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Woke Twitter Employees are Filing a Massive Class Action Lawsuit Against Elon Musk

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Elon Musk’s ‘bloodbath’ at Twitter has begun. But the Woke employees who will soon find themselves without a cushy job are pulling out all the stops to keep it from happening.

The billionaire tech titan on Friday will close Twitter headquarters to thousands of employees that have made the social media platform a veritable nightmare for anyone who doesn’t think exactly like them.

According to a company-wide email reported by AFP, Twitter employees will receive an email on Friday morning, California time, to see if they have been laid off or not.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global work force,” the email said.

About half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees will be let go, based on reports by the Washington Post and New York Times, down from an estimated 75% during the early stages of Elon Musk’s ownership.

Elon Musk has also reportedly ordered his employees at Twitter to work upwards of 84 hours a week in an effort to reach newly implemented deadlines. According to Business Insider, this amounts to 12-hour shifts seven days a week.

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Twitter’s “Days of Rest,” monthly days off so employees can rest and recharge, were taken off their calendars, two people with knowledge of the matter told the New York Times.

Twitter employees revealed that, beginning on Friday, Musk has ordered a nearly complete overhaul of the platform – made up primarily of new coding projects and “major changes” to the platform’s verification service.

Musk’s plan to charge $8 a month to verified users, for example, triggered a meltdown by AOC.

According to a former NBC executive, “The new Twitter Blue subscription, which gives you a blue check verification, starts Nov 7, according to internal documents seen by The NY Times. You will not have to provide any proof of identification. In the past, Twitter required government issued ID to become verified.”

But from the point-of-view of those users who have been relentlessly harassed on Twitter for years — including shadowbans, censorship, and deplatforming — Elon Musk’s ‘cancellation’ of the Woke employees is a dose of karma.

“Has it already started? Happy layoff eve!” Rumman Chowdhury tweeted.

Parker Lyons, a Twitter employee, tweeted a photo of a woman in a fetal position after the email hit. “8:59am notification,” he tweeted.

Another employee on Slack message referenced the Game of Thrones in regards to the upcoming mass layoffs.

“Has the red wedding started?” the employee wrote.

But the employees aren’t going out without a fight — even if it proves to be a futile one.

“Twitter was sued over Elon Musk’s plan to lay off about half of its workforce, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a class-action lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court,” Reuters noted.

“Twitter employees say the company is eliminating workers without enough notice in violation of federal and California law,” the report said.

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The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act restricts large companies from carrying out mass layoffs without at least 60 days of advance notice.

“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 Thursday’s complaint, said in an interview.

Amidst an earlier Tesla lawsuit over mass layoffs,Muske called the legal action “trivial.”

“We will now see if he is going to continue to thumb his nose at the laws of this country that protect employees,” Liss-Riordan said. “It appears that he’s repeating the same playbook of what he did at Tesla.”

Lisa Bloom, an attorney, appeared to be soliciting clients to file a class action lawsuit.

“Hey Twitter employees getting laid off tomorrow! IMPORTANT INFO from a CA employment attorney (me): CA’s “WARN” law requires Twitter to give you 60 days notice of a massive layoff,” Bloom wrote. “A layoff of 50+ employees within a 30 day period qualifies.”

“I know you didn’t get that notice,” Bloom continued. “This WARN law applies to all California employers of 75+ employees, which obviously includes Twitter with its thousands of employees.”

“Purpose of the law is to give laid off employees time to figure out how to handle this disruption,” she added.

“And Elon completely ignores it,” Bloom went on. “Employers like Twitter who violate the WARN Act face civil penalties of $500/day for each violation. With thousands of employees, this could be significant, though maybe not to Elon. Employees laid off in violation of the WARN Act receive back pay at the employee’s final rate or 3 year average of compensation, whichever is higher. Twitter would also be liable for workers’ medical expenses that would have been covered under an employee benefit plan. Twitter will be liable for all of these (civil penalties, lost compensation, lost medical and other benefits) & attorneys’ fees for the 60 days it failed to give workers notice.”

“This flagrant violation of workers rights is outrageous,” she went on. “Who’s in for a class action? LET’S DO THIS.”

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