Oregon’s predictive scheduling law, formally the Fair Work Week Act, requires large retail, hospitality, and food service employers to give you a written schedule 14 days in advance, pay you extra when they change it late, and leave at least 10 hours between your shifts. If your employer breaks those rules, you’re owed money on top of your regular wages, and you can file a complaint with the state.
Who the Law Covers
The Act applies to employers in retail, hospitality, and food services that have at least 500 employees worldwide, counting every location and any integrated enterprises such as same-brand franchises.1Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.422 – Covered Employees; Integrated Enterprises; Rules That threshold sweeps in most national chains and many regional operators while leaving smaller independent businesses out.
You’re a covered employee if you work at a fixed Oregon location for one of these employers in retail trade, hotel or motel operations, casino hotels, or food services as classified under the North American Industry Classification System.2Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 653.412 – Definitions Where the company is headquartered doesn’t matter. If the Oregon worksite and the employee count both qualify, so do you.
What Your Employer Owes You Up Front
When you’re hired, your employer must give you a written good faith estimate of your expected schedule. It has to include the median hours you can expect in an average month, an explanation of the employer’s voluntary standby list, and whether you may be assigned on-call shifts. If on-call shifts are possible, the estimate must spell out an objective standard for when you’d be expected to be available.3Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.428 – Good Faith Estimate of Work Schedule The estimate must be written in the language your employer normally uses with you. For seasonal or episodic work, it can be based on a prior year’s schedule as long as it’s still a genuine projection.
The estimate doesn’t guarantee you any set number of hours. It gives you a realistic picture before you accept the job, and it’s the baseline a BOLI investigator can later compare against what actually happened.
You can also tell your employer at any time about limits on your availability, request not to be scheduled at certain times or locations, or flag constraints like childcare. Your employer doesn’t have to grant every request, but retaliating against you for making one is prohibited.4Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Predictive Scheduling
The 14-Day Advance Schedule
Your employer must give you a written work schedule at least 14 calendar days before the first day it covers.5Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.436 – Advance Notice of Work Schedule It has to be posted in a visible, accessible spot at the workplace in English and in whatever other language the employer typically uses with employees. If you’re not on-site during the posting period, your employer has to deliver the schedule to you electronically.
This 14-day window is the backbone of the law. Any change the employer makes after posting (or after they should have posted) triggers predictability pay. Keep a copy of every schedule as it goes up; it’s the single most useful piece of evidence if a dispute later arises.
Predictability Pay When the Schedule Changes
When your employer changes your schedule after the 14-day window has passed, you’re entitled to extra pay on top of your regular wages. The amount depends on whether the change gives you more work or less.
When Hours Are Added or Shifted
You’re owed one extra hour of pay at your regular rate when your employer adds more than 30 minutes to a shift, moves a shift’s date or start/end time without cutting your total hours, or schedules you for an additional shift or on-call shift.6Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.455 – Compensation for Work Schedule Changes; Exceptions You still earn your normal wages for the hours worked. The extra hour is on top.
When Hours Are Cut or Canceled
A steeper rule applies when the change takes hours away. Your employer owes you half your regular hourly rate for every scheduled hour you don’t end up working. That applies when your shift is shortened before or after you report, when the timing is moved in a way that cuts hours, when the shift is canceled outright, or when you aren’t called in for a scheduled on-call shift.6Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.455 – Compensation for Work Schedule Changes; Exceptions If an eight-hour shift is canceled, you’d receive four hours of pay even though you didn’t work.
Predictability pay has to appear on your pay stub. If it doesn’t show up when it should, that’s a recordkeeping failure on your employer’s side.
When It Doesn’t Apply
Not every change triggers extra pay. Predictability pay isn’t owed when:
- A shift’s start or end moves by 30 minutes or less.
- You and a coworker arrange a swap yourselves (your employer can require pre-approval but can’t broker the trade).
- You request a schedule change in writing, including dropping or picking up hours.
- Your hours are reduced for documented just-cause discipline.
- A shift can’t go forward because of safety threats to employees or property, or a public official recommends closure.
- Electricity, water, gas, or sewer service fails.
- A natural disaster outside the employer’s control physically affects the worksite.
- A ticketed event is canceled, rescheduled, or changed in duration for reasons beyond the employer’s control.
- You’re on the voluntary standby list and accept offered extra hours.
- The employer needs coverage for unexpected demand or absences, you consent in writing, and the standby list has already been exhausted.
The swap exception is the one worth knowing well. The moment your employer starts arranging the trade instead of just approving it, the exception falls away and predictability pay applies.6Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.455 – Compensation for Work Schedule Changes; Exceptions
Ten Hours of Rest Between Shifts
Your employer cannot schedule you to work during the first 10 hours after your previous shift ended. The rule applies both to shifts on consecutive days and to shifts that span two calendar days, like an overnight followed by a morning.7Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.442 – Right to Rest Between Work Shifts
You can agree to work inside that 10-hour window, but your employer must pay time-and-a-half for every hour or partial hour you work during the rest period.7Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.442 – Right to Rest Between Work Shifts Employees who provide roadside assistance to disabled vehicles are the one exception to the premium pay requirement.
Voluntary Standby Lists
Employers can keep a standby list of workers willing to pick up extra hours when needs come up suddenly. Everything about the list has to be voluntary. Before you can be added, your employer must give you written notice that joining is optional, explain how you’ll be contacted, and make clear you can always decline offered shifts.8Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.432 – Voluntary Standby List; Penalties
The trade-off: hours you accept through the standby list don’t count as late schedule changes, so they don’t generate predictability pay. You can request removal from the list at any time, and your employer cannot retaliate against you for staying off it, leaving it, or turning down offered hours. Coercing an employee onto a standby list can cost the employer a civil penalty of up to $2,000 per violation, with each day of a continuing violation counted separately.8Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.432 – Voluntary Standby List; Penalties You never have to respond to a standby offer immediately, and silence is not treated as acceptance.
Retaliation Is Prohibited
Your employer cannot retaliate against you for exercising any right under the Act. That protection covers asking about the law, requesting schedule changes, declining shifts outside your posted schedule, or filing a complaint. Interference, restraint, and discrimination in hiring, tenure, or any other condition of employment are all barred.9Oregon Revised Statutes. Oregon Code 653.470 – Retaliation Prohibited
If your hours drop suddenly, your shifts move to less desirable times, or your reviews turn negative right after you raise a scheduling concern, those patterns are the ones investigators look at. Save texts, photograph posted schedules, and note dates of conversations with managers.
How to File a Complaint
If you believe your employer is violating the Fair Work Week Act, you can file a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. BOLI provides a complaint form and contact information on its website.4Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Predictive Scheduling Before you file, gather what you have: posted schedules, pay stubs that should show predictability pay but don’t, text messages about shift changes, and your original good faith estimate from hiring.
Employers are required to retain compliance records for at least three years, including posted schedules, written schedule change requests, good faith estimates, and standby list consent forms.10Oregon Administrative Rules. OAR 839-026-0050 – Record Retention Requirements When BOLI asks for those records during an investigation and the employer can’t produce them, that gap tends to work against the employer. Your own documentation makes the case easier to prove.