Twitter on Tuesday was hit with the second lawsuit this month to say that it owes no less than $500 million (roughly Rs. 4,105 crore) in severance pay to ex-workers, the newest in a sequence of circumstances arising from Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media firm.
The proposed class motion filed in Delaware federal courtroom by former Twitter senior engineer Chris Woodfield additionally alleges that the corporate focused older employees for layoffs, a declare that has not been made within the different pending circumstances.
Woodfield, who labored for Twitter out of Seattle, says the corporate repeatedly instructed workers that they’d obtain two months’ wage and different payouts in the event that they had been laid off, however that he and different employees haven’t acquired the cash.
Twitter laid off greater than half of its workforce as a cost-cutting measure after Musk acquired the corporate final October.
Twitter now not has a media relations division and the corporate responded to an e mail searching for remark with an computerized response containing a poop emoji. The firm has mentioned in response to different lawsuits that laid-off employees have been paid in full.
An identical lawsuit was filed final week in California federal courtroom claiming Twitter owes ex-employees greater than $500 million in severance.
Twitter has not responded to that lawsuit, which claims it violated a federal regulation regulating worker profit plans by failing to abide by the phrases of a severance plan established earlier than Musk acquired the corporate.
Woodfield’s lawsuit accuses the corporate of breach of contract and fraud. Woodfield additionally claims that Twitter focused him to be laid off as a result of he’s an “older worker,” although the grievance doesn’t state his age.
According to the lawsuit, Woodfield signed an settlement to arbitrate work-related authorized disputes that requires Twitter to pay the preliminary charges to permit particular person circumstances to proceed. He says that he initiated an arbitration in opposition to Twitter earlier this yr.
But Woodfield claims Twitter has refused to pay the payment in his case, blocking it from going ahead. That declare was made by lots of of ex-employees in a separate case earlier this yr. Twitter has mentioned these employees didn’t submit the required paperwork.
Twitter has additionally been accused in a number of separate lawsuits of disproportionately shedding ladies and employees with disabilities, failing to provide advance discover of layoffs, and never paying promised bonuses to its remaining workers. The firm has denied these claims.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
