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HB 4158
This proposal did not become law. HB 4158 would have clarified that direct-hire companions of elderly or infirm individuals remain exempt from Oregon minimum wage and overtime laws, while simultaneously imposing explicit pay, rest, leave, and anti-abuse mandates on other domestic workers. Employers of non-exempt domestic staff face new payroll tracking, scheduling, and accommodation costs; private families gain cost flexibility but might have encountered reduced access to regulated commercial care services.
Generated explanation · Introduced · Analyzed 7/27/2026 · Open official Introduced text
This proposal did not become law.
Generated analysis of Introduced text; it does not establish that the bill applies to you. Read the full decision brief.
No upcoming event is verified in the available records.
Plain-language analysis
Generated analysis, not an official summary or legal advice. Confirm with linked Oregon documents.
This proposal did not become law. The generated effects below describe what it would have required if enacted.
HB 4158 would have clarified that direct-hire companions of elderly or infirm individuals remain exempt from Oregon minimum wage and overtime laws, while simultaneously imposing explicit pay, rest, leave, and anti-abuse mandates on other domestic workers. Employers of non-exempt domestic staff face new payroll tracking, scheduling, and accommodation costs; private families gain cost flexibility but might have encountered reduced access to regulated commercial care services.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Official sources do not state why this measure was proposed.
Sponsor testimony, staff summaries, committee materials, or statutory findings may explain it.
Inferred from cited text; not a stated purpose.
The measure appears designed to preserve private family hiring flexibility for companionship care while extending baseline labor protections to other domestic workers and explicitly regulating commercial home care staffing. The text carves out third-party agency-employed companions from the exemption but retains it for direct-hire arrangements, suggesting a policy aim to separate informal family support from regulated commercial home care markets.
Basis: Inferred · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Remains exempt from state minimum wage and overtime requirements under the clarified exemption, provided they are not employed by a third-party home care agency.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Loses exemption status; subject to standard Oregon wage/hour laws and any applicable commercial staffing regulations.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Gains statutory entitlements to overtime pay, mandatory weekly rest days, paid personal leave, adequate sleeping quarters, and explicit anti-harassment/retaliation protections.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Faces new compliance obligations for hour tracking, overtime calculation, scheduling rest periods, providing compliant living space, and maintaining anti-discrimination protocols; potential increase in operational costs.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Gains explicit authority to adopt rules calculating overtime during travel and medical emergencies for domestic workers.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Employers would have had to implement precise hour-tracking systems, calculate 1.5x overtime after 40 hours (or 44 if live-in), schedule guaranteed rest days, and ensure live-in accommodations meet 'adequate conditions for uninterrupted sleep' standards.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Workers gain enforceable rights to paid personal leave and anti-exploitation safeguards but might have experienced reduced scheduling flexibility due to mandated rest periods and overtime triggers.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
The companionship exemption might have incentivized private family hiring over commercial agencies to avoid wage mandates, potentially altering market access for regulated home care services.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
BLI enforcement would have focused on residential settings, requiring workers to report violations; passport retention is explicitly prohibited, creating a clear hook for addressing immigration-related labor exploitation.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Low-income family hiring a direct-hire companion
The family legally pays below minimum wage, would have required 24/7 availability without overtime penalties, and avoids paid leave mandates, drastically reducing care costs while maintaining maximum scheduling flexibility.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Domestic worker in a private home
An employer schedules the worker for 70 hours weekly without paying overtime, denies the mandatory 24-hour rest day, withholds their passport under threat of deportation, and would have created a hostile work environment, exploiting residential isolation to evade detection until BLI intervention or litigation occurs.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: The private home setting inherently limits external oversight, creating opportunities for duty creep where exemption boundaries are stretched to justify substandard pay, living conditions, and control over worker mobility.
Sources · Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: The measure trades uniform wage protections for direct-hire companions against expanded pay, rest, and anti-exploitation mandates for other domestic workers to balance private family cost containment with baseline labor safeguards.
Would have reduced care costs and administrative burden for families hiring companions directly.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Would have established clear, enforceable anti-harassment, retaliation, and passport-retention prohibitions tailored to residential work environments.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Would have guaranteed rest periods, paid leave, and overtime pay for non-exempt domestic workers, reducing burnout and exploitation risks.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Might have suppressed wages and working conditions for direct-hire companions by legally permitting sub-minimum pay and unlimited hours.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Potential effect if enacted: Increases compliance costs and scheduling rigidity for employers of other domestic workers, potentially driving some toward unregulated arrangements.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Would have created market distortion that might have reduced access to regulated commercial home care services as families shift to exempt private hires.
Basis: Bill text · Source: Introduced
Model self-rating: high. The text explicitly amends statutory exemptions and imposes specific wage, rest, and anti-abuse mandates. All claims are directly grounded in the provided bill text. This is the model’s assessment of its own analysis, not independent verification or human review.
4 records currently loaded
Records available in the current snapshot.
Earliest loaded signal
Introduced bill text posted
Posted Feb 4, 2026, 5:15 PM PST
Not a qualifying replacement
Only the introduced bill is available as adopted text; no qualifying replacement is established.
AI assessment dated 2026-09-29. This classification is separate from enactment and legal effect.
Evidence snapshot: 2026-09-29. Later legislative records are not automatically reassessed.
Policy purpose: broadly retained.
Reviewer: /root/review_recent_a · 2026-09-29
Not a qualifying replacement
Only the introduced bill is available as adopted text; no qualifying replacement is established.
Policy purpose: broadly retained.
“SECTION 1. ORS 653.020 is amended to read: 6 653.020. ORS 653.010 to 653.261 do not apply to any of the following employees: 7 (1) An individual employed in agriculture if: 8 (a) Such individual is employed as a hand harvest or pruning laborer and is paid on a piece-rate 9 basis in an operation ”
Introduced
“SECTION 1. ORS 653.020 is amended to read: 6 653.020. ORS 653.010 to 653.261 do not apply to any of the following employees: 7 (1) An individual employed in agriculture if: 8 (a) Such individual is employed as a hand harvest or pruning laborer and is paid on a piece-rate 9 basis in an operation ”
Introduced
Reviewer: /root/review_recent_b · 2026-09-29
Not a qualifying replacement
No replacement transition is documented.
Policy purpose: broadly retained.
“SECTION 1. ORS 653.020 is amended to read: 6 653.020. ORS 653.010 to 653.261 do not apply to any of the following employees: 7 (1) An individual employed in agriculture if: 8 (a) Such individual is employed as a hand ”
Introduced
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No deeper official pre-number history was found.
Regular sponsors: House Committee on Rules
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4 events
Full timeline
4 entries shown.
In committee upon adjournment.
Referred to Labor and Workforce Development.
First reading. Referred to Speaker's desk.
“Digest: This Act updates the laws on what wages must be paid to workers who engage in certain domestic services. (Flesch Readability Score: 67.3). Clarifies the meaning of "companionship services" for purposes of minimum wage and overtime requirements for certain individuals performing such services.”
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