Just In Case You Forgot About This Already
Sen. Graham: Obama move on defense layoff notices ‘patently illegal’
By Jeremy Herb – 10/01/12 02:45 PM ET
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says that he will do anything he can to block the Obama administration from reimbursing defense contractors for severance costs if the firms don’t send layoff notices to employees.
The Obama administration issued guidance Friday that said defense firms’ costs would be covered if they have to layoff workers due to canceled contracts under the across-the-board cuts set to take effect Jan. 2.
The layoff notices have become a politically charged issue because they could have come just four days ahead of the election because of a 60-day notice required by federal law for mass layoffs.
Graham and other Republicans were livid after the Obama administration issued the guidance on Friday telling contractors that their legal costs would be covered due to canceled contracts under sequestration, but only if they did not issue layoff notices before sequestration occurs — and before the November election.
“I will do everything in my power to make sure not one taxpayer dollar is spent reimbursing companies for failure to comply with WARN Act,” Graham told The Hill in a phone interview Monday. “That is so beyond the pale — I think it’s patently illegal.”
The guidance prompted Lockheed Martin — which had previously threatened to send out notices of potential layoffs to all of its 123,000 employees — to say Monday it would not send notices this year under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) called the administration’s guidance “politically motivated memos with dubious grounding in the law.”
“It appears companies will bow to the threat implicit in last week’s OMB guidance; withhold notices today or the government might not cover your court costs down the road. Let me be clear, neither the OMB guidance nor the Lockheed decision will protect a single defense industry job if sequestration occurs in January,” McKeon said in a statement.
Graham has been one of the biggest advocates of companies issuing the layoff notices. He said in July that they should issue them immediately to raise public concern and force Congress to find a solution to avert the sequestration cuts.
Graham said Monday he was “very surprised” that Lockheed decided not to issue the notices, which could have come as early as Wednesday in states with a 90-day notice requirement.
“This is a complete turnaround,” Graham said. “This reeks of politics, and quite frankly the legally reasoning being pushed by OMB makes no sense for me.”
Democrats argue that the contractors’ threats to issue mass layoff notices just ahead of the election was a political move.
When the Labor Department issued guidance in July saying it was “inappropriate” to issue the WARN Act notices due to sequestration, House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said: “There is no reason to needlessly alarm hundreds of thousands of workers when there is no way to know what will happen with sequestration.”
Obama’s pressuring defense contractors into violating the law is an impeachable offense. Why are republicans like McCain afraid to say that? Obama knows it is. Why else did he offer to pay the contractors’ legal fees?
He has no respect for anyone and, as a result, Lockheed Martin employees will not get the legally required time to prepare for their lay offs. He is a POS for sure.
Interesting that with a huge national debt we now leave ourself open to threats to our national security. What is a prsidents job? Protect and defend should be his first thought, not golf!
First off Lockheed has 123,000 workers in total and I think you would agree that even if sequestration were to happen, they will not have to layoff their entire workforce. The real number would be closer to 10,000 based on what I am not sure but that was the number Lockheed gave. The reason the number 123,000 has come up is because nobody knows exactly what sequestration will actually do, what contracts will be effected or even what contractors will be effected so they said they would have to send notices to almost their entire workforce to cover their butts in case they had to lay anyone off and comply with WARN notices. The DOL came back and said under the law, mere conjecture does not trigger the obligation for WARN notices. This all was said in June/July 2012. Further more, the DOD has indicated no contract actions on or about 2 January, 2013, and that any action to adjust funding levels on contracts as a result of sequestration would likely not occur for several months after jan 2 leaving plenty of time for WARN notices without wasting States’ resources in undertaking employment assistance activities where none are needed and create unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty for workers not to mention driving their stock into the ground which I assure you Lockheed was prob most concerned with.
Lets also point out that nobody expected we would even get to the point of thinking about the actuality of sequestration as it was put in as means of prodding Congress into coming up with a concrete plan for addressing the deficit issue which they haven’t been able to do.
Thanks for your interest and comment. I think you missed the point I wanted to make. That being Obama telling them to not send out the notice’ as the law dictates. Even to the point of telling them their legal fees would be covered. That’s low.