My current understanding is that if the RIF's are big enough to warrant a WARN notification, and the company doesn't provide 60 days advance notice of the layoff, then they legally have to pay 60 days worth of salary. While L3Harris does have a "1 week severance per year of service", that is separate from the WARN Act payout. Obviously, you could be signing away your WARN payment if you sign for a severance package if that verbiage is buried in there.
I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience collecting WARN payments through L3Harris, or at least being a witness to someone else who has. With the upcoming rumored layoffs, I just want to be prepared.
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@22r Idk about SAS FW, but word on the street is SAS Alpharetta (Military Displays) is on the chopping block. They are merging with RSAT with a supposed new org chart coming next week.
@OP does anyone see this bringing concern for folks on SAS FW?
“The penalty is a severance package.”
Not true at all. Genuinely violating WARN results in fines.
“… without so much as a slap on the wrist.”
Why would they get a slap on the wrist? They’re abiding by the WARN act completely.
Plant closure that will affect 50 or more? WARN. If it’s a plant closure that only affects 25 people, no WARN needed. If it’s not a plant closure, it has to be either one-third of the workforce at a site OR 500+ people. At a company with 50,000 employees and 70 locations, do the math - only a lobotomized monkey couldn’t figure out how to avoid WARN requirements.
LHX is playing by the same rules as everyone else. Every other big corporation plays this same game - when was the last time you saw WARN notices for Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop? They’re all having them, and all doing the same thing. If you want to put blame somewhere, put it on the administrations that made WARN so generous to where avoiding them as a corporation is basically a child’s game.
It depends and varies state by state.
In Florida where LHX is headquartered, WARN notice is required when:
A plant is closing and will affect 50+ people.
500+ people at a single site will be laid off not due to a plant closure.
50-499 people at a single site will be laid off, if they constitute one-third of the workforce at that site (so, 300 people at a site and 100+ people will be laid off, 400+ people at a site of 1200, etc.)
All of these also have a time limit - the number of people laid off only counts across 30 days.
WARN notices are extremely generous to employers and a place like LHX can very easily avoid them. Look at Blue Origin, they laid off 10% of their workforce without a WARN. WARN does very very little for employees.
@OP - Correct, just another underhanded move by L3Harris—like transferring 500+ of us to Accenture without offering severance packages...
@w8 Ahh, so the threshold isn't 50 people for the whole company, but 50 people in a given location?
The answer is simple - they simply don’t lay off enough people at any single location at a single time to warrant a WARN notice.
WARN depends on the number of people at a site and how many are affected. That’s why they keep doing the 2% here. 3% there. 30 people at this location. 100 at this one. They will still get the number they want, they’ll just do it over the course of several years so that they don’t have to issue a WARN.
As somebody said in a different thread, LHX is expert at avoiding WARN act provisions by skillfully arranging their layoffs. I suspect it also varies by state, with some being more diligent in enforcing the act than others.
The penalty for not providing notice of a layoff is a severance payment. So, by receiving a severance package, and accepting the terms, (yes with your signature), you are accepting a "pre-paid" penalty.
L3Harris has laid off thousands of people without so much as a slap on the wrist. They know what they're doing.
If you get laid off, move on and rip off that rearview mirror.
Best advice: No matter what happens, even if they call you back, NEVER EVER go back.