Oregon Scheduling Requirement Effective July 1, 2018

Oregon's 2017 Legislative Assembly passed a scheduling requirement bill affecting employers in the retail, hospitality, and food service industries who have at least 500 employees worldwide. Subject employers must comply with the law beginning July 1, 2018.

Employers will determine their employee count by calculating the average number of employees worked on each work day during each of 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Salaried employees who are exempt from minimum wage and employees provided by a worker leasing company are not included in the count. Employers who are part of an integrated enterprise must account for the employees of all retail, hospitality, and food service businesses in the integrated enterprise when determining if they are subject.

Subject employers must provide work schedules in writing at least seven calendar days before the first day on the schedule. The written schedule must be posted in a conspicuous and accessible location, such as an employee break room. New employees must receive their schedule on or before their first day of work. Existing employees returning from a leave of absence must receive their schedule on the first day of work after the leave. The work schedule must include all work shifts and on-call shifts for the period. Once written notice is provided, employers may change the schedule, however timely notice of the change must be provided to the employee and the employee may decline any shifts not included in the written schedule. Employees may request in writing to be added to shifts and employers can comply without penalty.

Changes made without seven days advance notice are subject to additional compensation. The employee is entitled to one hour at their regular rate of pay, in addition to wages earned, if the employer adds more than 30 minutes of work to the employee's shift, changes the date, start time, or end time of the employee's shift with no loss of hours, or schedules the employee for an additional shift.

If the change results in a loss of hours, the employer is required to pay one-half times the employee's regular rate of pay, per hour, for each scheduled hour the employee does not work. This applies when the employer subtracts hours from the shift before or after the employee reports for duty, if an employer changes the date, start time, or end time of the employee's shift resulting in lost hours, if the employer cancels the shift, or if the employee is not asked to perform work when scheduled for an on-call shift.

Employers may have a voluntary standby list of employees willing to work additional, unanticipated hours. Employers must provide documentation to the employees stating the list is voluntary, explaining how an employee can be removed from the list, and detailing how employees will be notified of additional hours and how employees accept the additional hours. The document must also state employees are not required to accept the additional hours and they are not eligible for the additional compensation detailed above for changes to their written work schedule resulting from their acceptance of additional hours as members of the voluntary standby list.

The new law also stipulates employers must uphold an employee's right to rest between shifts. Employers can not schedule or require an employee to work during the first 10 hours following the end of a previous calendar day's shift or the first 10 hours following the end of a shift that spanned two calendar days, unless the employee requests or consents to work the hours. If an employee works during the first 10-hour period, the employer must compensate the employee at one and one-half times the regular pay rate for each hour or portion of an hour worked during the first 10-hour period. For example, if the employee's shift ends at 5 pm on Monday, the employee can not be scheduled again until after 3 am on Tuesday. If the employee's next shift starts at 1 am on Tuesday, the employer must pay one and one-half times the employee's regular rate for the hours worked from 1 am to 3 am.

In addition to posting the written work schedule, employers must also display a poster with the rights and responsibilities of the new law. The poster must be displayed in a conspicuous place or provided on an individual basis if displaying the poster is not feasible.

New employees must be provided a good faith estimate of their work schedule at the time of hire. This includes the average number of hours the employee is expected to work in an average month, an explanation of the voluntary standby list, if the employer has one, and the objective standard for when an employee not on the voluntary standby list may be expected to work on-call shifts, if applicable.

The seven calendar day deadline for posting work schedules and making changes to written schedules is effective until July 1, 2020, at which point the deadline will increase to fourteen calendar days prior.