A relic of the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s may help the laid-off techies of today. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to give employees 60 days notice before mass layoffs or a plant closing, was originally intended to help blue-collar workers deal with plant shutdowns. Now, laid-off tech workers are finding out that it can apply to them as well, and they're taking action.
The WARN Act could become an issue for the tech sector as an increasing number of companies shed workers, lawyers say. So far, workers have filed suits against several companies, including bankrupt grocery e-tailer Webvan and out-of-business information-technology services provider Inacom.
Lawyers for Webvan and Inacom did not return phone calls.
"There's a common misconception that protections of WARN extend only to blue-collar employees, when in fact the protections extend to all employees of companies with more than 100 people," said attorney Adam Levin, a partner at the Labor & Employment group at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, in Los Angeles. "There are a considerable number of high-tech companies (that have) given WARN notices."
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