Dive Brief:

• Rosen Hotels and Resorts, an Orlando-based hospitality system, has preliminarily settled class-action claims brought by a plaintiff and 3,631 other employees through the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. A judge approved the $2.3 million deal Aug. 2.
• According to the complaint, hotel workers were put on a temporary furlough in April 2020 (Turner v. Rosen Hotels and Resorts, Inc., No. 6:21-cv-00161 (M.D. Florida Jan. 22, 2021)). They remained on furlough for six months without receiving notification of their employment status, the complaint said. The workers suffered “employment loss” as part of the mass layoff, and did not receive the 60 days’ advance written notice to which they were entitled under the WARN Act, the complaint alleged.
• In addition to failing to provide workers with notice of furlough, the hotel system did not provide them with pay or benefits for 60 days following their respective layoffs exceeding six months, the complaint alleged.

Dive Insight:

The WARN Act requires employers with at least 100 full-time workers to provide 60 days’ advance notice if they plan to submit at least 50 people at a single site to an employment loss, which is defined as a termination, a layoff exceeding six months or a 50% or greater reduction in hours during each month of a six-month period.

The law is intended to help workers transition from their terminated position to a new role. Under the Workforce Investment Act, each state has a designated...

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