ALERT Act Provides Protections to Workers in Case of Mass Lay-Offs

U.S. Representative Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) also announced new legislation to strengthen protections for laid-off workers.

Under the current law,  Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN”), enacted on August 4, 1988 and effective on February 4, 1989, workers, their families and communities are protected from sudden mass lay-off by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs. This notice must be provided to either affected workers or their representatives (e.g., a labor union); to the State dislocated worker unit; and to the appropriate unit of local government.

Employers however are only required to provide the 60-days notice if a mass layoff impacts at least 500 employees or a third of a workforce that is greater than 49 employees at one employment site.

Rep. Gutierrez’es new bill, H.R. 2077, the Alert Laid off Employees in Reasonable Time (ALERT) Act, amends the definition of a “mass layoff” to include layoffs by one employer at more than one worksite. In addition, this bill would increase the penalty for violating the WARN Act, doubling back pay for violated workers, among other protections.

Specifically, the ALERT Act would change the present set-up under WARN this by providing that a mass layoff occurs when a reduction in force results in an employment loss for a single employer at more than 1 site of employment during any 30-day period for:

- at least 33 percent of the employees of the employer (excluding any part-time employees) and at least 50 employees (excluding any part-time employees); or
- at least 500 employees (excluding any part-time employees).

“I have introduced the ALERT Act because current federal law does not go far enough in protecting the hardworking men and women who are the backbone of our economy,” said Rep. Gutierrez. “With unemployment levels on the rise, widespread layoffs have ravaged our nation’s workforce. The former employees of Republic Windows know too well that too often workers are provided with virtually no notice to prepare for unemployment, and the WARN act is not a strong enough deterrent in protecting them from employers who would abuse the system. We owe more to our workforce; we owe them laws that are as strong as their work ethic.”

The legislation has been referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor. A similar bill was unsuccessfully introduced in Congress in 2007.

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