On January 12, 2024, the Oregon Employment Department issued final rules clarifying its procedures and criteria for implementing Paid Leave Oregon. As a reminder, Paid Leave Oregon provides up to 12 weeks of paid family, medical, or safe leave in a year and applies to employers that have at least one employee in Oregon. See prior Benefit Beat articles here and here.

The final rules address safe leave purposes due to bias crimes, family member affinity status, job protection rights and health insurance premium repayments, and reporting requirements for equivalent plans, as briefly summarized below.

Safe leave

Safe leave includes bias crime. Examples of bias crime include but not limited to race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin. The final rules define the types of documentation that can be used to show bias crime.

Affinity status

The law defines family broadly to include individuals whose relationships would rise to the level of family status. The final rules outline a number of factors to help the Department assess whether an affinity relationship exists. The rules make it clear that no one factor is determinative.

Job protection and health insurance

The final rules clarify that when an employee’s position no longer exists upon return from Paid Leave Oregon, a large employer (defined as employing 25 or more employees) must offer an employee any available equivalent position with the same pay and benefits at a job site located within 50 miles of the employee’s former position.

If any size employer pays any part of the employee’s share of health insurance premium while the employee is on Paid Leave Oregon leave, the final rules allow the employer to deduct from an employee’s future paychecks the employee’s share of health insurance premiums paid by the employer until the amount is repaid. The employer may deduct up to 10% of the employee’s gross pay each pay period after the employee returns to work until the premium amounts are repaid.

Reporting requirements for equivalent plans

An employer can choose to offer its own plan rather than participate in the state program. Notably, an alternative plan must meet the minimum requirements of the state plan. These rules clarify reporting obligations and the dispute resolution process.

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