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The battle to reform the federal WARN Act reached a new stage yesterday as the U.S. House signed off on legislation that would require more employers to give their workers advance notice before they become unemployed.

The Democrat-controlled House voted to pass a series of proposals that would help workers whose jobs are sent overseas and workers who lose their jobs without notice.

The legislation included amendments to the 19-year-old federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act, which requires many employers to provide notice to workers before a mass layoff or business closing.

The bill — called the “Trade and Globalization Assistance Act of 2007” — passed the House under the threat of veto by the White House, which in a policy statement this week from the Office of Management and Budget noted its support for Trade Adjustment Assistance programs but called the Democratic proposal a “universal income-support and training program.”

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WARN Act series

The bill, which now heads to the Senate, passed 264-157, without the two-thirds majority that would be necessary to override a veto.

Before yesterday’s vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) called the legislation “a huge step forward.”

“This would say to the American people and the American workers who have lost their jobs or are concerned about losing their jobs to trade that they are not alone,” Ms. Pelosi said on the House floor. “Today represents a renewed commitment to helping American workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

The legislation to reform the WARN Act has advanced on the heels of a four-part investigation by The Blade in July that showed the WARN Act is so full of loopholes and flaws that employers repeatedly skirt it with little or no penalty. The series showed that Congress never delegated enforcement of the WARN Act to the Department of Labor, instead forcing displaced workers to take their former employers to court.

The bill passed yesterday, originally proposed by Rep. George Miller (D., Calif.), would increase the notice period from 60 to 90 days, require employers to notify workers before 50 or more employees — including part-time workers — at a single work site are laid off, increase penalties, and give the Department of Labor the power to investigate WARN Act claims and bring lawsuits on behalf of workers.

The bill also expands Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits to service workers and more manufacturing workers. It increases funding for job training, health-care credits, and extends COBRA health-care coverage for laid-off workers.

“This is just about whether we are going to treat Americans with some sense of decency, who work all year long, provide for their families, work hard, play by the rules, or whether they are just going to have to crash to the streets, and lose their incomes, their houses, their cars, or their kids educations,” said Mr. Miller, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “That’s the choice we get today.”

The opposition

Republicans, who offered an alternative proposal, said Democratic legislation was too costly and complicated, while criticizing the expansion of the WARN Act.

U.S. Rep. John Kline (R., Minn.) said the proposal is “a tremendous expansion and an opportunity for almost unlimited litigation placing a very large burden on employers, and I don’t think we do that in a time when we are trying to preserve jobs for our employees.

“It reaches too far,” he said. “It is too complicated. It opens up employers to too much litigation.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday sent letters to all members of the House urging them to vote against the bill. The chamber focused on the WARN Act reforms, saying they put an unfair burden on employers.

“These changes would destroy the original underpinnings of the WARN Act and would, in many cases, hamper an employer’s ability to remain responsive to its clients’ and customers’ needs,” wrote R. Bruce Josten, the Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president for government affairs. “There is no excuse for rushing these hastily written provisions, which have never been subject to a hearing, to the House floor as part of the [Trade Adjustment Assistance] bill.”

Defending the plan

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio) defended the WARN Act proposals, saying they are necessary protections for workers who are about to lose their jobs. Miss Kaptur said the fact that the WARN Act doesn’t apply to two-thirds of the jobs in the nation shows that “something is really wrong.”

“You can forewarn your work force,” Ms. Kaptur said. “You know who they are.”

Rick McHugh, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project, who fought for the passage of the WARN Act in the late 1980s, believes the changes to the law are long overdue and it was a logical fit with the Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation.

“It makes sense to put WARN in with this legislation because this is basically a safety net for dislocated workers bill, and those programs work better if you get prior notice of a layoff or plant closing,” Mr. McHugh said. “There is a logical connection between the two bills, but whether the Senate wants to take as comprehensive an approach as the House has taken remains to be seen.”

The lack of progress by WARN Act legislation in the Senate is a concern with only about six weeks of congressional activity remaining this year, Mr. McHugh said.

In July, a day after The Blade began its series on the WARN Act, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), along with Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barrack Obama of Illinois, introduced the “FOREWARN Act” — legislation that would overhaul the WARN Act by requiring longer notice periods, increasing penalties for offending businesses, applying the law to smaller businesses, and giving the Department of Labor and state attorneys general the power to bring lawsuits on behalf of workers. The legislation hasn’t had a hearing yet in the Senate.

Mr. Brown last month called on his colleagues in the Senate to include the WARN Act in upcoming trade debates. Yesterday, Bethany Lesser, his spokesman, said the senator could offer a WARN Act amendment to an upcoming Trade Adjustment Assistance bill in the Senate.

Signs of progress

Miss Kaptur is hopeful that the Senate would pick up where the House left off with the bill.

“I hope that the Senate will move it forward,” Miss Kaptur said. “It’s hard to say what they will do over there. All I can say is we’ve done our job.”

Mr. McHugh, who for nearly 20 years has fought for strengthening the WARN Act, is impressed with the progress of the latest efforts to reform the law.

“It’s definitely progress in terms of getting Congress to think about and consider making favorable changes to WARN,” Mr. McHugh said.

Contact Steve Eder at: seder@theblade.com or 419-304-1680.

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