Opinion ID: 700695
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Single Site Determination and the WARN Violation

Text: 23 As its second major contention on appeal, Ampex would have us conclude that its actions did not constitute a WARN violation. 24 To constitute a WARN violation, an employer must have ordered a plant closing or mass layoff without providing each employee, either individually or through her representatives, with sixty-days advance notice. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2102. A mass layoff refers to a reduction in force which results in an employment loss at a single site of employment during any thirty-day period for fifty or more employees who comprise at least 33% of the total number of employees at that particular site. Sec. 2101(a)(3). 25 For purposes of this appeal, the parties agree that if the VSC building constitutes a separate work location, separate and distinct from the RSC site, then the firing of ninety VSC employees without the requisite sixty-day notice violates the WARN Act. 5 Thus, the principal issue before this court is whether the district court properly determined that the VSC and RSC facilities constituted two separate sites of employment for purposes of the WARN Act. 26 The district court opinion refers to its disposition of this issue at various times during trial proceedings. 6 There, the court noted, among other things, that the two divisions: 27 appear[ed to] have several bases for being separate. They had different managers. They had different department heads. I think Mr. McWilliams' testimony was that they had different controllers, they had different quality control, engineering, operations, they had a different secretary, purchasing material. They make different products. Granted, they're the same or similar types of products, but so are the products made by Western Electric, the Mountain States Telephone Company, and AT & T, but that doesn't make them all single, individual corporations. 28