WICHITA, Kan. - Many people carried all of their belongings out with them from Textron Wednesday. While employees were issued a WARN notice, the day they were notified was also their last.
Kansas is a right to work state, which means companies can terminate employees without a reason. Federal law requires companies to give out warn notices in mass layoffs to help mitigate some of the impact on the local economy.
WARN stands for worker adjustment and retraining notification. While some people think it serves to warn the employee of termination, Wichita State's Director of Economic Development and Business Research Jeremy Hill says that is not really the case.
Hill says the bigger purpose of the notice is to give the community time to react so local organizations can step in and help workers transition to something else. "This just gives a way, a mechanism, for our workforce alliance center in town to go out and give special training to some of the employees," said Hill.
"Retrain them and get them into another job quickly. Or also give them information about unemployment benefits packages so they can do that."
Under the WARN Act, companies are required to give workers 60 days notice. Although those workers won't return to work, they were given 60 days pay. The law only pertains to companies with 100 or more employees.
Source: http://www.kwch.com
