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Thursday, March 19, 2009
News Employers maneuver around the WARN Act
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 12:25 PM
I know this will come as a surprise to you, but many employers care more about their shareholders and bottom line than their workers. Here's one more example:
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification was enacted 20 years ago, and its intent was to prevent situations where rank-and-file employees show up for work only to discover that their employer has shut down without notice. WARN does this by requiring companies that are planning mass layoffs to notify their state and local government, as well as the affected workers, at least 60 days in advance.There are plenty of ways to follow the letter of the WARN Act but not the spirit. For example, for WARN to be triggered, the layoffs generally must occur within a 30-day period, so companies can get around WARN by staggering their job cuts. Buyouts, retirements and firings don't count as layoffs, so if a smaller company wants to lay off 55 workers without filing a WARN, it can get six of them to take buyouts.
Reducing a worker's hours by less than 50 percent doesn't count as a layoff, either, so companies can cut all their employees from 40 hours to 21 without triggering WARN.
There are various reasons for companies wanting to avoid WARN. Some think that detailed layoff disclosures will make investors nervous, or they view the information as trade secrets. Businesses also have argued that employees will stop showing up to work if they know their jobs are about to end.
Read the rest of this Charlotte Observer article here.
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