Law has very little to say on paydays.

Byline: ON THE JOB By Dan Grinfas For The Register-Guard

Question: We pay our employees semimonthly, on the fifth and the 20th of each month. We have always been under the impression that when payday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the employer has a legal responsibility to pay on Friday. However, we have heard that a lot of employers will hand out checks on Friday if payday falls on Saturday, and on Monday if payday falls on Sunday. Which is the right method?

Also, what do we do about our July 5 payday this year, since our employees will be off for the Independence Day holiday?

Answer: Oregon wage laws do not dictate many specifics as to your scheduling of paydays. You are free to determine and follow your own company policy, as long as you stick to some general guidelines.

The Oregon statute that regulates employee paydays is ORS 652.120, and it merely requires you to `establish and maintain a regular payday,' at which date you pay all employees the wages due to them.

The statute requires that paydays not be more than 35 days apart and that an employee's first payday be within 35 days of beginning employment with you.

Your semimonthly paydays meet the basic requirements of this law, but it is up to your policy to fill in the specifics.

There is not a "right method" for addressing paydays that fall on a weekend or holiday. As you indicated, different employers set different rules.

As long as you make your policy clear to employees as to paydays that fall on days off, you can pay either the day before or after.

It is apparent from your question, however, that your current policy does not address the payday-on-a-holiday dilemma. Therefore, the prudent approach would be to pay workers on the Friday before the holiday weekend rather than on the Tuesday after.

Given your past practice, it will no doubt be your employees' expectation that they will receive their paychecks ahead of the long weekend. Making them wait until later could create morale issues with employees who were counting on some spending cash for their holiday picnics and fireworks.

If you are an at-will employer and not bound by an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement, then you are free to clarify or amend your policy for the future, should you decide to issue paychecks on the day following a weekend or holiday.

Question: Our hourly employees are required to clock in and out each shift, or sign in and out on a department log. If an employee does not do this, is the burden of proof for hours worked on the employee or employer? Can the employer refuse to pay employees for time not recorded?

Answer: In a lawsuit for wages, it is the employee who has the burden of proof. The employee must show by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she did not receive all of the wages that were due.

That is not to say, however, that you can refuse to pay employees simply because they forget or refuse to punch a time clock. The law makes the employer - not the employee - responsible for tracking and accurately recording daily and weekly work hours. Oregon law requires employers to retain payroll records for two years, and federal law sets a retention period of three years, but two years for individual time cards or time sheets.

You can discipline or even terminate an employee who fails to punch in or complete time logs as you've requested, but you also must pay the employee for all time actually worked. In other words, even though you have delegated the timekeeping function to the employee, you are still ultimately responsible for knowing (or figuring out) the employee's work hours if he or she fails to report them.

On The Job is written by attorney Dan Grinfas of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Contact BOLI at [phone], or BOLI, 800 N.E. Oregon St. No. 32, Portland, OR 97232.