Union Checklist: What To Do Once A Layoff Notice Arrives

Over the past three decades unions have helped establish many of the very best response systems to closures and layoffs. The following is a basic checklist of questions to guide union leaders once a layoff notice arrives. The checklist offers a list of activities and tools that unions have employed to provide benefits and services to members affected by job loss.

• Review advance notification contractual provisions
• Review federal notification regulations including Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) which requires a 60 day notice for mass layoffs of 500 or more workers at a site or at sites of 50-499 employees where 33% or more are affected.
• Review applicability of Trade Adjustment Act and NAFTA/TAA in cases of job loss due to increased directly competitive imports or as a result of trade with Mexico or Canada.

Has the union been fully informed and involved?

• Insist that state or local layoff Rapid Response staff work closely with the union leadership to assist the workers and companies facing layoffs.
• Assure that the public Rapid Response effort does not interfere with the requirement that an employer negotiate the effects of a closure with the union.
• Insist that any on-site meeting or contact with workers upon receipt of information about a potential layoff or closure includes union representation.
• Require that layoff aversion strategies such as employee buyout and other opportunities receive full consideration.
• Create workforce adjustment committees with full union participation to develop a comprehensive plan for assisting workers. Union participation should begin with the early presentation of the committee concept.

Has the union taken steps to respond quickly to assist members?

• Implement existing benefit provisions within contract e.g. advance notice, health/COBRA, severance, supplemental unemployment, pension, workers comp, etc.
• Negotiate over additional benefits such as supplemental unemployment, training, and other services that can be integrated with the public resources available.
• Identify workers who are off due to occupational injury or illness and assure they receive proper notification of status, benefits and services.
• Identify outstanding issues surrounding workplace safety and health and obtain individual and plant wide exposure records.
• Seek early intervention services prior to layoff to recruit and enroll workers into benefits and services as soon as possible.
• Seek to create easy access to services, either on-site, near job sites or at union hall, to facilitate intake and enrollment activities.
• Demand union members receive public benefits in a timely manner and be sensitive to the concerns/needs of documented and undocumented immigrant workers
• Demand that all services are accessible to workers with disabilities, other special needs and in languages spoken by the workforce.
• Demand confidentiality of the information workers provide.

How can unions develop systems to promote program delivery? 

• Seek to create worker adjustment committee as soon as lay-off notices arrive and begin designing a displaced-worker.
• Seek to establish a peer advisor program to train union members to work with Rapid Response staff in helping laid-off union members enroll in local programs and services and in holding providers accountable for the provision of timely early intervention services. 
• Seek adequate funding (both negotiated and public) to provide a full array of services and benefits.
• Create a plan and procedure to ensure private-public cooperation so that workers have access to all the benefits and services that they are eligible for. 

How can local unions connect with labor-friendly advice on developing programs or finding the resources available through private and public systems?

• Contact your CLC and State Federation. A number of state federations operated dislocated worker programs.
• Contact the AFL-CIO Community Services staff representative in your area.  Your CLC can help you reach the one in your area.
• Contact the labor representatives on your state and local Workforce Investment Board. Your state federation and CLC can help direct you.
• Contact the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute Regional Coordinator.