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Law360 (April 6, 2020, 8:25 PM EDT) -- A union representing employees at a shuttered West Virginia hospital threatened to sue the medical center's parent company Monday, claiming the facility was closed with "no warning" in the middle of a pandemic.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union said in an announcement that it plans to file a lawsuit against Alecto Healthcare claiming the way the company closed the Fairmont Regional Medical Center last month flouted federal law.
RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement Monday that the facility closed at a terrible time, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We are opening field hospitals across the country to ensure we have enough beds for potentially hundreds of thousands of patients who will succumb to the COVID-19 virus," Appelbaum said. "It is outrageous that Alecto would choose to close this facility now, with no warning, in the middle of this national crisis. 120 critical care professionals who need to be on the front lines of this epidemic aren't able to care for their now hospital-less community."
The union claimed the company violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires that employees be given 60 days notice before mass layoffs. Alecto announced the closure on March 19, the union said.
"Our union will not stand for this, and we are swiftly filing suit against this company for failure to follow a just path to closure under the WARN Act," Appelbaum said in his statement. "This community will need a hospital, and I am hopeful that with the support of local elected officials we can ensure this community keeps its health care facility through this pandemic."
RWDSU said it represents 120 people who were employed by the medical center, including support staff, maintenance workers, cafeteria employees and certified nursing assistants.
The union's Monday announcement comes about two weeks after another union, the Service Employees International Union District 1199 WV/KY/OH, said it planned to sue the hospital and Alecto. The SEIU said at the time that workers it represents were denied promised pay and benefits.
Also last month, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said that WVU Medicine, West Virginia University's affiliated medical system, would continue to keep the Fairmont Regional Medical Center running and that a new 100-bed facility is in the works.
Monday's announcement from the RWDSU comes as the death toll continues to rise during the COVID-19 crisis, which has caused major disruptions throughout the economy and sent officials at all levels of government scrambling to respond.
By Monday afternoon, the United States had more than 356,000 confirmed cases, while the U.S. death toll exceeded 10,000, according to Johns Hopkins University and researchers at the Coronavirus Resource Center.
A representative for the RWDSU declined to comment further.
An Alecto representative could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
--Editing by Haylee Pearl.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
