Last week, I wrote about how the sequester will trigger the WARN Act, which requires employers to warn staff of pending layoffs a minimum of 60 days in advance. That means potentially hundreds of thousands of public and private sector workers would receive layoff warning notices on November 2 — 60 days before sequestration hits, and just five days before the presidential election.
Needless to say, this is a BFD for President Obama. So you may not be too shocked to learn that the administration might be pressuring employers to delay these notices until after Election Day. HotAir’s Tina Korbe flags this key item in Sen. Jim Inhofe’s floor speech last week:
“I have every reason to believe, because I’ve heard from people in industry, that the president of the United States is trying to get them to avoid sending pink slips out until after the November 7 election,” said Inhofe. “I would remind him that we have something called the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the WARN Act. It requires these companies to give 60 days’ notice of pending layoffs.
“Since sequestration will take place on January 2, these workers must be notified of their pink slip by November 2. This is what I’d like to remind those companies: they don’t have to wait. If they want to notify workers today, they can do that. I think it is imperative that the workers who are going to be laid off work as a result of the Obama Sequestration be notified in advance of the November election. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.”
As Inhofe says, failing to send the layoff notices a minimum of 60 days in advance would be a violation of the WARN Act; and the last thing these companies want is a slew of employee lawsuits to compound their budget cuts. One thing is clear — if sequestration is to take place, the massive impact on the job market will be felt before the election. Potentially just days before.
Watch the DNC spin this as saying that the GOP is going to do everything in its power to see that the layoffs happen.
"The Obama Sequestration?" What a load of BS … this was a bipartisan deal signed by the congressional leaders of both parties. n nBTW, I hope Obama does the following. He should request Congress to defer the sequestration (and I guess the Bush tax cuts) until January 2014 as vast budget cuts and higher taxes clearly would damage the fragile recovery. And if the House GOP caucus refuses to go along, he should request Boehner & co. to propose additional taxes if it now wants to renege on its promises regarding the defense cut. n nIf the GOP refuses, he should calmly inform voters that they are about to receive a brief foretaste of what to expect in the Paul Ryan / Tea Party era in case Romney the Spineless wins. I.e. layoff warning notices to scores of public sector workers and contractors. n nMy bet is that Boehner and McConnell would cave. Once again.
Ah…I don't think you're listening to the Obama/Democratic party line right now. Senator Patty Murray, a senior figure on the Senate budget committee made a big splash last week by defiantly saying the Democrats were going to let sequestration proceed and let the country go off the tax/budget cliff unless the Republicans agree, right now!, to tax increases "on the wealthy". If they don't the disaster that will ensue will all be the Republicans fault. McConnell and Boehner responded publicly with outrage. At the same time Obama changed his mind yet again about the Bush tax cuts. For 3 1/2 years he has sneered (that's the only correct word) that these tax cuts are only for the wealthy. But it turns out that was just another Obama lie. Now he wants to extend the part of the Bush tax cuts that applies to people making less than $250K. This is all meaningless, nothing will happen until after the election. The Republicans are not going to "cave". I guess you haven't noticed. They don't like Obama.
I forgot to add that I really liked this essay. I wasn't aware of WARN. Maybe if enough people speak out things will change in November. Maybe WARN will help. This is one little positive nugget that hopefully will remind people of what is really at stake in November.