Roving Periscope: Employees move court against Musk’s mass layoffs at Twitter
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: How do times change? Until October, many viewed Twitter as the biggest source of controversies worldwide. Now, the microblogging platform is battling its own baggage of controversies, triggered by its ‘hostile takeover’ by the world’s wealthiest man only last week.
On Thursday, its “Chief Twit” Elon Musk emailed Twitter staff he would start sacking nearly half of the 7,500 employees from Friday to save on costs and bring the loss-making platform back to profit.
The panicked employees promptly sued Twitter over its plan to eliminate about 3,700 of them on the social media platform, which they said the company is doing without enough notice in violation of federal and California law.
They filed a class-action lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco federal court.
Musk planned to get rid of half the workforce, making good plans to slash costs at the platform he acquired for USD 44 billion last month, the media reported.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act restricts large companies from mounting mass layoffs without at least 60 days of advance notice.
Workers urged the court to order Twitter to obey the WARN Act and restrict the company from soliciting employees to sign documents that could give up their right to take part in litigation.
Amid the layoffs, Twitter plans to temporarily close offices and suspend badge access to help ensure the safety of each employee and Twitter systems and customer data.
Musk wants to cut about 3,700 jobs at San Francisco-based Twitter. He began dropping hints about his staffing priorities before the deal closed, saying he wanted to focus on the core product.
“Software engineering, server operations & design will rule the roost,” he tweeted in early October.
Employees have been bracing for firings for weeks. Recently, they raced to connect via LinkedIn and other non-Twitter avenues, offering each other advice on how to weather, losing one’s job. Ex-Twitter engineers are also using social media to respond to former “Tweeps” looking to land jobs elsewhere.
Musk has also asked advisers to suggest new ways to make money from the blogging platform, including charging for verifications (blue-ticking), which can help delineate real users from fake accounts.
He may also revive a short-video tool called Vine, to vie with popular video-sharing apps like TikTok.
Meanwhile, some advertisers have stopped placing ads on the platform until they get a clearer idea of Musk’s plans.
With Musk favoring relaxing content moderation, some fear it would only enhance hate speech, misinformation, and other potentially harmful material flowing even more freely.
