Whether you’re laid off or fired, losing your job is a crushing experience. These days, layoffs are an unfortunate fact of life. You still have legal rights when you lose your job because of a mass layoff or workforce reduction. Sometimes, what seems like a layoff is really a wrongful termination in disguise. How can a layoff be a wrongful termination? It happens more often than you might think.
Termination vs. layoff
Termination ends the employment relationship. Employees are terminated for job-related reasons such as poor job performance, breaking policy, or excessive absences. Employees may also be terminated when a business closes permanently, or when a position is eliminated in the company.
Layoffs may be due to business reorganization, a lack of work or money to pay all employees, or natural disasters. In these cases, the employee’s job performance is not at issue. Even so, an employer may violate the law by choosing employees for layoff based on unlawful reasons, such as firing the older workers, or the workers of a particular gender, race, color, or national origin.
What are my protections in a layoff at a Texas company?
Depending on the size of your company, you may be protected by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. This federal law requires employers with more than 100 workers to give their employees at least 60 days’ notice if:
- There will be a plant closing or a unit shutdown affecting at least 50 full-time workers
- A mass layoff will affect more than one-third the number of workers at any location with between 50-499 employees, or
- Any single layoff of more than 500 employees at a single location
The notice must tell workers when the layoff will occur, how long it is expected to last (or if it will be permanent), and provide the name and contact information for someone with additional information.
Smaller businesses with fewer than 100 workers are not subject to the WARN Act. However, workers still have protections in the event of mass layoffs and terminations. The Texas Workforce Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also work to ensure workers are protected against other types of wrongful termination disguised as layoffs.
Mass layoffs for any discriminatory reason, such as race, religion, gender, or age over 40, are also prohibited, even if cloaked in language that suggests they were made for “business reasons.” There are a number of state and federal laws that address these discriminatory layoffs. After you contact a Texas employment lawyer, your next stop should be the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
I got laid off – what should I do next to protect my rights?
If you think your layoff or termination violated any of these state or federal laws, you should contact an attorney immediately. You will need to collect specific information to prove your case. For instance, a WARN Act notice must contain certain details according to the law. It may be useful as evidence against your employer if it does not.
If you believe you have been the victim of wrongful termination, you should speak with an employment law attorney immediately. In Texas, your time to make a claim is limited. Jackson Spencer Law has been fighting and winning cases in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for employees for over 10 years. Call us for a free, no-obligation consultation on your case.
