It is illegal for your employer to retaliate against you because you reported or opposed a workplace health or safety violation.
You are protected from being fired or demoted because you reported unsafe or illegal activity at work.
This page provides a complaint form to complete if you have been retaliated against. If you need to report a workplace health or safety violation,
do so with Oregon OSHA.
Time limits
You must file a Complaint within one year of the date of any discriminatory action/harm. CRD can only investigate unlawful discrimination that has occurred within one year from the date of the unlawful act. Please submit your questionnaire promptly to allow time for the intake interview, drafting of the charge, sending/receiving time, signing and returning to BOLI before the one year anniversary.
Filling out the questionnaire
You must complete all applicable portions of this questionnaire. Additional documents are not required at this stage.
Next steps
Submitting your questionnaire is the first step in the Civil Rights complaint process. A questionnaire is not a complaint. After you have submitted your questionnaire, it will be assigned to an intake officer for further review.
If there is not enough information in the questionnaire for the intake officer to determine whether the Civil Rights Division can accept a complaint, you may receive a letter informing you that we are unable to proceed with your complaint. Please provide more information to the contact person identified in the letter to help us determine if we can help.
You may also receive a letter indicating that the Civil Rights Division is unable to investigate your complaint because your complaint is not based on a law we enforce, or the situation occurred too long ago. Please speak with an attorney about your rights.
If the information you provided in the questionnaire indicates that the Civil Rights Division may be able to investigate, an intake officer will either write a formal complaint for you or contact you for further information to assist them with writing your formal complaint. Once the formal complaint is written, it will be sent to you to review and sign. A complaint is not filed until BOLI has received a signed complaint from you.
Currently, the Civil Rights Division has a high volume of questionnaires waiting to be assigned to an intake officer. Please be sure that you have entered the date of the most recent adverse action as accurately as possible and have filled out all fields in the questionnaire to the best of your ability. Please contact us if there are any significant changes related to your case. Your inquiry is important to us; thank you for your patience.
Retaliation
Not all adverse actions are unlawful. You must show that the retaliation occurred because of your involvement in a protected activity, such as reporting unsafe working conditions.
Private attorney
You may consult an attorney at any time before or during a CRD investigation. Your attorney may also draft and submit your complaint, but it must contain your signature. You are not required to have an attorney for this process.