Dump Them With No Notice

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:



Dump Them With No Notice
by Jonathan Tasini

Monday 06 of July, 2009


Ah, things aren't hard enough for workers--retirement has vanished, unemployment is at double-digits (don't believe the media focus on the below 10 percent number--if you add in discouraged workers and people who can't find full-time work, the number if over 16 percent), wages are flat. But, that's not enough--now employers are complaining they can't get rid of people fast enough, according to The Wall Street Journal:

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act, or WARN, is designed to let workers and their communities brace for big layoffs by providing 60 days of notice. But a number of companies say that amid the greatest and swiftest downturn in decades, providing early warning can be unrealistic. Many employers have invoked exceptions in the law that allow them to dismiss workers with little or no notice.

In recent months, dozens of employee groups have challenged abrupt terminations in federal courts, including mortgage-company employees in Arizona, telemarketers in West Virginia and mill workers in Alabama. Attorneys say that in the past year their WARN caseloads have as much as tripled.

Cry me a fracking river. And these companies look like they are breaking the law:

Since the recession began in December 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor says 3.8 million people lost jobs in about 37,000 mass layoffs, which it defines as groups of 50 or more. In May, 312,880 workers were part of mass layoffs, the highest level on record.

Only a small portion appear to be receiving the two-month cushion. The most recent look by the Government Accountability Office, in 2003, showed that one-quarter of mass layoffs met all the conditions for a WARN filing. Of those cases, only about one-third of companies gave the proper notice. Companies file WARN notices with their states, and there is no national database. (emphasis added)

Guess what? Letting people know that they will be canned is just part of living in a somewhat decent society. And in this job environment, it's not as if 60 days is that great a deal--people stay out of work a lot longer than 60 days even with the notice.

But, I'll tell you what: I'd give up on the WARN Act provisions IF every worker also got lifetime health care and multi-million dollar pensions...that would be the parachutes given the very CEOs who crater companies but walk away with a nice bundle.


http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=14384