San Francisco: Twitter Inc faced a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing the social media behemoth of committing legal violations by laying off contract workers sans notice following Elon Musk’s purchase of the company last year. This lawsuit is the latest action due to its huge job cuts.
The proposed class action, which has been filed in San Francisco’s federal court, claims Twitter in November 2022 laid off many workers employed by staffing company TEKsystems Inc without sixty days of advance notice as per US and California law requirements.
Five other cases are also pending in the same federal court that accuse the social media giant Twitter of targeting female workers for layoffs, violating those laws, and discriminating against employees with disabilities. Regarding these, Twitter has denied any wrongdoing.
Twitter laid off approximately 3,700 employees, which is around 50 percent of its workforce, in early November last year as a cost-cutting step by Musk, who paid $44 billion to purchase the social media platform. Hundreds more employees afterward resigned.
Twitter and Maryland-based TEKsystems, who have been named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not reply to a comment request.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents the plaintiffs in all of the cases, stated in an email that while Elon Musk believes he’s saving the company money by avoiding these requirements, we aim to show him that not meeting his obligations can be way more costly.
Twitter facing more legal disputes with laid off employees
Liss-Riordan added that she also has filed complaints in private arbitration on behalf of over 1,700 former Twitter employees and contractors who inked agreements to arbitrate legal disputes. Elaborating, she said workers employed by TEKsystems had not signed arbitration deals.
Liss-Riordan also represents employees who have filed complaints against Twitter with a US labor board stated that they were fired for attempting to organize a strike, criticizing the company, and other conduct protected by federal labor law.
Twitter has not responded to those claims.
