Oregon Becomes Fourth State to Pass Paid Sick Leave Law
By Doug Parker and Don Stait
June 15, 2015 - Littler Mendelson P.C.
On June 12, 2015, the Oregon legislature passed Senate Bill 454, legislation
that will require most employers with 10 or more employees in Oregon to provide
employees with up to 40 hours per year of paid sick leave. As discussed
below, Portland employers with six or more employees already must provide sick
leave. Oregon employers with fewer than 10 employees (or six in Portland)
will be required to provide up to 40 hours per year of unpaid sick leave.
Once the new measure is signed into law by Governor Kate Brown as expected,
Oregon will join California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in enacting
state-wide paid sick leave legislation.
The new sick leave law applies to virtually all people working in the
state: full-time and part-time hourly, salaried, commissioned and
piece-rate employees, as well as home care employees who provide hourly or
live-in care to the elderly or disabled and who receive money from the Oregon
Department of Human Services. Only independent contractors, employees who
receive paid sick leave under federal law, participants in certain work-training
or work-study programs, and children employed by their parents, are excluded
from coverage.
Passage of sick leave legislation applicable to all Oregon employers follows
local government initiatives in Portland and Eugene. The Portland
ordinance, enforced since January 1, 2014, requires employers of six employees
within Oregon to provide paid sick leave, and employers with less than six
employees to provide unpaid sick leave. That provision of the Portland
ordinance will remain in effect. Portland employers must comply with the
new state law in all other respects. However, the City of Eugenefs sick
leave ordinance, which was to go into effect on July 1, 2015, will now be
preempted, meaning Eugene employers must comply with the state law only.
The new law prohibits any other local government from imposing different sick
leave requirements on private employers and instead requires adherence to the
new state law.
Under the new Oregon law, paid sick leave will immediately begin to accrue
for current employees on January 1, 2016 at a rate of one hour for every 30
hours of actual work. Employees hired after that date will begin accruing
sick leave immediately upon hire (although they cannot begin using it until the
91st calendar day after they begin work).
Sick leave pay will be based on the employeefs regular rate of pay.
Employees paid on a commission or piece-rate basis will receive sick leave pay
at the current Oregon minimum wage. Salaried employees exempt from
overtime are presumed to work 40 hours per week for accrual purposes unless the
actual workweek of the employee is less than 40 hours, in which case sick time
accrues based on the actual workweek of the employee.
Oregon employers will not be required to pay out accrued sick leave balances
when an employee resigns or is terminated, but any accrued sick leave must be
restored to an employee who is rehired within 180 days. An employee will
not lose his or her accrued sick leave if transferred to another Oregon facility
of the same employer or upon the sale of the business to another employer.
Employees are permitted to use accrued sick leave in one-hour increments,
which for the most part tracks allowable incremental time uses under the Oregon
Family Leave Act (gOFLAh). These uses include leave taken for their own or
a family memberfs illness, injury or health conditions and/or medical
diagnosis. Paid sick leave may also be used for any of the following
reasons:
- To care for an infant or newly adopted or foster child;
- To care for a child who needs home care;
- To make funeral arrangements, attend the funeral or grieve for a family
member who has died;
- To seek legal or law enforcement assistance to ensure the health and
safety of the employee or the employeefs dependent;
- To obtain, or to assist a dependent in obtaining counseling from a
licensed mental health professional or services from a victim service
provider, or to relocate or take steps to secure an existing home because of
an experience of domestic violence, harassment, sexual assault or stalking;
or
- To deal with situations in which the employee is excluded from the
workplace for health reasons or because of the closure of the employeefs place
of business, or closure of the school or place of care of the employeefs
dependent, by order of a public official due to a public health
emergency.
The new Oregon law also provides that employers may require employees to make
reasonable attempts to schedule sick leave when it is least disruptive to the
employer and to provide reasonable notice of their intention to take sick leave
when that leave is foreseeable. The employer may also require
documentation only for periods of sick leave of three days or more. Under
the new law it will be illegal to deny, interfere with or retaliate against an
employee who has taken sick leave as provided under the statute.
The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) is charged with
adopting rules for implementation and enforcement of the new law.
Employers should examine their sick leave policies now to determine whether
they will need to make changes to bring them into compliance before the law
takes effect on January 1, 2016.
© 2015 Littler Mendelson P.C.
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