The 1988 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, requires companies with more than 100 employees to notify workers in writing 60 days prior to mass layoffs. But large defense contractors in the Washington region have not done so, taking the Obama administration’s word that they will be reimbursed for any WARN Act violations if sequestration goes into effect 60 days from now. This is unprecedented, as the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky noted: “The White House is telling defense contractors that the American taxpayer will compensate them for any liability incurred for violating federal law.”
Sequestration looms unless Congress averts $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts, mostly in defense, before the Jan. 1 deadline. The threat is already causing a dominolike effect in the Washington region’s commercial real estate market.
