|
CNS News...
Republicans
Question Labor Department’s ‘Misleading’ Guidance on Federal Contractors
By Susan
Jones
August 3,
2012
(CNSNews.com)
– How did you come up with that one?
House
Republicans want to know how and why President Obama’s Labor Department
decided
that businesses do not need to give federal contractors 60 days’ notice
of the
mass layoffs that are set to happen on Jan. 2 -- unless Congress does
something
to stop the automatic budget cuts (sequestration) that will take effect
on that
date.
On
Thursday, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Education
and
Workforce Committee, along with Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Phil
Roe
(R-Tenn.) sent a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, requesting
information
“related to the development of controversial guidance” concerning
sequestration
and advance notice of impending layoffs.
Federal law
-- the WARN Act -- requires businesses with more than 100 employees to
give
employees 60 days’ notice of mass layoffs or plant closings. That means
notices
for mass layoffs on Jan. 2 would have to go out no later than Nov. 2 --
which
is just four days before the Nov. 6 presidential election.
On July 30,
the Labor Department issued “guidance,” stating that federal
contractors
affected by sequestration do not need to provide 60 days’ advance
notice of
mass layoffs. Doing so “would be inconsistent with the purpose of the
WARN
Act,” the guidance said.
In their
letter to Solis, Reps. Kline, Walberg and Roe called the guidance
“misleading
and incomplete.”
“In short,
the department creates the false impression that the guidance confers
blanket
immunity from the WARN Act, when in reality a contractor’s failure to
issue
60-day notices regarding sequestration-caused layoffs could result in
costly
private litigation...
Read the
rest of the article at CNS News
|
