Supervisor's file might be open to employee.

Byline: On the Job by Bureau of Labor & Industries For The Register-Guard

Q: Are we required to provide a terminated employee, at her request, copies of anecdotal notes from her supervisor's file?

A: Probably - depending on what you mean by "anecdotal notes." A statute in the Oregon wage laws, ORS 652.750, gives employees the right to inspect or receive a certified copy of personnel records.

The statute refers to "records of the employee which are used or have been used to determine the employee's qualification for employment, promotion, additional compensation or employment termination or other disciplinary action."

That can include documents outside of your official personnel file. If the notes contained in the supervisor's working file were used to rate the employee's performance or if they relate to the discipline or termination decisions you made, then they are personnel records that the employee has a right to view.

Q: I thought a final paycheck for a terminated employee was due within 48 hours, but the employee I fired insisted we had to pay him within 24 hours. Who's right?

A: Neither one of you has it exactly right, but your employee is closer to the mark. The Oregon statute on final paychecks, ORS 652.140, says that all wages become due and payable by "the end of the first business day after the discharge." The Oregon regulations define business days to include Mondays through Fridays, excluding state holidays.

This means that if you fire an employee at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, you need to have his final paycheck ready on Wednesday by the end of the business day - typically 5 p.m. If you terminate an employee at 8 a.m. on Friday, you have until the close of business the following Monday to make the final check available. The same Monday deadline applies when you terminate an employee on a Saturday or Sunday.

So, the deadline for a final paycheck may be more or less than 24 hours after the termination.

The 48 hours comes into play when an employee resigns. If the employee quits with at least 48 hours advance notice, then the final check is due on his last working day. If the employee quits with less than 48 hours notice, you have five working days to make the final check available, or until the next regular payday, if that date is sooner.

Q: We have an employee who commutes to work by bike. Can we insist that she wear a helmet? Is the answer different when she uses her bike during the workday to run an errand for us?

A: It makes good sense to wear a helmet whenever riding a bike, but you risk an invasion of privacy claim if you try to regulate what your employee does when she's off the clock. Of course, there's nothing wrong with telling the employee you're concerned about her and making the suggestion that she wear a helmet.

An Oregon law, ORS 814.485, requires individuals under 16 to wear protective headgear when operating a bicycle on public roads. If your employee is under 16, she can be fined up to $25 for violating the law, but if she's riding her bike when off duty, that's between her and the police.

Regardless of your employee's age, you can require her to comply with your company safety rules when she's on the job. So when she rides her bike on a work-related errand, you can mandate that she wear a helmet.

On The Job is written by attorney Dan Grinfas of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. The column answers questions about employment law. To contact BOLI, call [phone], or write to BOLI, 800 NE Oregon St. #32, Portland, OR 97232.