Professor William B. Gould spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle's Kathleen Pender about how offers by the Obama Administration to pay for violations of the so-called Warn Act are "unprecedented." 

The White House took another big step Friday to discourage government contractors from warning employees - just before the November elections - that they could be laid off next year if Congress can't reach a compromise to prevent automatic across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration.

In a memo, the Office of Management and Budget said the government - i.e. taxpayers - would foot the bill if contractors lay off workers as a result of sequestration and get sued for failing to provide the layoff notices required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

William Gould, a Stanford Law School professor emeritus specializing in labor law, says the government's offer to pay for violations of the so-called Warn Act "so far as I'm aware is unprecedented."