Warn Act excludes Sales people?

What is the name of your state? Virginia

I work for a very large Bank that is being sold to another very large bank. I report to an office of 450 people that we learned is being closed by year end. Most of the employees were given 60+ days notice of Job elimination except 40 sales people who live and work in the field around the country. The sales people were only given 27 days advance notice of Job elimination. The bank claims the warn act does not apply to area sales people is this true?

fyi the sales people are employess of the bank.

First question before proceeding: are the sales people employees or are they independents?

warn act excludes salespeople

the sales people are employees of the bank

I can find nothing in the law that exempts sales people (or members of any particular profession) from receiving notice as required in the WARN Act. However the federal law requires 60 days advance notice if the closing results in a job loss at a single site for 50 or more employees. It's quite possible the sales staff out in the field could be exempted under that requirement as they would basically be working at a "site" of only one or two employees.

The other exemption possibility is that the purchasing bank intended to employ the sales staff and that decision was reversed for unanticipated reasons, in which case the law only requires the employer to give as much prior notice as is practical.

warn act exemption

I was afraid of that, however we do report directly to the location that is being closed --My mailbox is there and all my support comes from there...and I worked for a bank in the late 90's that did the same thing and gave the salespeople 60 days notice...

We're getting into a really fine point of the law - whether the 50 person requirement applies to employees working remotely in other locations but "report to" the larger location - or whether they can be considered stand-alone sites.

If you want clarification on this, your best option is to contact the federal Department of Labor who have oversite on the WARN Act.