Former Twitter employees have filed a collective lawsuit alleging that the company has refused to pay them their entitled severance packages totaling at least $500 mn, Meduza reports with reference to Reuters.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in San Francisco by Courtney McMillian, who headed the department responsible for employee social benefit programs before her dismissal in January 2023.
According to McMillian, Twitter's severance plan, adopted in 2019, stipulates payment of two months' salary to the majority of employees, as well as an additional week's salary for each year of service.
However, McMillian claims that the company failed to pay severance to many employees and provided others with no more than one month's salary.
Reuters notes that this is not the first time the company has faced legal action related to employee dismissals, although previous lawsuits were based on breach of employment contracts. For example, in June, a collective lawsuit was filed against the company, alleging that Twitter failed to pay former employees millions of dollars in contractually agreed-upon bonuses. In this new lawsuit, the company is accused of violating federal social benefits law.
Twitter responded with an emoji when asked for a comment by Reuters, with the agency explaining that the company no longer has a media relations department.
In late October 2022, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter. He immediately announced his intention to restructure the company, which he described as unprofitable, leading to significant layoffs at Twitter. Reuters reported that Musk fired about half of the employees and warned those who remained that they would be working overtime. Subsequently, hundreds more employees left the company.
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