A former
Connecticut employee filed a class-action lawsuit against ClearEdge Power
alleging that the company failed to give the required 60-day notice before the
company laid off 268 of its employees last week. Instead, the company issued a
letter to its employees explaining that giving more notice would have prevented
the company from finding new investors and customers and would have made it
more difficult to collect payments from existing customers.
The Worker
Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) is a federal law,
administered by the Department
of Labor, that requires employers to provide their employees with 60
calendar days notice of plant closings and mass layoffs. WARN applies to
employers with 100 or more employees. The advanced notice requirement is
intended to give employees and their families time to transition to the loss of
employment and time to find new jobs.
WARN does contain exceptions for faltering
companies and companies that encounter unforeseen business circumstances. ClearEdge
Power maintains that under these exceptions, it provided its employees with as
much notice as possible, given the company’s circumstances.
