Oregon Becomes First State to Mandate Bereavement Leave

Author: Melissa Burdorf, XpertHR Legal Editor

June 20, 2013

Effective January 1, 2014, Oregon has become the first state to require certain private employers to provide bereavement leave under a recent change to the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA). To prepare for this change, prior to January 1, employers covered under OFLA should:

  • Review and update their employee handbooks and leave policies/forms to comply with the amended (revised) law;
  • Update any practices and procedures regarding OFLA leave administration and tracking;
  • Update any bereavement policies or practices; and
  • Train supervisors on the new requirements.

Covered employers will be required to add bereavement leave to the list of allowable (qualifying) reasons for employees to take leave under OFLA.

In addition, eligible employees will be permitted to take up to two weeks of leave per death of a family member, which is defined in the same way as for other allowable OFLA leave (e.g., spouse, same gender domestic partner, parent, etc.) in order to:

  • Attend the funeral or alternative type of service;
  • Make arrangements necessitated by the death; or
  • Grieve the death.

Also under the amended law:

  • An employee can take a maximum of 12 weeks of bereavement leave per leave year (but only up to two weeks per death), which will be counted against the employee's overall OFLA entitlement.
  • An employee can start bereavement leave without prior notice to his or her employer, but the employee (or someone on the employee's behalf) must provide oral notice within 24 hours of taking leave and written notice within three days of returning back to work. Unlike other types of OFLA leave, an employer may not reduce an employee's two-week leave entitlement if the employee fails to provide timely notice.
  • An employee has 60 days from the date on which he or she receives notice of the death to complete the leave.
  • An employer may not require an employee to take multiple periods of concurrent leave if more than one family memberdies during the one-year leave period.
  • Spouses or same gender domestic partners who work for the same employer may take bereavement leave at the same time.

Now that the state legislative session is coming to a close, Oregon employers should be aware that several other new laws have passed that are also effective January 1, 2014. For more information on these new laws, click here, here and here.

Additional Resources

Employee Leaves > Other Leaves > Bereavement Leave

How to Deal With Grieving Employees

Bereavement Leave Policy

Managing an Employee's Bereavement and Bereavement Leave - Supervisor Briefing