An amendment to the New York State Worker Adjustment and Retraining (NYS WARN) Act adds certain governmental entities to the list of individuals and entities that must receive advance notice of a WARN-triggering event. The amendment is effective immediately.

The NYS WARN Act requires covered businesses to provide 90 days of advance written notice of plant closures and mass layoffs to all affected workers, any employee representative(s) of the affected workers, the state Commissioner of Labor, and the Local Workforce Investment Board. The amendment adds the following entities to that list:

• The chief elected official of the unit or units of local government and the school district or districts in which the mass layoff, relocation or employment loss will occur; and
• Each locality which provides police, firefighting, emergency medical or ambulance services or other emergency services to the site of employment subject to the mass layoff, relocation, or employment loss, as applicable.

The NYS WARN Act has very specific requirements for the contents of the various required notices, and the Department of Labor has yet to issue guidance on the contents of the NYS WARN Act notices to the new notice recipients.