Layoffs: The WARN Act

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is a federal law that requires companies to make disclosures to local and state government as well as employees affected by large layoffs or plant closings. The law requires 60 days’ notice before a mass layoff or plant closing.

There are three things that can trigger a WARN Act notice: First, closure of a work site that will leave 50 or more workers out of a job. Second, a mass layoff that doesn’t close a plant, but affects, during any 30-day period, 500 or more employees or between 50 and 499 employees if they make up one-third or more of the workforce. Finally, it can be triggered when job losses during a 30-day period wouldn’t meet the first two requirements, but losses of two or more groups during a 90-day period would break the threshold if counted together, with some exceptions.

WARN Act filings must be made with the affected employee or his or her representative, such as a union boss, the state labor office and the local government. These filings are typically open records under state freedom of information laws.