Elon Musk’s decision to cut 3,700 employees at the social media platform led to a lawsuit against Twitter Inc., which the company’s employees claim was done without providing adequate notice and in violation of federal and California law.
On Thursday, a federal court in San Francisco received a class-action lawsuit.
Twitter informed personnel through email that it would begin staff reductions on Friday. According to those with direct knowledge of the situation, Musk intends to lay off half the workers, carrying out his promise to cut costs at the platform he paid $44 billion for last month.
Large firms are prohibited from conducting mass layoffs without at least 60 days’ notice under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
A request for comment from Twitter did not immediately receive a response.
The lawsuit requests that the court issue an order ordering Twitter to abide by the WARN Act and prohibiting the firm from asking staff members to sign agreements that would waive their right to participate in legal proceedings.
According to Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the complaint on Thursday, [quotation]”We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights.”[/quotation]
When the electric vehicle manufacturer led by Musk let go of around 10% of its workers in June, Liss-Riordan filed a lawsuit against the company with identical allegations.
The workers in that lawsuit were ordered by Tesla to pursue their claims through secretive arbitration rather than in front of a judge.
During a conversation with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Qatar Economic Forum in June, Musk referred to the Tesla case as “trivial.”
Liss-Riordan said of Musk, [quotation]”We will now see if he is going to continue to thumb his nose at the laws of this country that protect employees.”[/quotation]
He seems to be working from the same playbook as when he worked at Tesla, she explained
