The California Legislature on Tuesday passed a bill aiming to give workers earlier notice in the event of mass layoffs. Next up is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The bill, Assembly Bill 1356, would extend the notice period of impending layoffs, closure or relocation to 75 days from 60, as required under the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act.
Originally the bill sought to increase the length of notice to 90 days but was amended. The law, if enacted, would apply to any employer with 50 or more employees at a single location.
“This is the biggest expansion of layoff protections for California workers in probably 30 years,” said Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), author of the bill. “This is something all workers deserve when they have this really disruptive situation of being laid off.”
The legislation was inspired by sweeping layoffs at Google, Meta and other tech companies in the last year. In particular, the haphazard handling of layoffs at Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company in 2022 drew lawsuits from laid-off workers who said they didn’t receive the notification required by law. (Musk recently rebranded the social media platform X.)
Nov. 14, 2022
Haney said that in the aftermath, he heard from all kinds of workers at Twitter.
“Everyone from janitors to engineers were told to pack their things and be out by...
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