Official Summary Text
AB 2530, as amended, Caloza.
Employment: Cal/WARN Act: plant closings and mass layoffs.
Existing law, the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (Cal/WARN Act), among other things, prohibits an employer from ordering a mass layoff, relocation, or termination at a covered establishment unless, 60 days before the order takes effect, the employer gives written notice of the order to the employees affected by the order and to the Employment Development Department and certain local officials. Existing law requires the notice to contain specified information and makes an employer who fails to give the required notice liable to each employee entitled to notice who lost their employment for back pay and the value of the cost of any benefits to which the employee would have been entitled had their employment not been lost, as provided. Existing law also makes an employer subject to civil
penalties, as provided, for each day of the employer’s violation. Existing law defines “employer” for these purposes to mean any person, as defined, who directly or indirectly owns and operates a covered establishment and defines “covered establishment” to mean any industrial or commercial facility or part thereof that employs, or has employed within the preceding 12 months, 75 or more persons.
This bill would add “public agency” to the definitions of employer and covered establishment, thereby making the Cal/WARN Act applicable to public agencies. The bill would, in the case of a sale of part or all of an employer’s business, make the seller responsible for providing the notice for any mass layoff, relocation, or termination up to and including the effective date of the sale, and make the purchaser responsible for providing the notice following the effective
date of the sale.
The bill would make other technical and conforming changes.
Existing law, the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (Cal/WARN Act), prohibits a call center employer from ordering a relocation of its call center, or one or more of its facilities or operating units within a call center, unless notice of the relocation is provided, as described.
This bill would additionally prohibit, under the Cal/WARN Act, an employer, as defined, from ordering a plant closing or mass layoff, as defined, until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice of such an order to specified persons, including affected employees, as described and except as provided. The bill would require a noncompliant employer to provide each aggrieved employee, as described, specified backpay for each day of the violation and benefits under an employee benefit plan, including medical expense costs, as
described. The bill also impose, if an employer fails to provide notice to a unit of local government, as defined, a civil penalty of not more than $500 each day, except as provided. The would provide methods for reducing a noncompliant employer’s liability and for enforcing the employer’s liability in court.
This bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to adopt rules and regulations necessary to implement the bill’s provisions, as described, and to submit to the labor committees of the Assembly and Senate a report containing a detailed and objective analysis of the effect of this article on employers, the economy, and employees, as described. The bill would encourage employers that are not required to comply to provide notice pursuant to the bill’s provisions. The bill would make related technical changes.