The WARN Act is a federal law requiring employers of 100 or more full-time workers to give 60-days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.  This federal law applies to employers in the State of Rhode Island. 

• Employers with 100 or more full-time workers are affected if they: close a facility or discontinue an operating unit with 50 or more workers; or  
  

• lay off 50-499 workers (and these workers comprise at least 33% of the total workforce at a single site of employment); or
  
  
• lay off 500 or more workers at a single site of employment.

The law requires that this notification be given to the appropriate local chief elected official, the Dislocated Worker Unit of the State Department of Labor, and the collective bargaining representative of affected employees or each employee if the employees do not have such representation. 

Next page