The former head of the welfare department proposed a class action lawsuit against workers laid off after Elon Musk took over the company
Portal
Wed 12 Jul 2023 11:31pm BST
Twitter allegedly refused to pay at least $500 million in promised severance pay to thousands of employees laid off after Elon Musk took over the company, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitter’s employee benefits programs as “Head of Total Rewards” before her dismissal in January, filed the proposed class action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco.
McMillian claims that under a severance plan created by Twitter in 2019, most workers were promised two months of their base salary plus a week’s wages for each full year of service if they were laid off. According to the lawsuit, executives like McMillian were owed a base salary of six months.
With 100 million users and counting, is Threads on track to kill Twitter?
But Twitter gave the laid-off workers a month’s severance pay at most, and many of them received nothing, McMillian claims.
Twitter laid off more than half of its workforce to cut costs after Musk acquired the company in October.
Twitter no longer has a media relations department. The company responded to a Portal request for comment with a poop emoji.
The lawsuit alleges that Twitter and Musk violated a federal law governing employee benefit plans. Twitter has already been sued for allegedly failing to pay severance pay, but these cases are about breach of contract claims, not the Benefits Act. The company said it paid the former employees in full.
A pending lawsuit filed last month alleges that Twitter also failed to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to remaining employees. Twitter said the claims were unfounded.
The company is also facing a slew of other lawsuits stemming from layoffs that began last year, including allegations that they targeted women and workers with disabilities. Twitter has denied wrongdoing in the cases where it submitted replies.
{{#Ticker}}
{{top left}}
{{bottom left}}
{{top right}}
{{bottom right}}
{{#goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/ticker}}
{{Headline}}
{{#paragraphs}}
{{.}}
{{/paragraphs}}{{highlightedText}}
{{#choiceCards}}{{/choiceCards}}We will contact you to remind you to contribute. Look out for a message in your inbox. If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us.