Is it enough to give a breakdown by department and/or job type: say 47 people in the production unit, 2 from accounting, 6 from shipping, 1 from research, 2 from security, and so one?
Or does a business have to specify to the individual: Bob, Sue from accounting. Mack from research. and so on?
The DOL employer’s guide refers to:
**emphasis **added
That seems to envision that it might not be possible to individually identify employees at the time notice is required.
So just send out notices to everyone? No.
Looks like employers should try to individually notify but are not specifically required to do so if the affected employees cannot be individually identified at the time notice is required.
The fine print details seem to be slightly different depending upon whether a labor union is involved.
Is there a “Slippery When Wet” sign in the room with you right now? No? Why not? If the floor in the room you’re in was wet, you could conceivably slip on it.
But you’ll find that “Slippery When Wet” signs are used in rooms that have a special condition - actual wet floors. They get put up when somebody mops a floor and there’s an actual reasonable chance of the event they’re warning about occurring. They don’t just put up in every room on Earth to tell people that under the right circumstances, a danger might exist.
To simply hand everyone a pseudo-warning telling they might get laid off in the next sixty days when there’s no reason to think it’s actually going to happen is ridiculous - and it’s not what the law requires. It makes no more sense than nailing a “beware of the tiger” sign on every tree in the country. Save them for places where there’s some actual tigers around.
In order for this criticism of Obama to be valid–i.e., that he’s “urg[ing] defense employers to break the law”–the law needs to be unambiguously against what he’s saying. That’s absolutely not true. The law seems pretty clearly to support what he’s saying; the best you can claim is that as a layman it looks to you like maybe the professional bureaucrats and attorneys who interpret this law for a living haven’t interpreted it as well as you, with a half-hour of research, have interpreted it.
If there’s any ambiguity here, it’s sensible to defer to the judgment of the professionals. Are you seriously suggesting that there’s no ambiguity?
The ambiguity is gone when the administration says they’ll pay for the resulting lawsuits should they occur. Either employers have to give notice or they don’t. If they do end up laying off employees without notice, they broke the law. Thus the need for the administration to promise our money to pay the lawsuits.
Basically, the administration is making a bet. They are pretty sure a deal will be reached and are willing to bet taxpayer money on it. And if taxpayers lose, who cares? Obama already got reelected, thanks in part layoff notices not going out in key states.
Not one of these three sentences is accurate. They say they’ll pay for the resulting lawsuits so that employers don’t make a foolish decision out of fear of a lawsuit. Given Republican harping on the lawsuit culture for the past three decades, I imagine you’re familiar with that fear, and government efforts to mitigate it.
The meaning of ambiguity, in this context, is that it’s not clear whether employers have to give notice. Your second sentence assumes the ambiguity is gone in order to support the idea that it’s gone.
Employers only have broken the law if they lay off employees without notice when they lay them off due to a proposed plant closing or proposed layoff. If they have not proposed either of these items, then they haven’t broken the law.
Again, you’re putting your layman’s reading after an hour of work above the reading of professionals in the field, both the professionals at DOL AND THE PROFESSIONALS AT DEFENSE CONTRACTORS.
An odds question: what do you think the chances are that your willingness to privilege your own reading above the reading of professionals is influenced by your desire to pin something on Obama?
Totally and completely wrong. The ambiguity is gone because even if a sequestration happens in January, it will be months before contracts are renegotiated and layoffs would have to occur. See the Lockheed memo I linked to. It is like you are intentionally ignoring this fact.
Read the law. Tell me what parts of it you think a company should ignore and why. Seems like a pretty straightforward law. Do you think the law is a good one? Should the companies it covers simply ignore it?
It’s not complicated. If they lay off employees without giving the 60 days notice, they are subject to lawsuits. Paid for by taxpayers. Something that the administration can’t actually promise, because Congress will never agree to it.
There was no reason whatsoever for the administration to get involved.
Sorry, have you read the thread? There will be no layoffs on January 2nd. There will be no layoffs on January 2nd. There will be no layoffs on January 2nd. THERE WILL BE NO LAYOFFS ON JANUARY 2ND.
I felt that needed to be repeated several times because it seems not to be sinking in.
I do think employers should follow the law. But not the imaginary magellan law.
You posted part of the law. The part you liked. Here’s another part: “However, it is not appropriate for an employer to provide blanket notice to workers.”
Why do you think employers should not follow the law? Seems like a pretty straightforward law. Do you think the law is a good one? Should the companies it covers simply ignore it?
Wrong. A major government contractor was threatening to mis-apply Federal law. The government has an inherent interest in making sure that laws are not misused for motives that are probably political in nature.
Let’s say a business owner thinks that Romney is going to be elected, and in the view of that proprietor, Romney’s tax plans would mean an increase in the tax bill for middle class workers. The business decides to send letters to its employees warning that since the business has the obligation to comply with IRS rules with respect to withholding, that effective January 20th, due to the company’s expectation that taxes will be going up for middle class workers, the company may be increasing the withholding on employee’s paychecks on that date to the tune of a couple hundred bucks per paycheck.
Do you think that if these letters came to light, the IRS would stand idly by and not get involved with such massive errors of fact and IRS withholding rules?
Go back and read the OMB guidance and Lockheed’s press release. It states clearly that any contracting actions that might affect Lockheed’s workforce would not occur for “months” after sequestration would be put in place. Explain to me how the government doesn’t have the legal authority to make that “promise.”
Here is the full paragraph from where you selected on sentence:
You might have noticed that 1) that word, “However”, implies that the thought is tied to what comes before it. And 2) It’s in answer to a specific FAQ, namely, whether “everyone”. No one has claimed that "everyone need be notified, so congratulations on the birth of your straw man.
Now, do you care to answer the questions? Somehow I think you’d rather not.
No, the companies should read it. Since there is no reason for them to believe they will be laying anyone off by any time certain, they are not required to issue notices.
Obviously, the companies should read it. And if they think that they might be laying people off, they should make sure that they do not run afoul of the law and expose the company to the fines outlined with the law.
Frankly, I tend not to find any value in answering a stupid question that reflects no understanding of the discussion that has occurred so far, and there’s no indication that you will give any kind of thoughtful consideration to my reply.
So, I’ll just refer you to post 72 and you can connect the dots as to the applicability of the WARN Act.