Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN Act”) was enacted in 1988 to help protect employees, their families, and communities from the sudden and potentially severe impact of large-scale company closures and layoffs.

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark decision overruling a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent and significantly expanding presidential power to remove members of independent agencies. In Trump v. Slaughter, No. 25-332, the Supreme Court held that the “for-cause” removal protections applicable to commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are unconstitutional and inconsistent with the separation of powers doctrine. Although the Supreme Court’s decision concerned FTC commissioners, its reasoning is likely to have broader consequences for other multimember agencies whose leaders have traditionally been protected from at-will removal. For employers, the most immediate implications may be at agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where changes in leadership could now occur more quickly and bring faster shifts in enforcement priorities, regulatory policy, and litigation risk.

Joint-employer liability has long fallen short of what unions and labor advocates seek: direct liability for manufacturers, contractors, and brands, which they view as necessary to drive meaningful change.  In recent years, activists have adopted a layered litigation strategy, invoking laws unrelated to employment, including consumer protection, unfair competition, and anti-trafficking statutes in the United States and abroad, to impose liability on upstream entities for the conduct of downstream employers.  These theories rely on independent statutory duties arising from the company’s own conduct, representations, or knowledge.  The focus shifts from who controls workers to who benefits from the alleged mistreatment.