UPDATE: Founders Brewing wants furloughed workers back once coronavirus crisis eases

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Founders Brewing Company announced plans for mass layoffs in response to business shutdowns caused by coronavirus COVID-19.

Founders expects to furlough 163 workers in Grand Rapids and Detroit and bring them back when the crises eases up, the company said.

“While Founders intends that this layoff to be temporary and less than six months in length, Founders cannot predict the duration of this layoff because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” Audrey Strieter, human-resources director, wrote in a letter to the state Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

The letter, also sent to Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan, provided notice of the pending layoffs to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Notice Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act).

The sites for the layoffs are its retail operations: the Grand Rapids Taproom and Company Store and the Detroit Taproom.

The layoffs are planned for May 3.

Founders said that it had tried to avoid layoffs. It is unable to provide 60 days notice of a mass layoff as required under the WARN Act.

The company could not provide earlier notice “because the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan, the continuing restrictions on bar, restaurant, and other retail operations to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing restrictions on Founders’ retail business was not reasonably foreseeable at the time notice was required under the WARN Act,” Strieter wrote.

“Indeed, Founders hoped to avoid laying off employees at all and continued to provide full pay and benefits to all affected employees from the date it closed its Grand Rapids and Detroit retail operations through the date of the mass layoff.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order banned dine-in service at restaurants and bars and activity at other non-essential businesses through April 30.

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