If you have employees in Eugene, recent changes
in the law can leave you feeling confused. No, this is not another article
about dazed employees due to recreational marijuana becoming in legal in
Oregon. But it in many ways it is a similar situation due to conflicting laws
at different levels of government.
Sick leave advocates have used municipality
elections as a battleground to advance their cause. In Oregon, Portland passed
a sick leave ordinance in 2013 and Eugene followed suit the following year. But
just days before Eugene was able to pass their law, Lane County preempted it
with a series of ordinances that nullified Eugene’s ability to pass laws pertaining to sick
leave. Undaunted, the Eugene City Council moved ahead with passage of a leave
law and is in the development of rules phase. You can view the particulars of
the Eugene sick leave law here.
Can Eugene enforce a sick leave law? A lack of
clarity leaves employers in an unwelcome position. Either the City of Eugene or
Lane County could try to resolve this ambiguity by bumping that question up to
the state level to see which law(s) supersedes the other. In reviewing the
press releases from Lane County there was no obvious reference to Eugene’s sick
leave beyond the initial passage of the county ordinance. The county seems to
have passed their set of laws and forgot about it. Similarly the city fails to
address this contradiction either on their sick leave webpage or in the FAQs. A
failure by either side to clarify this question is a violation of the public’s
trust.
What should you do as an employer with employees
in Eugene? The safest thing to do is to provide sick leave and meet the minimal
requirements. If you do not offer sick leave or some equivalent, at a
minimum begin tracking employee hours beginning July 1, 2015 in case the city
prevails.
Stay tuned for further developments. This is an issue that the Oregon Legislature might step in with a
statewide requirement.
Arin J. Carmack
Risk Management
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