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SB 123, just passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Brown, makes several amendments to Oregon’s pay equity law. Most notable are the revisions to the limited affirmative defense available to employers in litigation. The law previously provided employers a “safe harbor” from emotional distress and punitive damages if a lawsuit is filed,…

Oregon’s new Equal Pay Act and “Pay Equity Analyses” are all the rage in Oregon right now. The majority of the Act’s new requirements go into effect January 1, 2019. Let’s talk about 10 things you should do before the end of the year to make sure you are in compliance with the law.

  1. If you haven’t already removed past compensation questions from your job applications, do so now. The Act makes it unlawful to ask job applicants (or their prior employers) about their current or past compensation until after a conditional job offer that includes the amount of compensation is made.
  2. Train your hiring managers not to ask applicants about current or past compensation. The Act requires employers to pay people based on the job they are (or will be) performing, not what they were paid by a previous employer. Employers must not ask applicants about their current compensation. You can, however, ask applicants about their salary and compensation expectations – but be careful to frame the inquiry to expectations, and be aware that a badly phrased question is a potential violation of this particular provision of the statute.
  3. Rethink salary negotiations – in Oregon, those might be a thing of the past (!). The Act requires employers to pay employees who are doing comparable work the same, unless there is “bona fide factor” to explain the difference such as a seniority system, a merit system, training or experience, or another factor expressly listed in the law. Unless tied to one of those listed factors, market demands or negotiating skills are not bona fide factors justifying a pay disparity.

Continue Reading Pay Equity: 10 Things for Oregon Employers to Do Before the End of the Year

Oregon recently passed amendments to its statewide sick time law, clearing up several areas of uncertainty for employers.  The amendments clarify that:

  • Employers may cap employees’ annual accrual of sick leave at 40 hours. The pre-amendment version of the sick leave law stated that employees had the right to “earn and use up to 40 hours of paid sick time per year,” but also mandated that employees accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.  At the “1 for 30” rate, full-time employees would reach the 40-hour limit well before the end of the year, leading to confusion about whether they were entitled to continue accruing sick time for the remainder of the year (which would, in effect, give them more than 40 hours of annual leave).  The amendments, which expressly state that “[e]mployers may limit the number of hours of paid sick time that employees may accrue to 40 hours per year,” make clear that continued accrual beyond 40 hours is not a requirement.  Once employees have accrued 40 hours, they are done for the year, even if there are several months left in which they will not accrue any time.

Continue Reading Oregon Amends Sick Leave Law: 5 Key Clarifications

Portland, Oregon’s new “ban the box” ordinance went into effect on July 1, 2016.  We blogged about Oregon’s statewide “ban the box” law here.  Portland’s new ordinance is more restrictive and prohibits covered employers from conducting criminal background checks until after a conditional job offer is made.  Detailed information about the new ordinance is available here.

Are You a Covered Employer?

The Portland ordinance applies to private companies that have six or more employees, with at least one employee who spends a majority of his or her time working within the City of Portland.

You are completely exempt from the law if:

  1. You have fewer than six employees;
  2. Federal, state, or local law requires you to consider an applicant’s criminal history;
  3. You are a law enforcement agency or part of the criminal justice system; or
  4. You are seeking a nonemployee volunteer.

Continue Reading Portland, Oregon’s More Restrictive “Ban the Box” Ordinance

Oregon’s new minimum wage law, signed by Governor Brown on March 2, 2016, received a lot of press during the 2016 legislative session.  This new law establishes a tiered system for determination of the minimum wage based on the location of the employer.  The minimum wage will increase annually on July 1 of each year, with the first increase (from $9.25 to $9.50 in rural areas and to $9.75 everywhere else) taking place this year.  By 2022, Oregon’s minimum wage will increase to $14.75 inside Portland’s urban growth boundary, $13.50 in midsize counties, and $12.50 in rural areas. The full text of the enrolled Senate bill is available here.

With minimum wage receiving all of the attention, Oregon employers may have missed other employment-related bills.  Here are the bills that passed during the 2016 Oregon Legislative Session and those that failed (but we might see again in the future).
Continue Reading 2016 Oregon Legislative Update: What You Might Have Missed

It’s been an active legislative session in Oregon this year regarding laws affecting the state’s employers.  Hot on the heels of enacting laws relating to paid sick leave, noncompete agreements, and employee privacy on social media, Governor Kate Brown also recently signed into law House Bill 3025.  That law will make …

Governor Kate Brown signed into law the new Oregon Paid Sick Leave (“OPSL”) law enacted by the Legislature on June 12. The new law becomes effective January 1, 2016. Oregon is the fourth state to enact a state-wide paid sick leave law after Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California. The text of the OPSL is available here.

The OPSL will look familiar to Oregon employers that have already been dealing with local PSL ordinances enacted in Portland and Eugene in recent years, which OPSL now preempts and replaces. OPSL largely tracks those local leave laws in substance, and generally requires employers to provide up to 40 hours of sick leave per year. Here is a detailed summary of its requirements, including where it differs from the Portland and Eugene ordinances.
Continue Reading Oregon Enacts State-Wide Paid Employee Sick Leave Which (Mostly) Replaces Local Ordinances in Portland and Eugene

As we blogged about earlier, courts in most states just plain don’t like employee noncompete agreements. Particularly when it comes to mid- and low-level employees, courts worry that enforcing a noncompete agreement will hamper innovation, restrict competition, and unfairly burden a former employee’s ability to earn a living. For that reason, a court typically will review an noncompete’s justification, scope, and length with the judicial equivalent of a fine-tooth comb.

Courts have been picking away at the enforceability of employee noncompetes for years, but more recently, legislatures have jumped into the mix with varying levels of aggressiveness. California has long banned noncompetes outright, and several other states either have followed suit (e.g., North Dakota) or are considering whether to pass similar laws (e.g., Massachusetts, Washington). Still others have adopted laws that make it easier for employers to enforce noncompetes (e.g., Georgia), or are considering whether to do so to remedy past judicial reticence in the area (e.g., Wisconsin).Continue Reading Oregon Tightens the Screws on Noncompetes: 18 Months Will Soon Be the Maximum Period of Restriction

As we noted a while ago, Oregon recently joined the growing number of states that prohibit an employer from demanding access to an employee’s personal social media account. An Oregon employer may not require an employee or applicant to disclose her username, password, or “other means of authentication that provides access to a personal social media account.” Neither may an employer require an employee or applicant to friend, follow, or otherwise connect with it via a social media account, or to permit the employer to “shoulder surf” while the employee is logged in. There are exceptions—business-related social media accounts and workplace investigations are notable ones—but the rule is fairly clear: When it comes to employees’ personal social media accounts, it’s probably best for an employer to keep its distance.

Seems simple enough, right? Maybe, but here in Oregon, we like not to be outdone by our neighbors. So, last week, Governor Kate Brown signed Senate Bill 185, which adds a few interesting tweaks to the “model” approach that most other states (including Oregon) have followed when adopting social media protections for employees.Continue Reading Oregon Legislature to Employers: Stay Out of Employees’ Personal Social Media Accounts!