DECISION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
These cases, consolidated on appeal, arise out of the privatization of the internal postal operations of the House of Representatives. Appellants are nine former employees of the House of Representatives, who served in House Postal Operations (the “HPO”) under the Chief Administrative Officer (the “CAO”) of the House. Appellants lost their jobs as a result of the 2 privatization of the House’s internal mail functions. They subsequently filed claims with the Office of Compliance alleging that the notice of the privatization that they received did not satisfy the requirements of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (the “WARN Act”), as applied by section 205 of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (the “CAA”), 2 U.S.C. § 1315, and the Board’s implementing regulations.
Pursuant to section 405 of the CAA, 2 U.S.C. § 1405, a Hearing Officer was appointed who heard all nine cases. Eight of the cases, in which the parties were represented by the same counsel, were consolidated for one hearing; the case of appellant Schmelzer, which raised the same issues, was heard in a separate hearing by the same Hearing Officer. In separate decisions issued the same day, the Hearing Officer determined, among other things, that the CAO had given legally sufficient notice to all appellants and, finding no violation of the Act, ordered entry of judgment in favor of the CAO in each case. Decision of the Hearing Officer in Gerald J. Schmelzer v. Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. House of Representatives (the “Schmelzer Decision”) at 58-60. Decision of the Hearing Officer in Avis Quick et al. v. Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, U.S. House of Representatives (the “Quick Decision”) at 59-61. (All citations hereinafter to the Hearing Officer’s Decision or Findings of Fact shall be to Schmelzer, unless otherwise stated.)
