You first need to understand that there is something called the WARN Act that requires contractors to notify employees 60 days in advance if they will be laid off.
Obama is literally telling contractors, “I want you to violate federal law for me and basically screw your workers by telling them, “Surprise! You’re laid off!” with absollutely no warning so Obama can get reelected. Because if 2 million layoff notices go out he’s toast. And Obama is quite literally saying to the contractors, “If you break the law for me so that I can get reelected before the American people realize what I did to their country, I’ll redistribute taxpayer money to pay for your legal costs when you get sued for breaking the law for me.”
White House to contractors: Hold off on layoff warnings
By Jeanne Sahadi @CNNMoneySeptember 28, 2012: 6:51 PM ETNEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The White House on Friday told government contractors worried about fiscal cliff spending cuts to hold off on warning employees about possible layoffs.
The government said it would cover legal costs if contractors are forced to slash their payrolls because of the looming $109 billion in automatic cuts next year and are alleged to have violated the WARN Act.
The federal WARN Act requires businesses with more than 100 employees to notify workers at least 60 days in advance of a mass layoff or plant closing. Some states require more notice.
“Any resulting employee compensation costs for WARN Act liability as determined by a court, as well as attorneys’ fees and other litigation costs (irrespective of litigation outcome) would qualify as allowable costs and be covered by the contracting agency, if otherwise reasonable and allocable,” the Office of Management and Budget said in its guidance.
Top CEOs: Fiscal cliff is hurting jobs
Defense contractors in particular have warned for months that the upcoming sequester would cost jobs in their industry. And Lockheed Martin’s CEO has said publicly he may be forced to issue notice this fall of possible layoffs in 2013.
If other contractors follow suit, there could be a rash of layoff notices spooking employees right before Election Day.
Both parties in Congress created the sequester — a series of thoughtless, automatic, across-the-board cuts — as a way to force their hand to agree on a more gradual bipartisan debt-reduction plan.
Well, that hasn’t happened yet. And if lawmakers can’t agree on how to replace the sequester soon, the cuts become effective on Jan. 2.
Gee, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not qualified to offer legal advice blah blah blah, but isn’t it kind of blatently illegal for the government to proactively offer to cover legal costs to encourage company to violate federal law for partisan political motivations? Not that such trivialities matter in Nazi Germany or anything…
I think Obama should come out and blame these layoffs on that anti-Muhammad Youtube video.
What is the purpose of the WARN Act? It is to give workers who are facing layoffs time to look for another job so they can have a chance to pay their mortgages and feed their families. Obama is saying, “I don’t care about the workers and their rights; I am the messiah and my campaign is far more important.”
So these companies are legally required to send out these notices 60 days before January 1, 2013, so that the 2.14 million workers who are about to be laid off can at least send out some resumes. But not now; thanks to Obama and his endless campaigning, the layoff will be a big surprise. And Obama is saying, “If you will violated the law and screw your workers for me, I’ll make sure the taxpayers cover your legal expenses when these enraged workers sue you because you broke the law as I told you to do.” Which amounts to a massive campaign donation to Obama from the taxpayers to help Obama get reelected.
As I just got through pointing out, the sequestration and the gutting of the defense industry that will create these layoffs was Obama’s idea. Further, as I pointed out, Obama has already gone on the record stating that he would VETO any manuever to prevent the defense industry from being gutted that will require these 2.14 million layoffs.
So this is nothing more than yet another example of Obama refusing to be held accountable for his failed policies by the American people whom he is hurting.
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