Oregon House votes to stall rollout of paid family-leave benefits
A bill stalling the roll out of paid family-leave benefits is being considered by the Oregon Senate, after passing the House of Representatives earlier this week.
House Bill 3398, which the House passed 33-19, would delay many facets of the Oregon Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance program by a year. That includes the Oregon Employment Department’s deadline for creating rules for the policy, and the date that employers and employees will begin paying to fund the program, originally set for January 2022.
Employees who qualify for paid leave under the program would not be able to receive it until September 2023 under the proposed change, eight months later than planned.
Oregon lawmakers enacted one of the country’s most generous laws granting paid leave for workers in 2019. It applies to workers needing time off to care for ailing family members, bond with a new child or recover from illness. When deadlines to roll out the programs began approaching earlier this year, the state decided it won’t be able to start that policy as soon as planned.
The Employment Department, already battered by a pandemic that laid bare its flawed system for distributing unemployment insurance payments, says it needs the leeway.