Republic AMTs Begin to Receive WARN Notices

Republic Airways AMTs have begun to receive notices as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act of 1988 (WARN). The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 is a US labor law which protects employees, their families and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-days advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees, as defined in the Act.

Republic management is gearing up for layoffs beginning on October 1st, when the layoff protections provided under the CARES Act expire on September 30th.

It is important to note that not all AMTs who receive a WARN notification will be laid off. Read the WARN notification Q & A we posted last week.

However, we can expect that there will be layoffs unless there is an extension of the CARES Act protections. The IAM has called for a “clean extension” of the Payroll Support Program component of the CARES Act. Find out more here.

The fact is, without a union contract, layoffs and recall to employment will be decided wholly by Republic management. Without union representation, Republic management can disregard seniority in layoffs, bumping rights and recall to employment when the industry recovers. An example of this is Republic management’s plan to train unlicensed workers to perform our work. Read more about that here. Will these unlicensed workers be performing our work while many of us are on layoff? Without a union, we cannot stop their plan.

We are very close to filing for a union election with the IAM. If you haven’t requested that an election take place, you can get the process started today by requesting an a-card online. We will get your a-card mailed out to you asap. All you have to do is sign, date and drop in the mail.

Read the Day One Plan when we attain IAM representation.

If you have any questions, please call or email IAM Grand Lodge Representative and AMT, John Werkmeister at (412) 613-4300, jwerkmeister@iamaw.org.
 

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