On July 1, 2025, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill No. 96 into law. Although that law generally relates to setting Ohio’s operating budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, it also includes a “mini-WARN” provision which will require covered employers to provide notice to certain employees affected by plant closings and mass layoffs in Ohio starting September 29, 2025.
Ohio’s mini-WARN Act, set to be codified as Section 4113.31 of the Ohio Revised Code, mirrors the requirements of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) in most ways. In fact, the statute specifies that it does “not establish a different standard than that established by federal statutes and regulations.” However, the Ohio statute noticeably omits certain key language of the federal WARM Act with respect to defining a triggering event that requires notice to affected employees. Under the language in Ohio’s mini-WARN Act, employers are required to provide notice to affected employees if the employer:
Missing from this triggering language is the additional requirement in the federal WARN Act that for a mass layoff of 50 or more employees at a single site, the number of laid off employees also comprise at least 33 percent of the total number of employees at the single site. Under Ohio’s law, notice...
Russian propaganda is spreading false statements that the account of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, was allegedly created with...