Bellevue Company Accused of Employment Security Violations

They don't happen very often, but when they do, it's often with larger companies.

  Bellevue firm accused of Employment Security violations with layoffs

The WA State Employment Security Department (WESD) requires businesses that are going to lay off workers to provide prior notice to WESD, and the employees. They're called WARN Alerts. (Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification).

They only apply to companies that have a total of 100 or more workers in WA. But there's a new wrinkle that's been added.

A recent WARN Alert was released about a Seattle-area company called FIS Global that is letting go of 133 workers in what's described as a mass layoff. FIS is a global financial tech company that provides software and tech services to financial institutions.

A Chicago law firm, Strauss and Borelli, has opened a class action investigation against FIS, claiming they possibly violated a newer portion of the WARN Alerts, by not giving the workers the required 60-day notice.

The WARN Alert was publicly released on July 15th. and indicated the workers would be gone by September 15th. However, the law firm says FIS notified Employment Security July 11 but then conducted the mass layoff.

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Strauss and Borelli say if FIS did not provide the full 60-day notice, then the laid-off workers would be subject to receiving 60 days of severance pay and benefits.

The new portion of the WARN Act, which was enacted this year, requires that 60-day layoff window.

There are numerous WARN Alerts issued each month, but this is the first time we've seen potential litigation due to violations of the WARN Act in WA.

FIS Global employs about 45,000 workers worldwide.