For so many years, this nation has been creating policies and laws to protect the people and their way of life. One particular law that was passed still creates a lot of confusion on whether this law pertains to them or not. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is a federal law to protect workers, their families, and society from sudden or unforeseen job losses due to plant closings and massive layoffs. The WARN Act was originally enacted on August 4, 1988, but it evidentially became effective on February 4, 1989 (Department of Labor, 2013).
Unlike other laws that are enforced by certain government or federal agencies, the WARN Act in which an employee, their representative, or a government official has the right to sue in a United States District Court in order to enforce the act. The Department of Labor (DOL) has no authority to enforce the WARN Act, but does have authority to disseminate the regulations.
There are many implications that has been mandated under the WARN Act where it serves to protect employees from the unlawful acts brought on by their employers. Some of the implications include who is protected by the WARN Act, what triggers the WARN Act, and what does the act require.
First of all, some people may ask who does the WARN Act cover? Unfortunately, this act does not cover every body; it does protect affected employees who are subject to layoffs due to a proposed plant shutdown or a mass layoff that includes both hourly and salaried workers, as well as managers and supervisors. Employees who work less than 20 hours a week, or part-time, and those whose status is listed as a contractor are not subject to the same protection that is covered under the WARN Act (Department of Labor...
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...nd financial heartache this country is continuing to see despite the numerous reports in the rise in numbers. At any rate, the WARN Act will continue to enforce its laws and policies to protect the hard working Americans.
Works Cited
Department of Labor (2009, September). Other Workplace Standards: Notices for Plant Closings and Mass Layoffs [White paper]. Retrieved from United States Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/layoffs.htm
Department of Labor. (2013). The worker adjustment and retraining notification act [Fact sheet]. Retrieved from http://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm
The United States Enrichment Corporation (Producer). (2013). USEC issues WARN act notices to Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.usec.com/news/usec-issues-warn-act-notices-paducah-gaseous-diffusion-plant-workers
Have you ever shot a firearm before? If you have… don't you hate it when you hear that click-click noise when the firearm is empty! Now with the New York state safe act of the seven round clips law you will hear the noise a lot sooner than before. The seven round clips should be unconstitutional that New York State is putting into law. I don't think we should be regulated on the number of rounds we can put in a clip.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 was established because an American boy was abducted form a Florida shopping mall and was later found murdered. The act was signed into law by George W. Bush on July 27, 2006. This act is established to protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime to prevent child abuse and child pornography to promote internet safety. This act is also known as the sex offender registration and notification act. It was established with the intention to strengthen laws related to child sexual predators. This law was instructed for each state and/or territory to apply criteria’s for posting offenders data on the internet.
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“Unions are about collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital” - Canadian entrepreneur, Kevin O’Leary. The American workplace has not always provided protections for employees. Until the early 20th century business owners held all of the power in the employee/employer relationship. Workers were subjected to extremely long hours, low wages and dangerous working conditions, with no recourse or protections. Organized labor over the last century challenged the position and power of employers and lobbied the government to create laws and policies that would protect workers and create safer working environments for employees. The majority of policies that today’s average employee takes for granted, such as the eight
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It was clear that the governments in America would not issue a permit to Union Carbide plant under such circumstances, which lacked severe environmental standards and permitted slum dwellers to live near the plant and so on. Such actions were the ones that led to more deaths. Before the major gas leakage from the MCI unit on December 3, 1984, some people were killed because of phosgene gas leakage. However, no one took it seriously, despite the media report. One of the reasons that people ignore this was because people didnt know the potential danger of the chemical plant.
The federal government assists employees from being discriminated against in the workplace. Employment discrimination is covered under several key pieces of legislation that the government saw fit to put into place over the past 50 years. These include the following: The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Protects employees from being discriminated against on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Equal Pay Act of 1963: Does away with discrimination in wages between women and men, when employed in the same position or job. The Age Discrimination Act of 1967: Prohibits age discrimination against individuals who are 40 years old or older. The Americans with disabilities Act of 1990: Protects people with disabilities from being discriminated against. The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2008: Prevents an employer, or a potential employer, from discriminating against someone on the basis of genetic information that is known or
United States Department of Labor (2004) Occupational Safety & Health Administration. In Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care & Social Service Workers. Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3148/osha3148.html
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In the early 1900s industrial accidents were commonplace in this country; for example, in 1907 over 3,200 people were killed in mining accidents. At this time legislation and public opinion all favored management. There were few protections for the worker's safety. Today's industrial employees are better off than their colleagues in the past. Their chances of being killed in an industrial accident are less than half of that of their predecessors of 60 years ago. According to National safety Council (NSC), the current death rate from work-related injuries is approximately 4 per 100,000, or less than a third of the rate of 50 years ago. Improvements in safety up to now have been the result of pressure for legislation to promote health and safety, the steadily increasing cost associated with accidents and injuries, and the professionalization of safety as an occupation. When the industrial sector began to grow in the United States, hazardous working conditions were commonplace. Following the Civil War, the seeds of the safety movement were sown in this country. Factory inspection was introduced in Massachusetts in 1867. In 1868 the first barrier safeguard was patented. In 1869 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a mine safety law requiring two exits from all mines. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was established in 1869 to study industrial accidents and report pertinent information about hose accidents. The following decade saw little progress in the safety movement until 1877, when the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring safeguards for hazardous machinery. In 1877 the Employers' Liability Law was passed. In 1892, the first safety program was established in a steel plant in Illinois, in response to the explosion of a flywheel in that company.