Tuesday, January 15, 2002
By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/20020115warn0115bnp2.asp
SOMERSET, Pa. -- Karen Boyer had just picked up her last paycheck from the Bender Shoe Co. factory here, only hours after learning that she may lose her house in nearby Friedens because she has no income.
A separated mother of three young children, Bender tried hard to hold back the tears as she recounted her plight but couldn't.
"We got no notice, no severance pay, no vacation pay, nothing," the former sewing machine operator said Friday as she fingered a paycheck that was worth about $65 after deductions.
A week earlier, plant manager Ross Auman abruptly dismissed 135 production employees under orders he had received just the day before from Bender's corporate parent, B.B. Walker Co. of Asheboro, N.C.
While there had been temporary layoffs last year and other signs that business was slowing, employees were given no advance warning that the boot factory would permanently close. And there was no mention during the dismissal meetings of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires larger employers who are planning a plant closure or a mass layoff to give the affected employees at least 60 days' notice.
But the law, enacted in 1988 and commonly referred to as the WARN act, has exceptions that let many companies escape the requirements. Enforcement is lax and the financial penalties for noncompliance are limited to 60 days' pay and benefits -- not exactly a pot of gold for private attorneys.
"There is no agency of government which has been granted the authority to enforce the law or even given the obligation to monitor compliance," said Mark Fancher, senior staff attorney for the Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, a nonprofit, public interest law center in Detroit that tracks WARN cases.
"It's not an attractive area of the law for many [law] practices," added Fancher, who noted that because such cases are not lucrative, labor unions with staff attorneys are more likely than nonunion employee groups such as Bender's to take the issue to court.
The sole method of enforcement is the filing of civil lawsuits by the employees themselves -- an idea that some Bender employees are considering pursuing -- or by their bargaining agent or the local municipality where the company is based.
"We worked together for so long it was like a family. I've been there for 16 years, and it was a shock to us when we they told us there was no more work," said Elmer Halle, a former shoe inspector who is considering a legal challenge.
"We should have been told we were in trouble," said Emma Colflesh, who worked at the plant for about five years. "We could never get any answers. I think there should have been something."
Not all employers are subject to the act. In general, employers are covered by WARN if they have 100 or more employees. The 60-day notice is required in plant closings in which 50 or more workers will lose their jobs during a 30-day period.
Large employers also must give notice of mass layoffs that affect 500 or more employees at a site, or 50 to 499 employees if those to be laid off make up at least a third of the employer's active work force.
There are exceptions for faltering companies, for companies that have experienced "unforeseen business circumstances" or companies that are the victims of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes or draught.
Walker, a maker of Western boots and work shoes, may qualify under one of those exceptions, but the company's strategy is unknown since management did not return telephone calls over the past week. The company also has idled its plant in Asheboro, according to workers in Somerset.
The Somerset plant's workers, told of the factory closing a week earlier, picked up final checks Friday afternoon. Many who were leaving the gray, one-story building for the last time said they knew that cheaper imports were making it difficult for Bender to compete. Still, they had no idea the end was so near.
"I'd like to have seen four more years," said Ron Miller, 58, a maintenance man who worked 38 years for Bender, where boots were made from scratch out of leather and other materials. "The American consumer goes with imports .... That's a lot of it."
Pennsylvania, like other states, has authorization to collect WARN notices but has no authority to police whether or not companies file them as required or pay workers for 60 days in lieu of the notice. Federal authorities never ask for a report from the state.
"We're not enforcers of the WARN Act. It's not like OSHA [the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration]. We can't go in and say, 'You should have done this,' " said Christine Enright, supervisor of Rapid Response Coordinated Services for the state Department of Labor & Industry.
Unforeseen business circumstances" is the exemption most commonly cited by employers wishing to avoid the notice requirement, she said.
"That's the big whammy," Enright said. "All I can say is, 'Do you think you can substantiate that in a court of law? What did you know? When did you know it, and how did you make your decisions?' "
Enright's principal concern is making sure workers who are laid off receive training assistance and job-help guidance available through CareerLinks, the state's new one-stop employment assistance centers and other agencies.
She said state employees who contact employers rumored to be laying off may mention the WARN Act but "don't harp on it" for fear that employers will not let the state provide career services if they think they might be subject to fines.
State bureaucrats say the statute also limits the advice they can give to employers who call wanting guidance on compliance or to employees wanting to know if they are protected by the law.
"When the workers call, we try to give them some feeling of guidance. This is what it is and this is what it isn't," Enright said. "They usually are not a happy customer when they get done talking with us."
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
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