labor lawAdivision of labor law center

Effective February 1, 2009 New York employers must give workers more notice of layoffs.

The New York State Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification or WARN Act requires employers to provide 90 days notice to employees who will be laid off. The law applies to employers who are closing a plant, planning a mass layoff or a plant relocation that occurs on or after February 1, 2009. It does not apply to individual layoffs.

New York employers who are planning mass layoffs shortly after February 1, 2009 must act now to provide notice before the new law takes effect. The new law, Chapter 475, Section 25-A  of the New York code,  was passed by the state legislature on August 5, 2008.

According to the New York Department of Labor, the state WARN Act applies to any employer with 50 or more worker, who lays off at least 25 employees.

The law applies to (more…)

Proving that sexual harassment is not confined to civilian employers, an Air Force commander was recently found guilty of two counts of indecent assault involving female employees at a base in Texas.  He was sentenced to 9 years in prison and discharge from the service on a total of 34 criminal counts on July 26, 2008. The sexual assault convictions mean that Col. Lofton must register as a sex offender.

According to a Wichita Falls newspaper, a military panel of 7 men and  2 women found Col. Samuel Lofton III guilty of forcing two civilian female employees to kiss him and placing their hands on his genitals. One of the women reported two incidents in 2007, while the other reported two incidents in 2006. Both women worked in the same building as Col. Lofton, although neither reported to him. Col. Lofton was also found guilty of harassing a high-ranking enlisted Air Force member on the phone and making sexually suggestive comments to her at work.

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