 - Termination: No employee who refuses to work in excess of eight hours overtime shall be terminated or otherwise discriminated against on the basis of that refusal.
Section 5 - Effective date: THis act shall take effect immediately.

By my understanding of this by the Senate bill you can refuse to work more than 8 hours in any day and they cannot fire you. By the House Bill if you work 8 hours overtime (such as Saturday) then they cannot fire you for refusing to work more than that (Such as Sunday would make for 16 hours). What do you make of this :confused:

Please post a link to those bills - I need to see the context, the jurisdiction and whether they were actually signed into law before I comment.

the link is www.legis.state.pa.us. At the top right hand side of the screen there is a search just select search by bill number and type in the bill.

It would appear that neither bill has yet been signed into law.