FOREWARN Act Introduced - Changes to WARN Act in 2009?
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Last week, the Federal Oversight, Reform, and Enforcement of the WARN (FOREWARN) Act was introduced in the House by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and in the Senate by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). FOREWARN aims to amend the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act by requiring more and smaller employers to notify workers of plant closings or mass layoffs. FOREWARN also would increase penalties for employers who violate the act. For more information, click here to read Senator Brown's press release on FOREWARN.
This isn't the first time in Congress for FOREWARN; it was introduced in 2007, but failed to gain traction, perhaps because of a likely veto from the then Bush White House had it passed. The reintroduction of FOREWARN does not come as a big surprise: the World of Work warned (ouch! bad pun!) that changes were coming to the WARN Act back in March. Better yet, we predicted FOREWARN would be on then President-Elect Obama's agenda back in November 2008.
While FOREWARN is still making its way through Congress, employers must comply with the existing WARN Act, and we have some WARN Act resources to help:
- For a basic overview of the law, here's a basic WARN Act Fact Sheet.
- For more detailed information, download the Employer's Guide to the WARN Act (a great resource and our personal favorite).
- Next, if your layoff is caused by an "act of God," you might want to download the WARN Act Natural Disaster Fact Sheet.
- And finally, you can read what the DOL is telling your employees: the Workers' Guide to the WARN Act, and for Spanish-speaking employees, the Guía para el Trabajadores.
Changes Coming to the WARN Act?
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification ("WARN") Act is getting a lot of airplay these days; that's the federal law that requires qualifying employers to give 60 days’ notice of a plant closing, a layoff of 500 or more people at one location, or a cut of at least one-third of the work force at a site. But many critics of the WARN act think it doesn't go far enough because it covers only the largest layoffs by the largest employers. Now, some economists are calling for a tougher, broader WARN Act.
We'll be watching to see if these calls for revising the WARN Act gain traction in Congress this term. For now, there are resources out there to help you cope with the current version of WARN:
- For a basic overview of the law, here's a basic WARN Act Fact Sheet.
- For more detailed information, download the Employer's Guide to the WARN Act (a great resource and our personal favorite).
- Next, if your layoff is caused by an "act of God," you might want to download the WARN Act Natural Disaster Fact Sheet.
- And finally, you can read what the DOL is telling your employees: the Workers' Guide to the WARN Act, and for Spanish-speaking employees, the Guía para el Trabajadores.
Tenth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of WARN Act Case
We don't need to tell you there's a recession going on, and that a recession means layoffs. But we will remind you that layoffs may implicate the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act - the federal law that requires employers to give 60 days' notice of certain mass layoffs and plant shutdowns.
Sometimes giving 60 days' notice of a layoff just isn't possible, and the law makes exceptions in some circumstances. A recent case from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals illustrates one of those exceptions. In Gross v. Hale-Halsell Co., the employer successfully relied on the "unforeseeable business circumstances" exception to WARN. In that case, the employer--a grocery wholesaler and distributor--was forced to lay off over 200 employees when its largest customer suddenly dropped its account. The court held that the employer had no choice but to lay its employees off (the employer subsequently declared bankruptcy), and that it gave as much notice as was practicable under the circumstances.
Notwithstanding the outcome of Gross, courts are notoriously reluctant to apply the WARN Act exceptions; before relying on an exception to bypass giving notice of a qualifying layoff or plant closure, it is probably a good idea to consult legal counsel. There is also good, free information from our friends at the U.S. Department of Labor to help guide you through troubled times and to determine whether the WARN Act may apply to you. Just click below to download the information:
- For a basic overview of the law, here's a basic WARN Act Fact Sheet.
- For more detailed information, download the Employer's Guide to the WARN Act (a great resource and our personal favorite)
- Next, if your layoff is caused by an "act of God," you might want to download the WARN Act Natural Disaster Fact Sheet
- And finally, you can read what the DOL is telling your employees: the Workers' Guide to the WARN Act, and for Spanish-speaking employees, the Guía para el Trabajadores
