U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (OH), Patty Murray (WA). and Chuck Schumer (NY) introduced legislation to improve and strengthen the WARN Act. Companion legislation was introduced before the House of Representatives by Reps. Tim Ryan (OH-13) and David Trone (MD-6). This is important legislation to protect working people and their communities.
Titled the Fair Warning Act of 2019, the bills were introduced on November 21, 2019 and seek to amend the WARN Act. The amendments would include covering more workers and providing increased notice (90 days), along with closing various loopholes that are exploited by corporations seeking to evade the Act's protections. Equally important, the amendments would grant the U.S. Secretary of Labor investigatory powers and provide more meaningful penalties to deter violations of the Act. The proposed amendments are long overdue and are an important step forward in the protection of the rights of working people and the finances of communities in which they live.
The bills come in response to a number of large workplace closings where workers were not provide meaningful notice of the loss of their jobs, despite the closings likely having been planned by their employers months in advance. See Falcon Transport and Atlas Industries in Ohio and Friendly's restaurants in New York and the northeast.