WASHINGTON: Several sacked Twitter employees in the US have initiated a class action lawsuit against the company following the expected firing of more than 3,500 people- half the company’s workforce- by the new owner Elon Musk.
The suit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco on Thursday even before the anticipated pink slips, alleges that Twitter is engaged in conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day notice under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
Two of the plaintiffs have already been fired, and three others have been locked out of their Twitter accounts and the Twitter office which they interpret to mean they will lose their jobs, according to the lawsuit cited by the local media in California, where most of the layoffs are taking place.
The lawsuit asks the court to issue an order requiring Twitter to obey the WARN Act, and restricting the company from soliciting employees to sign documents that could give up their right to participate in litigation.
“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the case, and who is known for class action lawsuits against companies such as Uber, Starbucks, and FedEx, was quoted as saying.