The national plant closing law has serious loopholes, the GeneralAccounting Office is expected to say in a report due out next month,several experts interviewed for the study said Tuesday.
In 1988, Congress enacted the law - officially entitled theWorker Adjustment Retraining Act. It was designed to provideemployees with a 60-day notice of plant closings so they could beginrearranging their lives.
The law, however, has failed to live up to expectations becauseof major loopholes, said Greg LeRoy, research director for theChicago-based Midwest Center for Labor Research.
They include: The mass layoff rule, which allows companies to terminate smallnumbers of workers over time without giving notice. The faltering business rule, which exempts businesses from giving aclosing notice, if they fail to secure new business or investment. The unforseen circumstances rule, which exempts firms from givingnotice if business conditions suddenly change.
"There is strong evidence that companies have deliberatelymanipulated . . . loopholes or simply ignored the noticerequirements, terminating loyal, longtime employees with no notice atall," said Julie Hurwitz, executive director of the Detroit-basedSugar Law Center, which is the litigation clearing house for theNational Lawyers Guild, a union of lawyers whose clients includedislocated workers, African-Americans and other non whites.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, interviewed severalorganizations concerned with plant closings for itsreport, said JimBenn, executive director of the Chicago-based Federation forIndustrial Retention & Renewal.
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