Labor Law Poster Spotlight:
Important New Posters from Chicago, Louisiana, and Oregon

In this monthly series, the GovDocs Employment Law and Compliance Team highlights three recent labor law poster releases that employers need to know about.

• Chicago Labor Standards Poster
• Louisiana Minor Labor Law Poster
• Oregon Equal Pay Poster

Chicago Labor Standards Poster

A much-anticipated update, the Chicago Labor Standards Poster, which is required to be displayed by all Chicago employers, was revised to include the new minimum wage increase and paid leave requirements, effective July 1, 2024.  

Chicago no longer separates their standard minimum wage into large and small employer sizes. Instead, employers with four or more employees must now pay their covered employees, including domestic workers, $16.20 per hour, which began on July 1. Further, the base wage for tipped workers increased to $11.02 on July 1. As a reminder, Chicago’s tipped wage is slowly being phased out over the next several years until it reaches the standard minimum wage rate on July 1, 2028.  

Additionally, the Youth Workers minimum wage, which includes subsidized temporary youth employment programs, subsidized transitional employment programs, and employees under 18 years of age, increased to $15.00 per hour and $10.20 per hour for tipped workers.  

In addition to the minimum wage increases, Chicago overhauled their leave information on its labor law poster. Now, the poster highlights the following information on leave requirements in the Windy City: 

Finally, Chicago also added requirements on employer paid time off policies, as well as additional resources and contact information available to employers and employees for all Chicago labor laws.  

In response to the significant changes described above, the GovDocs Update Program is currently shipping new Chicago Labor Standards posters in English and Spanish out to impacted customer locations.

Louisiana Minor Labor Law Poster

On June 11, 2024, Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 156, amending its minor labor laws regarding meal periods. Prior to HB 156, minors under the age of 18 were required to take a 30-minute meal break for any 5-hour period worked. However, effective on August 1, 2024, the age limit was lowered. Now, minors under the age of 16 are only required to take a 30-minute lunch break. Based on the legislative history of the bill, the age limit appears to be a compromise, as Louisiana’s House of Representatives originally tried to repeal the meal period requirements for minors entirely. The Senate then amended the bill to under 16, which was eventually passed.  

Almost immediately after passage, Louisiana updated its Minor Labor Law poster with the following language: 

“No minor under the age of 16 years may be employed, permitted, or suffered to work for any five hour period without one interval of at least thirty minutes within such period for meals. Such interval shall not be included as part of the working hours of the day.” 

The Minor Labor Law poster is required for all employers who employ minors. The state has also released an updated Spanish version of the posting, which is optional for employers to display in the workplace.  

Both GovDocs Update Program and Spanish Update Program customers will receive updated posters for their Louisiana locations before the effective date of August 1, 2024.   

Oregon Equal Pay Poster

Historically, Oregon will often update a wide variety of its labor law postings during the summer, and this year was no exception. Among Oregon’s several posting updates, the Equal Pay poster had a revision to its protected classes, which protects employees from being paid less than a coworker performing similar work. The poster now clarifies that national origin also includes language and simplifies verbiage describing when different pay is allowed.  

In addition to the Equal Pay poster, there were six other mandatory posting updates in Oregon. While GovDocs is shipping new posters out to Oregon locations, online access to digital versions of this poster and other Oregon poster updates can be obtained for remote employees with the GovDocs Intranet Poster Program.  

Conclusion

Poster updates continue to reach local and state jurisdictions across the United States, including those described above in Chicago, Louisiana, and Oregon. With the variety of labor law posters recently released, employers should take the appropriate steps to stay up to date with these changes through a robust labor law poster program.

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