On April 4, 2023, a lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court, accusing the social media company of violating U.S. and California laws by terminating contract workers without the mandatory 60-day notice after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company last year.
This class action is the latest in a series of legal actions against Twitter, with five others pending in the same court, alleging discrimination against female workers and employees with disabilities. Twitter, however, has denied these allegations.
Following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, the company laid off around 3,700 employees, accounting for half its workforce, in November 2022, as part of cost-cutting measures. Several hundred more employees resigned later on.
Maryland-based TEKsystems, the staffing firm that employed the contract workers, was also named in the lawsuit. However, neither Twitter nor TEKsystems have responded to requests for comments.
Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan has filed additional complaints in private arbitration on behalf of over 1,700 former Twitter employees and contractors
who did not sign arbitration agreements, claiming that they were terminated for protected conduct under federal labour law, such as criticising the company or attempting to organise a strike. Liss-Riordan is representing the plaintiffs in all of these cases.
Liss-Riordan warned Musk that avoiding his responsibilities would come at a high cost.
