New York State Passes Its Own WARN Act
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, also known as the WARN Act, helps protect employees who are affected by a mass layoff or plant closing. It requires employers, under certain circumstances, to provide affected employees with advance notice of such adverse action. Should notice not be provided as required by the WARN Act, the employer is required to pay for the salary of the affected employees for the notice period.
New York State recently passed its own WARN Act and the law went into effect on February 1, 2009. Prior to that date, New York State workers were covered by the Federal WARN Act. New York State’s WARN Act is far more expansive than the Federal act. For example, under the New York State law, employers with 50 or more full-time employees must provide at least 90-days notice to affected employees and representatives of affected employees before ordering a mass layoff, relocation or branch closing. The Federal WARN Act applies to employers with 100 or more employees and requires only 60-days notice and a larger number of affected employees before the notice provisions are triggered. Significantly, New York employers that are covered by the WARN Act that fail to file a WARN notice in the allotted time period will be subject to penalties of up to $500 per day for each violation. In addition, the new law provides the Commissioner of Labor with authority to order relief, including back wages and unpaid medical benefits, for employees who do not receive the required notice.
