Oregon’s Predictive Scheduling Law: The First Statewide Fair Workweek Requirements

Your schedule shows up two days before your shifts start. Hours shift without warning. A shift you were counting on gets canceled at the last minute, and suddenly you’re scrambling to cover rent. If you work in retail, hospitality, or food service in Oregon, that kind of scheduling may actually violate state law. Oregon generally has the first statewide predictive scheduling law in the country, and the Fair Work Week Act may require large employers to give advance notice, pay premiums for last-minute changes, and guarantee rest between shifts. Here’s what the law requires, who it covers, and what you may be owed if your employer has been cutting corners on your schedule.

What Predictive Scheduling Means

Predictive scheduling laws generally require employers to give advance notice of work schedules and pay a premium when they change those schedules on short notice. People sometimes call these “fair workweek” or “secure scheduling” laws, and the goal is generally the same: give workers real predictability over their hours, income, and personal time. Without that protection, a shifting schedule can make it tough to line up childcare, hold a second job, or plan around school, and a canceled shift can mean an immediate hit to a worker’s paycheck.

What Covered Employers Must Do

A Good Faith Estimate at Hiring

Covered employers generally must give new hires a written estimate of how many hours they can expect to work each week, along with information about typical schedules, on-call expectations, and voluntary standby lists. Workers should generally know what they’re signing up for before they accept the job.

Written Schedules 14 Days Out

Employers generally must post a written schedule at least 14 days before it starts, covering every shift the employee is expected to work, including on-call shifts, in a spot employees can easily see.

Predictability Pay for Changes

Once a schedule is posted, changing it generally triggers “predictability pay.” Adding hours or shifts generally means an extra hour of pay at the regular rate. Cutting hours or canceling a shift generally means half-time pay for the lost hours, on top of anything actually worked. Changing a shift’s start or end time generally means another hour of pay. A few changes may be exempt, including ones the employee requests or ones caused by something truly outside the employer’s control.

10 Hours of Rest Between Shifts

Employees are generally entitled to 10 hours of rest between shifts. When an employer requires less, it generally owes time-and-a-half for the hours worked during that rest window.

The Right to Ask for What You Need

Employees generally have the right to request specific hours, times, or locations without fear of retaliation. Employers generally have to consider the request, even though they aren’t always required to grant it.

Standby Lists and Shift Trades

Employers may keep a voluntary standby list for workers open to picking up extra shifts, but joining generally has to stay optional. Employees also generally keep the right to trade shifts with each other without triggering predictability pay for the employer.

Who the Law Covers

Coverage generally comes down to industry and size. On the industry side, the law generally reaches retail stores, hotels and similar lodging, and restaurants or quick-service food operations. Manufacturing, healthcare, professional services, and construction generally fall outside it, though workers in those fields may still have other wage protections. On the size side, the law generally applies only to employers with 500 or more employees worldwide, counting every location, including chains and franchises. Smaller employers generally aren’t covered even if they’re in a covered industry.

Most non-exempt workers at covered employers are generally protected regardless of pay rate. Salaried exempt employees and a few specific job categories may have different rules, so it’s worth checking how your particular role fits in.

What Happens When Employers Break the Rules

Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) generally enforces the law, and workers may also bring their own claims. Workers may recover the predictability pay they should have gotten for each improper schedule change, and BOLI may assess civil penalties of up to $500 per violation, which can add up fast across a workforce. Workers required to work through their rest period generally can recover the time-and-a-half owed for those hours, plus attorney’s fees if they prevail. The law also generally protects workers from retaliation for asserting these rights.

How Oregon Stacks Up Elsewhere

Oregon is generally the only state with a statewide law like this, though several cities have their own versions, including New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a handful of others in California and Illinois. Each city’s rules differ somewhat, but advance notice, predictability pay, and rest requirements tend to show up across the board. On the flip side, states like Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, and Tennessee have generally blocked their own cities from passing similar laws, and federal law under the FLSA doesn’t address scheduling at all.

What You May Be Able to Recover

Workers who win Fair Work Week Act claims may recover unpaid predictability pay, time-and-a-half for missed rest periods, civil penalties of up to $500 per violation, attorney’s fees and court costs, and interest where it applies. Parallel FLSA overtime or minimum wage claims can often ride alongside these, and because scheduling violations tend to affect whole workforces at once, these cases are often well suited to class and collective actions. As always, what any individual worker recovers depends on the specific facts, and past results don’t guarantee a future outcome.

Time Limits

Oregon generally allows up to six years to bring a wage claim under state law, while federal FLSA claims generally allow two years, or three for willful violations. Filing sooner rather than later helps protect your full recovery.

If You Think Your Employer Is Cutting Corners

• Save every schedule you receive, printed, emailed, or through an app, and note when it was posted.
• Keep records of every change: the original schedule, what changed, and when you were told.
• Track the gap between your shifts to catch any rest-period violations.
• Hold onto your good faith estimate from hiring, or note if you never got one.
• Talk to an employment attorney. Most of these cases run on contingency, so you generally pay nothing unless you recover.

Bottom Line

Oregon generally leads the country in requiring predictable schedules for large retail, hospitality, and food service employers, but compliance isn’t automatic. If your employer changes your schedule without notice, cancels shifts without pay, or has you working on less than 10 hours of rest, it may be worth a closer look at your rights under the Fair Work Week Act.

Josephson Dunlap, Lawyers for the Workers®, represents employees nationwide in wage and hour matters, including cases involving predictive scheduling and Fair Work Week Act violations. We offer confidential case evaluations at no cost.