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Paid Sick Leave Law Now in Effect

Since January 1 of this year, employers have been required to provide sick leave to employees.

Roberta Gruber

The new law applies to all businesses in Oregon.

“If you have one person on the table, that means that you are covered under the new sick-time rules,” said Roberta Gruber, a labor law expert with the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Speaking at the Oregon Blueberry Conference January 25, Gruber said employers with fewer than ten employees (six in Portland) don’t have to pay for sick leave. They still, however, must meet all other requirements of the law, including tracking employee hours.

The state determines whether an employer meets the ten-worker threshold by calculating whether an employer has a “per-day average” of ten or more employees during each of twenty weeks of the previous calendar year.

The law excludes individuals employed by their parents, spouse or children, unless they receive W-2 reportable wages.

Employees start accruing sick leave from their first day on the job, but aren’t eligible to take sick leave until they have accrued ninety days of employment, Gruber said.

An employee that is terminated and starts back to work at the same business within 180 days maintains the hours he or she has accrued toward the sick leave. If the employee is re-hired after 180 days, the sick-leave clock is reset to zero.

“The employee starts as a new employee and has to work that 90 days before having access to the sick leave,” Gruber said.

Employers using a labor contractor should make sure their contract states that the contractor is the primary employer and, as such, is responsible for an employee’s sick time.

“Make sure that your contract says that and ensure that the contractor is tracking the employee time,” Gruber said.

Gruber also recommended that growers keep records of hours accrued by employees and document when employees take sick leave, preferably with a form that the employee signs.

The state has said it won’t be penalizing businesses in 2016 for violations of the new law, Gruber said. “That’s not what we hear from attorneys,” she added, “but as long as you’re trying, you should be in good stead.”

Gruber also advised blueberry growers to be aware that the U.S. Department of Labor is looking for those who “have diluted” their piece rate pay by including non-piece-rate activities into those payments.

She advised growers to establish a dual time record for most employees, one covering the time they are working piece rate and the other documenting the time they spend washing buckets or doing other non-piece rate activity in preparation of the piece-rate work.

“Keep in mind that the department of labor has been very active in the last few years,” she said, “and right now their strategy is looking for growers who have diluted that, who have spread that piece rate out further than it should have been."

Gruber also advised businesses to alter the existing language of their drug and alcohol policy to include recreational marijuana.

“If you have a drug and alcohol policy that has a zero tolerance, you are already in compliance,” Gruber said. “Recreational marijuana is still an illegal substance at the federal level, and so therefore it is an illegal substance in the workplace if you choose it to be so. But I recommend that you add a few words to your policy that includes recreational marijuana and states that you expect your employees to arrive to work sober and drug free and ready to do the job you have hired them to do.”

Gruber also pointed out that employers no longer can include on an application whether prospective employees have had a felony conviction.

“If you have applications for employment, please check them and make sure you remove that little box that asks ‘Have you been convicted of a felony and, if so, what was it,’” she said.
She noted that employers still can ask applicants in a face-to-face interview if they have been convicted of a felony.

 



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