.jpg?width=1170&name=FranklyHR_blog_Header%20(1).jpg)
The WARN Act
Sep 23, 2020 9:04:00 AM
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act imposes a notice of obligation on covered employers who implement a “plant closing” or “mass layoff” in certain situations, even when they are forced to do so for economic reasons. Employers with 100 or more full-time employees must provide at least 60 calendar days of notice to employees, unions, and state/local government officials. Even though COVID-19 was unforeseeable, an employer should provide as much notice to affected employees as possible. Additionally, some states have laws more stringent than federal WARN such as CA, IL, MA, NJ, NY, TN and WI.
WARN is triggered when a covered employer:
- Closes a facility or discontinues an operating unit (see glossary) permanently or temporarily, affecting at least 50 employees, not counting part-time workers, at a single site of employment. A plant closing also occurs when an employer closes an operating unit that has fewer than 50 workers but that closing also involves the layoff of enough other workers to make the total number of layoffs 50 or more;
- Lays off 500 or more workers (not counting part-time workers) at a single site of employment during a 30-day period; or lays off 50-499 workers (not counting part-time workers), and these layoffs constitute 33% of the employer’s total active workforce (not counting part-time workers) at the single site of employment;
- Announces a temporary layoff of less than 6 months that meets either of the two criteria above and then decides to extend the layoff for more than 6 months. If the extension occurs for reasons that were not reasonably foreseeable at the time the layoff was originally announced, notice need only be given when the need for the extension becomes known. Any other case is treated as if notice was required for the original layoff; or
- Reduces the hours of work for 50 or more workers by 50% or more for each month in any 6-month period. Thus, a plant closing or mass layoff need not be permanent to trigger WARN.
Click here for a DOL guide to WARN. Reach out to your FrankAdvice HR Consultant as needed.
Previous Updates
Put some clear and concise content in here. Keep your reader in mind. What are they trying to do? What are they hoping to learn? Why are they reading this? Help them out and use the tone and voice of your organization.
Put some clear and concise content in here. Keep your reader in mind. What are they trying to do? What are they hoping to learn? Why are they reading this? Help them out and use the tone and voice of your organization.
Put some clear and concise content in here. Keep your reader in mind. What are they trying to do? What are they hoping to learn? Why are they reading this? Help them out and use the tone and voice of your organization.
