60-Day-Notice Bill Clears House by 286-136 Margin

An election-year juggernaut to force major employers to give workers 60 days notice before closing plants or ordering massive layoffs cleared the House on a 286-136 vote today, setting up a veto showdown with President Reagan.

The legislation passed the Senate by a veto-proof 72-23 vote last week. The House tally, if repeated exactly, also would be sufficient to override a veto, but 10 members did not vote. A veto override would require 288 votes if all members voted.

Fifty-four Republicans voted against the Administration on the issue.

“I suspect the President will veto it,” said House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.). “The legislation is here to create an issue, not because people are demanding it.”

Democrats Persuaded

With polls showing that more than 80% of voters support mandated layoff notices, unions successfully persuaded Democratic congressional leaders to attempt to enact the measure before considering a revived trade bill that Reagan vetoed in May.

Reagan rejected the trade measure because it contained the plant-closing language, which he argued would stifle competition by hamstringing businesses in moments requiring quick action.

Democrats earlier had voted to give Republican opponents only one opportunity to amend the bill. But Republican leaders decided against it at the last minute.

“There are a lot of people in this country who have not been a part of this burgeoning economic miracle that some talk about,” Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) said before the final vote. “Nearly half of today’s displaced workers had no notice whatsoever.”

A Big Difference

“Sixty days notice can make a difference in the life of a worker, a family, a community,” said Rep. William L. Clay (D-Mo.). “It is a basic decency afforded by most other countries and . . . it is legislation that is a must for this Congress.”

But Rep. Steve Bartlett (R-Tex.) called it “a bad bill conceived only in politics.”

House Republicans complained that they were being given only one chance to alter a bill that is not needed in the first place in view of the 5 1/2-year economic recovery, the longest in the nation’s history.

“Why are we doing this?” House Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) asked rhetorically. “Job levels are at an all-time high, unemployment is at a 14-year low.”

Business groups made a last-ditch effort to head off what would be organized labor’s biggest political victory this decade.

Both sides on the issue acknowledged that the legislation would win easy passage. Not so certain had been whether it would get the necessary 288 votes, a two-thirds majority, to make the measure veto-proof.