The Oregon Employment Law Guide

Employers must pay their employees at least every 35 days on regular paydays the employer chooses in advance. The payday must be within 35 days of the end of the pay period. New employees must receive their first paycheck within 35 days of their first day of work, regardless of the payroll period.

Each pay period, employers must provide employees with a pay statement. Employers can provide the statement electronically only if the employee expressly agrees and can print or store the statement when they receive it. The statement must include all the following information: Gross wages; Itemized deductions; Allowances, if any, claimed as part of the minimum wage; Their regular hourly rate (unless the employee is salaried and exempt); Their overtime rate (unless the employee is salaried and exempt); Their number of regular hours and pay for those hours (unless the employee is salaried and exempt); Their number of overtime hours and pay for those hours (unless the employee is salaried and exempt); Their rate of pay, whether the employee is paid by the hour, shift, day, week, piece, or commission, or on a salary; If the employee is paid on a piece rate, the number of pieces completed and each piece rate and the total pay for each piece rate; Net wages; The employee’s name; The employer’s name and business registry number or business identification number; The employer’s address and phone number; The date of payment; The beginning and end dates of the pay period.

Employers who run background checks should ensure they’re following the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which are available here. Employers may not include in their job announcements a statement to the effect of they will only consider people who are currently employed for the position.

Oregon requires that employers conduct background checks on the following types of employees or applicants: School personnel, including private schools, alternative education programs, and career schools; Mortgage loan originators; Personnel working for a residential facility, a long-term care facility, an adult foster home, a home health agency, or an in-home care agency; Personnel at bingo, lotto, raffle, or Monte Carlo events; Child care facility personnel, including volunteers.

Employers may not obtain a credit report for employment purposes, except under the following circumstances: The employer is a federally insured bank or credit union; The employer is required by state or federal law to obtain a credit report for employment purposes; The applicant or employee is or will be a police officer; The employer informs the applicant or employee in writing why they are using their credit report and the information in the report is substantially job-related because an essential function of the job requires access to financial information not customarily provided in a retail transaction that is not a loan or extension of credit or the job is one the employer is required to obtain a credit report to obtain insurance or a surety or fidelity bond.

Oregon has a “Ban the Box” law. Under the law employers are prohibited from asking applicants about their criminal history on an application or at any time prior to an interview. If no interview is conducted, employers may not ask prior to a conditional offer of employment. Employers may not request arrest records unless they are less than one year old and there has been no acquittal or dismissal.

The City of Portland has a stricter Ban the Box ordinance than the state, which applies to employers with six or more employees. Covered employers are prohibited from asking about criminal histories until a conditional offer of employment is made. Inquiries cannot be made during the interview process. If employers are made aware of a criminal history after a conditional offer has been made they should assess the nature, seriousness, and recency of the crime and be prepared to support any adverse action with written documentation.

Oregon does not expressly allow or prohibit employers from testing their applicants or employees for drugs. Employers may only subject an applicant or employee to a breathalyzer test if they have reasonable suspicion that the applicant or employee is drunk, or if they consent despite a lack of reasonable suspicion.

Domestic workers must be given eight consecutive hours of rest during every 24-hour period, as well as a location for uninterrupted sleep. If this period of rest is interrupted by a call to duty, any time worked during the rest period must be paid at one and one-half times their regular base rate regardless of the total number of hours worked in the week.

Employers may not discharge or discriminate against an employee for doing any of the following: Reporting crimes; Filing a civil action against the employer;  Opposing unsafe practices in the workplace; Complaining about discrimination;  Reporting in good faith what they believe to be a violation of the law.

COBRA is a federal law that allows many employees to continue their health insurance benefits after their employment ends. Because federal COBRA only applies to employers that have 20 or more employees, many states have adopted their own versions of the law, which are known as “mini-COBRAs.” Oregon’s mini-COBRA allows employees to continue their coverage for up to nine months.

Employers must provide notice to the employee’s surviving, divorced, or separated spouse who is at least 55 years old within 14 days of receiving notice of the employee’s death, divorce, or legal separation. The notice must include the following: An election form to continue coverage; The amount of premium payments; How and where to make their premium payments; Instructions for mailing the completed election form within 60 days.

The Fair Scheduling Law requires businesses that have 500 or more employees worldwide and are in the retail, hospitality, and food service industries to provide employees with a written, good faith estimate of their work schedule at the time of hire. The estimate must include the median number of hours the employee can expect to work in an average month, explain the voluntary standby list, and indicate whether an employee can expect to be placed on-call. Employers must also give employees a written advance notice of their schedule 7 days before the first day of the schedule. Employers may keep a standby list of employees who want to work extra hours in the instance of unexpected absences or unanticipated customer needs. Employees may only be on the list if they agree in writing. Employees may refuse to work any additional hours added to their established schedule if there is no advanced notice, and if they agree to work them (or any other changed shifts, such as if the hours are changed or lengthened), they are entitled to one hour of extra pay. Employers are not allowed to schedule an employee to work for a period of 10 hours after the end of the employee’s previous shift unless the employee requests or consents. If an employer requires an employee to work in that time period, they must be paid 1 ½ times their regular rate.

Domestic workers must be provided with a rest period of at least 24 consecutive hours during each work week. An employee may agree to work on day of rest only if all the following conditions are met: The employee voluntarily agrees; The agreement is written in a way that the employee can easily understand; The agreement is made prior to any services performed on the day of rest and specifies the particular day of rest on which the employee will work; The agreement is acknowledged by both the employee and the employer. All time worked on a day of rest must be paid at a rate of at least 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate of pay, regardless of the total number of hours worked that particular work week.

Employers may not: Require or request that an employee or an applicant establish or maintain a personal social media account; Require an employee or applicant to disclose or to provide access through the employee’s or applicant’s user name and password, or other means of authentication that provides access to a personal social media account; Compel an employee or applicant for employment to access a personal social media account in the presence of the employer and in a manner that enables the employer to view the contents of the personal social media account that are visible only when the personal social media account is accessed by the account holder’s user name and password, password or other means of authentication; Compel an employee or applicant for employment to add the employer or an employment agency to the employee’s or applicant’s list of contacts associated with a social media website; Require that an employee or applicant authorize the employer to advertise on a personal social media account; Take or threaten to take any adverse action against an employee for refusing to establish or maintain a personal social media account.

Get our Compliance Calendar to stay on top of deadlines throughout the year: View it on your computer. Click + Google Calendar in the lower right to add it to your Google Calendar and subscribe to all updates. You can also download a calendar (.ics) file that you can import into iCal or Outlook, or download a PDF to your computer.  

View the resources available to Oregon business owners and workers impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in our state-by-state COVID-19 Resource Center.