Twitter was reportedly hit with another lawsuit on Tuesday, local time. The plaintiffs allege that the social media giant illegally laid off outsourced contract workers without notice after its acquisition by Elon Musk last year. This suggests that the impact of Twitter’s previous mass layoffs continues to fester.
The class action lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco federal court. The lawsuit alleges that Twitter fired a large number of outsourced employees from human resources firm TEKSystems last November without giving them 60 days’ notice, as required by national and California law.
The court is also hearing five other cases alleging that Twitter violated labor laws by targeting female employees for layoffs and discriminating against employees with disabilities. Twitter has denied any wrongdoing.
In early November last year, Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees, or half of its workforce, as part of a cost-cutting measure by Musk. This followed Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which was followed by the resignation of hundreds of employees.
Twitter and Maryland-based TEKSystems are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Both companies have not yet responded.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents the plaintiffs in all of these cases, said in an email, “While Musk seems to think that he saved the company money by avoiding these obligations, we plan to show him that failing to meet his responsibilities could cost him even more. “
She said she is also representing more than 1,700 former Twitter employees and outsourced employees who have signed agreements with the company to resolve labor disputes through arbitration in closed-door arbitrations. Meanwhile, outsourced employees assigned by TEKSystems did not sign such an agreement.
Reese Riordan also represented employees who filed complaints against Twitter with the U.S. Labor Commission. These employees claim that they were terminated for criticizing the company, attempting to organize a strike and other actions protected by U.S. federal labor law.
