WARN

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) protects workers, their families, and communities by requiring employers to provide advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs. Advance notice allows workers and their families time to adjust to the loss of their jobs, gives them ample time to seek and obtain other jobs, and allows them to seek training or retraining to help them compete in the job market.

The WARN Act covers employers with 100 or more employees within 75 on payroll, not counting those who have worked less than six months in the past year and those who work an average of less than 20 hours a week. The law is enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (ETA).

A covered plant closing occurs when a facilitiy or operating unit is shut down for more than six months, or when 50 or more employees lose their jobs during any 30-day period at a single site of employment. A covered mass layoff occurs when a layoff of six months or longer affects either 500 or more workers or at least 33 percent of the workforce when the layoff affects between 50 and 499 workers. The number of affected workers is the total number laid off during a 30-day period (in some cases, a 90-day period).

A new act entitled FOREWARN has been introduced in Congress to reduce the workforce threshold to 75 employees and raise the notification period to 90 days. FOREWARN would also entitle workers to double past wages if the employer fails to give advance notice (WARN allows just standard wages).