Oregon generally requires employers to pay the employee a minimum wage. The minimum wage rate generally increases each year and is set by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. BOLI Poster. Employers commit wage theft and violate Oregon’s minimum wage laws where they do not pay at least minimum wage for all hours the employee works. Rarely is the wage theft of minimum wage
as easy to see as simply paying less than the required minimum wage rate. More often, the wage theft is disguised as an unlawful Deduction or failing to pay all hours worked. For instance, failing to pay for setting up a till, end of night cleaning duties, or by altering time recorded in the time clock. There are as many ways to commit wage theft as employers can imagine, so they cannot all be listed. Where the wage theft causes an employer to fail to pay its employees all minimum wages, the employee may be able to recover up to 30 days of wages in addition to the unpaid wages by having our Oregon wage claim attorneys file a
minimum wage claim lawsuit.

Wage theft can also cause Oregon employers to fail to pay overtime wages. An employee’s paycheck stub may show at least some of the overtime wage theft. For instance, if the employee is paid every two weeks, and worked 85 hours, but was not  paid any wages at their overtime rate, some unpaid overtime wages are shown. Obviously, at least 5 hours of overtime wages were not paid in this example, but the employee could have worked 60 hours in week one and 25 hours in week two, and be  due 20 hours of overtime, not 5. These types of tricks make the wage theft harder to track for the employee because only
the employer has kept the official time records. Also like with minimum wage discussed above, wage theft of overtime can  occur by not paying wages for all hours worked. In a wage claim (theft) lawsuit, an employee could recover up to 30 days
of wages as a civil overtime penalty. Overtime Page.

Oregon employers also commit wage theft by making unlawful wage deductions. Examples of unlawful deductions are for (1)  uniforms that are deducted from the employee’s minimum wages, or (2) till shortages, (3) business losses for customers who  steal or fail to pay for services. Like with most wage theft issues, the list of unlawful deductions are nearly endless.

Oregon employers also commit wage theft through failing to pay vacation pay or paid time off (also referred to as “PTO” wages). While Oregon wage and hour laws do not require employers to provide vacation or PTO wages, once the agreement is made, the  employer must follow that agreement. Employers commit wage theft through refusing to authorize an employee to take their
vacation/PTO, and then refusing to pay the wages. They also commit wage theft by not following their policy and not paying  all hours of vacation/PTO due. Vacation Page.

Oregon employers also commit wage theft by not paying for work time during training. Oregon wage and hour law determines whether attendance at training is considered work time or whether training is compensable wages. Oregon Law on Training Time. Training must be counted as hours worked in most cases. In addition to recovering the unpaid minimum wages, or unpaid wages,  an employee could recover up to 30 days of wages as a civil penalty. Training Page.

Oregon employers also commit wage theft by not paying wages for time worked during lunch breaks or for short lunch breaks. Oregon wage and hour law requires employers to provide their employees with a lunch break when the employee works more than six hours. Oregon Law on Lunches. If an employer does not want to pay wages for the lunch break, the employee must be relieved  of all duties during the lunch break. Thus, if the employer has the employee answering phones during the lunch break, that  lunch break must be paid. Not just the time the employee is on the phone, but the entire 30 minute lunch break must be paid.