Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Senator Chuck Schumer says a gaping loophole in the WARN Act that permitted the Friendly's Corporation to shut down 15 Upstate locations overnight, including 4 in Western New York, and lay-off hundreds of employees without so much as a day's notice.
"The way by which Friendly's left their workers across Upstate high-and-dry isn't just something we should lament, it's something we should address – by closing the Friendly's loophole that allowed this company to fire scores of valuable employees without a moment's notice. If these women and men worked in a factory, they would have received a WARN notice, but—even though they had the very same employer—because they happened to work at different locations the company was not required to give any notice, and that's just wrong," said Senator Schumer. "So, in the spirit of fairness, and so this doesn't happen again, I am announcing plans to introduce new legislation to close this gaping loophole, because we shouldn't have hundreds of hardworking employees show up for work in the morning only to be told to close up shop—for good. The truth is: this issue is not just about Friendly's. It's about fairness and amounts to an acknowledgment corporations need to adhere to and embrace much friendlier worker protections."
Schumer announced his plans to introduce new legislation in the Senate that will strengthen the WARN Act by closing the "single employment site" loophole and consequently increase the circumstances under which employers must give two months' notice to their employees of imminent and large-scale layoffs. Schumer said that this sort of mass layoff shouldn't happen to workers without fair notice and urged his colleagues to pass his WARN Act-strengthening legislation immediately upon its introduction.
Schumer said that since each of the Friendly's locations didn't cross the 50 employee threshold at any one employment site, the corporation was not mandated to give employees the two months' advance notice. Schumer noted that by spreading out layoffs across multiple sites throughout the state, Friendly's was able to skirt its WARN Act obligations and avoid notifying employees ahead of time. Schumer stated that while Friendly's might not have violated the current WARN Act requirements, the company didn't adhere to the spirit of the WARN Act. Schumer pointed to Friendly's maneuvering as having exposed a major loophole in the WARN Act that must be closed immediately.
