Updates to Oregon Leave Laws

Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA) Background

The Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA) requires employers with at least 25 employees who work in the state to provide eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave within a one-year period to care for themselves or family members in cases of death, illness, injury, childbirth, adoption, or foster care placement.

An employee is eligible for OFLA leave if they have worked an average of 25 hours per week for 180 days. During a public health emergency, employees may become eligible for OFLA with 30 days of employment (rather than 180) if they have worked an average of 25 hours a week in the 30 days before taking leave.

Note that the Oregon Military Family Leave Act (OMFLA) provides up to 14 days of job-protected leave per deployment to an employee who is the spouse or domestic partner of a service member (of the US Armed Forces, the National Guard or US military reserve forces) who has been notified of an impending call or order to active duty or who has been deployed. OMFLA leave counts against an employee’s OFLA entitlement, but it remains available even if all OFLA leave has been exhausted. OMFLA eligibility requires employees work an average of 20 hours per week with no minimum length of employment.

Paid Leave Oregon (PLO) Background

The Paid Leave Oregon (PLO) program, passed by the Oregon State Legislature in August 2019, provides a state-administered income replacement program for Oregon workers to take up to 12 weeks (plus an additional two weeks for pregnancy disability) of paid, job-protected leave per year for family leave, medical leave, and safe leave (leave to care for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment, or stalking).

All employees working in Oregon (including remote workers) who have earned at least $1,000 in four out of the five quarters before starting leave are covered under PLO, including full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees.

Click here for a prior Risk Strategies article with more detailed information on PLO.

2024 OFLA Changes

To eliminate duplication of certain OFLA and PLO qualifying events and resulting confusion by employers administering leave requests, SB 1515 was signed into law to align these two Oregon leave laws and simplify leave administration, effective July 1, 2024. Notably, it minimizes employees from “stacking” leave, a practice in which employees take separate leave time under each law for the same qualifying event.

Highlights of the changes under SB 1515 include the following, effective July 1, 2024:

• OFLA & PLO will not run concurrently: Eligible employees may use either OFLA or Paid Leave Oregon, but not both, for qualifying events. This change minimizes employees from “stacking” leave under both OFLA and PLO, as noted above. Both OFLA & PLO will continue to run concurrently with the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
• OFLA is limited to the following qualifying events:
  • Sick child leave (12 weeks, expanded to include care for a child with a serious health condition);
  • Bereavement leave (two weeks per death of a family member and four weeks total per year, changed from 12 weeks total per year);
  • Pregnancy disability (12 additional weeks);
  • Leave to facilitate adoption or foster child placement (two weeks)
    • This provision expires Jan. 1, 2025, at which point PLO will cover this qualifying event.
• Use of other paid leave benefits: Employees may use any other paid leave benefits, such as sick, vacation, or personal time, during OFLA or PLO leaves, provided that the total combined amount does not exceed full wage replacement. However, employers may permit (but are not required to) employees to combine PLO benefits and other paid leave benefits to exceed the employee’s regular full wage. Employers may determine the particular order in which accrued leave is to be used when more than one type of paid leave is available, subject to the terms of any agreement between an employer and their employees or the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.

For further reference, see the chart below highlighting the changes to OFLA and PLO before and after July 1, 2024:

Updates to OFLA and Oregon Sick Time

In a related Oregon employee leave development, Oregon also recently finalized regulations impacting the OFLA and the Oregon sick time law. These changes took effect on March 2, 2024.

Although most of the updates were simply technical adjustments for clarification regarding Oregon’s various leave laws, there are several notable changes highlighted below:

1. Employers may require employees to attest in writing the existence of an “affinity” relationship when using Oregon sick time or OFLA leave to care for a family member. This attestation does not need to be notarized and may include the following same language as provided for in the final rules:

   SAMPLE LANGUAGE FOR WRITTEN ATTESTATION DEMONSTRATING “AFFINITY” FAMILY RELATIONSHIP

   I, (full name) _______________________, share a significant bond with (name of other person) _________________ and they are like a family member to me.

   Any facts about your relationship can make it like a family. Common examples include:

   1. Shared personal financial responsibility, including shared leases, common ownership of real or personal property, joint liability for bills or beneficiary designations;
   2. Emergency contact designation of the employee by the other individual in the relationship or the emergency contact designation of the other individual in the relationship by the employee;
   3. The expectation to provide care because of the relationship or the prior provision of care;
   4. Cohabitation and its duration and purpose;
   5. Geographic proximity; and
   6. Other factors that demonstrate the existence of a family-like relationship.
2. Domestic partners (as family members) are no longer required to be of the same sex as the employee under both laws.
3. Employers are required to count any hours of protected leave the employee has taken when calculating an employee’s average hours per week for OFLA eligibility purposes.
4. OFLA’s definition of “serious health condition” is expanded to include disability resulting from the termination of a pregnancy and absences due to fertility or infertility (reasons employees may take pregnancy disability leave)
5. Employers are required to transition to a rolling-forward, one-year period to provide all eligible employees with a new, full leave bank at the beginning of a new OFLA leave year.
6. Employers may temporarily designate an absence as OFLA leave when they receive notice (from any source) that an employee has applied for PLO.

Employer Next Steps

Employers with Oregon employees are advised to work with their employment and labor counsel to:

1. Update their leave policies, handbooks, and leave tracking systems, as necessary, to reflect these updates and upcoming changes,
2. Inform employees about these updates and upcoming changes,
3. Train Human Resources team members and other employees who manage employee leaves, and
4. Monitor the OFLA webpage for updated posters and rules clarifying these updates and upcoming changes.

Risk Strategies is closely following updates to the Oregon leave law landscape and will provide updates when available. Contact us directly at benefits@risk-strategies.com.