Oregon Paid Sick and Safe Time: Employee Handbook Statements Added

Author: Melissa Gonzalez Boyce, XpertHR Legal Editor

Oregon's paid sick and safe time law takes effect on January 1, 2016. Under the new law, employers with 10 or more employees must provide up to 40 hours of paid sick and safe time per year, while employers with fewer than 10 employees must provide up to 40 hours of unpaid sick and safe time. The paid provisions also apply to employers in large cities (population exceeding 500,000, e.g., Portland) with six or more employees working anywhere in the state.
To help Oregon employers comply with this new law, XpertHR has added the following handbook statements:

The above statements were prepared using two criteria:

  1. The size of the employer; and
  2. The method for providing the 40 hours of leave to employees.

The accrual policies should be used by employers that wish to provide employees with sick and safe time based on hours worked. The lump sum policies should be used by employers that prefer to provide employees with the full amount of leave at the beginning of a 12-month period, rather than requiring employees to accrue leave time based on hours worked.

Alert: The passage of Oregon's statewide paid sick and safe time law preempts the Portland ordinance. Therefore, as of January 1, 2016, the Portland ordinance will no longer be in effect. As a result, we have removed the following statements:

  • Sick Time Handbook Statement [1-5 Employees]: Portland, Oregon; and
  • Paid Sick Time Handbook Statement [6+ Employees]: Portland, Oregon.

The Table of Contents for the Oregon handbook has been updated to reflect these changes.