‘Zero Days’ Notice’: Bic Graphic Facing Class Action Lawsuit After Abrupt Nov. 20 Worker Layoffs [UPDATE]

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BIC Graphic faces a proposed class action that alleges the promotional products company broke the law when it laid off more than 100 full-time employees from its Clearwater, Florida facility in November without providing as much advance notice as practicably possible. 

According to the 11-page complaint, the plaintiff, a more than 16-year employee, and other Scribe Opco, Inc. workers were led to believe since March 26 that they would be brought back to work following a coronavirus pandemic-related furlough. On November 20, Scribe Opco, which does business as BIC Graphic, told workers in writing for the first time that their employment would be terminated, an apparent violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, according to the suit.

The case says that while BIC Graphic may claim an “unforeseeable business circumstance” exemption from the WARN Act due to COVID-19, the company was still mandated by the law to give workers “as much notice as is practicable.” 

“It failed to do so here, giving Named Plaintiff no advance written notice of his termination whatsoever,” the suit contends. 

Per the lawsuit, the key date under the WARN Act is not when a company knows that a mass layoff is imminent or the date when it finally gets around to identifying the workers who will be let go, but the date on which a mass layoff is “reasonably foreseeable.” As soon as it is probable that a mass firing will occur, an employer must provide notice as soon as is practicable, the complaint says.

The lawsuit alleges BIC Graphic “likely knew near the end of March … or in very early April” that a mass firing of workers was “reasonably foreseeable” yet waited until November 20 to let go workers who believed their furlough was temporary and perhaps considered searching for a new job unnecessary.

“This, in turn, caused the Named Plaintiff not to seek other employment as he erroneously assumed he would be brought back to work,” the case scathes. “The same is true for other putative class members. But, instead of returning to work, they were fired with zero days’ notice.” 

The lawsuit says the notice BIC Graphic employees supposedly received upon their termination fell short of WARN Act requirements in that it did not include the name and address of the employment site where the mass layoff was to occur or a specific statement as to whether the planned termination would be permanent or temporary, or if the entire facility was to be closed. Also, the notice made no mention of the job titles of positions to be affected by the layoff and the names of workers currently holding those job titles, the suit claims. 

“The written notice [the plaintiff] received on November 20, 2020, simply was not as much notice as practicable under the circumstances,” the case relays.

According to the lawsuit, the defendant’s decision to terminate the plaintiff was “devastating” given the number of years he worked for the company. The suit asserts that while the plaintiff “understood that the ongoing pandemic was causing problems for the company, he both expected [and] was entitled to sufficient advance written notice as to his termination.”

The suit goes on to allege BIC Graphic could have but failed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on its employees in the months and weeks leading up to the November layoffs. Further, the lawsuit slams BIC Graphic for opting to lay off its workers, who received no salary during the furlough, despite Congress making available to the company and many other businesses millions of dollars in forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program. 

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