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Remington Outdoor Co.’s breakup is fueling unrest in the village of Ilion, N.Y., where hundreds of former employees are agitating to get back jobs and benefits lost as the bankrupt gun maker’s historic manufacturing plant shifts to new ownership, the Wall Street Journal reported. The factory’s roughly 600 workers were told last week they were being laid off immediately and would lose their health-insurance benefits on Halloween, without getting any severance or payment for unused vacation time. Remington filed for chapter 11 protection in July, its second bankruptcy in less than three years, using the process to sell the Ilion plant at a September bankruptcy auction. The plant’s new owner, investment company Roundhill Group LLC, is negotiating a new collective-bargaining agreement, local union officials said. Roundhill’s purchase agreement requires at least 200 workers to be rehired, though the investment firm has indicated it plans to rehire close to 400 workers to manufacture the Remington Model 870 shotgun and other firearms. As the workers wait to hear whether they will be rehired, they are in limbo, their sudden loss of income and benefits rippling through the village and into the larger region, New York’s Mohawk Valley, where jobs were hard to find even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

U.S. senators departed the Capitol for a pre-election break yesterday, making the logistics for passing a fiscal stimulus package by next Tuesday practically impossible, even as the coronavirus continues to infect tens of thousands of Americans daily and inflict economic damage, Bloomberg News reported. “We’ll come back in November. The question might be, will there be something then?” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said yesterday. The chances of a coronavirus relief bill before Nov. 3 are “very, very slim,” he added, referring to Election Day. The Senate’s departure after the confirmation vote for Amy Coney Barrett to join the Supreme Court left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to continue haggling over a package. After their latest call yesterday, agreement remains pending on both the size — the Trump administration was last at $1.9 trillion, with the Democrats at $2.4 trillion — and language of a bill. Failure to reach an accord carries human and economic as well as potential political costs. The coronavirus has strengthened its grip across much of the U.S. with record numbers of cases, and the economy remains fragile. The realization that any new stimulus would almost certainly have to await the election contributed to the worst selloff in U.S. stocks since early September on Monday. Even in the unlikely event Pelosi and Mnuchin could come to terms, writing a complex bill and pushing it through House and Senate procedures before Election Day would be an all but impossible task.

The three months of negotiations over a new round of virus relief moved no closer to a resolution over the weekend, all but extinguishing the prospects of a stimulus bill being written, voted on, and signed into law by President Donald Trump before the election, Bloomberg News reported. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’s waiting for another counteroffer Monday from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as she and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows accused each other of “moving the goalposts” in negotiations. Much of the weekend was devoted to work by congressional committees with the goal of writing legislation, but aides in both parties said little progress was made despite the pledges from both sides that they want to quickly deliver $1,200 stimulus payments to most Americans along with aid to struggling businesses. The Senate is set to leave Washington, D.C., on Monday after voting on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and the House is already out. Both chambers could be called back for a vote with 24 hours notice, though that scenario is unlikely in the last week of campaigning before the national election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was noncommittal yesterday about bringing a stimulus measure to the House floor for a vote before the Nov. 3, noting that even though a deal with the Trump administration appeared to be coming together, “it takes time” to transform it into legislation, the New York Times reported. At her weekly news conference, Pelosi said that she believed she and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, were “just about there” in their negotiations to reach a compromise, although she said they had yet to agree on the two biggest sticking points. The White House is resisting Democrats’ push for $500 billion for state and local governments, while Democrats have balked at Republicans’ demands for liability protections for schools, hospitals and businesses open during the pandemic. Even if the pair were to reach agreement on those issues, Pelosi said there was no guarantee it could be passed before Election Day. “It’s not just a question of us agreeing in a room,” Ms. Pelosi said, noting that the process of writing any deal into legislative language and having the Congressional Budget Office go through it to determine an official cost could be lengthy. “It takes time.” But she continued to maintain public optimism that an agreement could be reached and signed into law. She brushed aside public warnings from Republican senators, who have said they are unlikely to support a bill anywhere near as costly as the emerging compromise, and have suggested that there aren’t even the minimal 13 Republican votes needed to join all Democrats to advance the legislation.

President Donald Trump ordered a review of decade-old pension cuts to some retirees at a former General Motors auto parts unit, the White House said yesterday, 12 days before the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election, Reuters reported. In a memo released by the White House, Trump ordered the heads of the Treasury, Commerce and Labor departments to address cuts to non-union retiree pension payments within 90 days at Delphi Corp after the pension plan was turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC) in 2009. The cuts affected about 20,000 salaried retirees, including about 5,000 in Ohio, a battleground state that could help decide an election pitting the Republican Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, the former vice president under President Barack Obama. The memo stops short of any specific plan to restore the pension cuts of Delphi salaried retirees, who experienced reductions of up to 70 percent. 

White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) opened the door to passing a coronavirus relief package after the election, a signal that time and political will has likely run out to enact legislation before then, the Wall Street Journal reported. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin yesterday reported more progress on a potential $2 trillion aid agreement. But even if they strike a deal before Nov. 3, legislation would face vanishing prospects of quickly becoming law, thanks to both the tight calendar and hardened opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate. Still, in the waning days of an election season in which both the White House and Senate are up for grabs, neither party wanted to give up on months-long discussions over providing relief for households and businesses still struggling during the pandemic. “I’m optimistic that there will be a bill. It’s a question of, is it in time to pay the November rent, which is my goal, or is it going to be shortly thereafter and retroactive?” Pelosi said yesterday. Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said on CNBC Wednesday that negotiators were “running out of time, at least between now and the election” and that wrapping up work on a relief package in a lame-duck session, after the election but before the next administration begins, “could be a possibility.”

Prospects for an economic relief package in the next two weeks dimmed markedly on Tuesday after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) revealed that he has warned the White House not to strike an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the Nov. 3 election, the Washington Post reported. In remarks at a closed-door Senate GOP lunch, McConnell told his colleagues that Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not negotiating in good faith with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and that any deal they reach could disrupt the Senate’s plans to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court next week. Republicans have voiced concerns that a stimulus deal could splinter the party and exacerbate divisions at a time when they are trying to rally behind the Supreme Court nominee. McConnell’s attempted intervention came as Pelosi and Mnuchin continued negotiating over the roughly $2 trillion economic relief package. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that the “conversation provided more clarity and common ground as they move closer to an agreement.” But no deal can become law without McConnell’s blessing, and his direct warning to the White House imperils the chances of any bill becoming law in the next two weeks.

Pizza Hut delivery drivers say that the bankrupt company’s largest U.S. franchisee shortchanged them on payments for using their own vehicles, adding to the list of cases roiled by massive claims from former employees, Bloomberg News reported. Restaurant operator NPC International Inc. reimbursed the drivers for miles at such a low rate that they were underpaid by $4 to $12 per hour, according to a court filing on Monday. With the claims topping $4,000 each from 80,000 drivers, the total could exceed $320 million. A bankruptcy judge ruled yesterday that their claims must stay on hold for now while NPC’s reorganization proceeds. The dispute concerns the difference between the mileage reimbursement rate of 57.5 cents a mile set by the Internal Revenue Service and the 25 to 35 cents typically paid by NPC, according to the drivers. Shifts typically lasted seven hours, with five on the road and drivers bearing out-of-pocket costs such as gasoline, depreciation, insurance and maintenance, they said. On top of that, the drivers said, the number of miles they drove was undercounted. They claim top executives were aware of the alleged short-changing and have sought in legal filings to hold them personally liable.