My friend works for a large ,nationally prominent company .Her plant was recently closed and she was layed off. The closure was sudden and was with only 15 days notice.

A little background about the closure :

Over past 3 years 10 of the original 15 product lines were transfered out to a Mexico facility. Replaced with 2 product lines from another domestic facility. The remaining 5 original lines were then sent to Mexico and the 2 remaining product lines were sent sent to another US facility. The # of employees over the past 3 years was reduced from 168 to aproximatly 100,1 year ago. Over the past year that # was further reduced by attrician, transfers and terminations to 47 in Dec. '07. The last week of '07 15 "key" employees were left at her plant to facilitate retooling . The remaining employees were either layed off or transfered to other plants. The "Key" people were verbally assured of their value and a secure position as recently as 2/1/08.
2/14/08 the retooling of the plant was indefinitly postponed and the remaining hourly employees were transfered to another plant in the area.The remaining staff level employees were told there was no place for them and were layed off.

All staff level employees were given a written statement of available vacation time for the year during the 2nd week of 01/08. This statement reflected any time not taken last year and carried over as well as the total # of new days for the coming year. When the closure was announced the employees were told that they would not be paid for the total days on the vacation statement only days carried over and a % of remaining days calculated or acrued , due to the closure .

Now to the questions:
1) Is the 15 day notice legal ?
2) Are the employees entitled to benefits under NAFTA?
3) The vacation time policy also has not been uniformly administered and no written statement of policy was ever given to the employees. In the past time could be taken with no limitations and employees who left voluntarily were paid out in full. Are they entitled to pay for this vacation time?

Thanks in advance for your time to read this .

The WARN Act may apply.
http://www.doleta.gov/programs/factsht/warn.htm

Regarding vacation at termination in NC
Does an employer have to give its employees vacation time off with pay?
No. Vacation is a wage benefit that may or may not be provided at the discretion of the employer. However, if the employer does promise vacation pay or vacation time off with pay, then the employer must have a written vacation policy which clearly explains how the vacation is earned and how it can be taken. Also, any earned vacation must be paid at termination unless the employer has a written forfeiture clause which clearly explains how the earned vacation can be taken away.
http://www.nclabor.com/wh/faqs.pdf

However, it is very common for the amount paid at termination to include only those hours/days actually earned up through the date of termination, not the days that would be earned if the employees worked the entire year. It's likely that is the premise upon which the employer calculated the vacation payout and, short of a contract which specified differently, is perfectly legal. After all, the time is not earned until the related hours are worked.