Rumors of massive layoffs had followed Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform Twitter. Apparently, the billionaire had thought that there were too many employees in the company and that it could be operating with much less. This has finally come to pass after the company had axed more than 3,000 roles less than a week after the acquisition was finalized. However, the employees are fighting back.
Twitter Violating Employment Laws?
What followed the mass layoffs from the social media company was a class action lawsuit. A total of 3,700 employees had been laid off in what looks like one fell swoop. In the lawsuit, the employees claim that they were not given any prior notice before their layoffs. Furthermore, the employees said that they were all notified of their termination via email on Thursday.
The grievance of the class action lawsuit is that the company had violated both state and federal laws in the manner that it had carried out the termination. It points to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) which requires that any company with at least 75 employees need to give ample notice of 60 days before a layoff of such magnitude can be carried out.
Shannon Lisa-Riordan, the attorney for the plaintiffs, had previously filed a similar lawsuit against Elon Musk’s Tesla following the layoff of 10% of its staff. Apparently, Twitter had violated the WARN Act by carrying out such layoffs, hence the class action lawsuit.
The lawsuit is requesting that the court make it mandatory for the company to follow the WARN Act. In the same vein, it is also asking the court to ensure that Twitter is unable to make employees sign any document that would prevent them from taking legal action.
If Twitter is found in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, it will be required to pay out benefits and compensation to the laid-off employees, as well as for medical and other benefits that the layoff may have cost them.
This comes just days after Twitter employees had been posting memes on Twitter referring to the impending layoffs as “The Snap”. Major execs of the company have also been axed since Musk took over including former CEO Parag Agrawal and the entire Twitter board.
Twitter has now reportedly halted all development on its crypto wallet following the layoffs. For now, the social media platform looks to be pursuing other parts of its roadmap under its new leadership such as an $8 monthly subscription fee for verified accounts, and a product that allows creators to put their videos behind a paywall.
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