Elon Musk's proposal to cut 3,700 positions from the social media platform, or almost half of its employees, has led to a lawsuit against Twitter Inc., which the company's employees claim was made without providing adequate notice and in violation of federal and California law.
On Thursday, a federal court in San Francisco received a class-action complaint.
Twitter informed personnel through email that it will begin workforce reductions on Friday. According to those who know the situation, Musk has committed to reducing expenses at the platform he recently paid $44 billion for.
Large corporations are prohibited from implementing mass layoffs without providing 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 complaint 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 ability to participate in legal proceedings.
According to Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the complaint on Thursday, "We filed this case tonight to make sure that workers are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have a route for pursuing their rights."
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.
After Tesla won a judgment from an Austin federal court, the workers, in that case, were forced to pursue their claims in closed-door arbitration instead of in open court.
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, "We will now see if he is going to continue to thumb his nose at the rules of this nation that protect employees." He seems to be working from the same playbook as when he was at Tesla.