Twitter Wants Employees’ Mass Layoff Claims To Be Dismissed

• Twitter is fighting a lawsuit from a group employees whose layoffs will take effect in the New Year.
• Employees who were part of mass layoffs after Elon Musk’s takeover want more than a month of severance.
• Twitter’s lawyers claim that many employees were given the notice required by law before being laid off.

Twitter has asked a California federal court for a rescinding of a proposed class-action suit brought by a group suing over “mass layoffs”Since Elon Musk took control, the social media platform has been in use.

On Friday, Twitter asked the court to either transfer the allegations to Delaware — where disputes over Twitter’s acquisition by Musk are to take place under the terms of the deal — or to dismiss potential class allegations in the suit. 

Twitter claims that the employees who brought the suit have different circumstances than the plaintiffs and that they have not properly defined the broad claims that a large group of Twitter employees could have.

One of the employees who filed the suit was already laid off. However, the official end dates for the other employees at Twitter are January and February 2023 according to an updated version filed earlier this month. 

Twitter’s lawyers argued the employees had made “vague and imprecise” claims regarding a collective group they are hoping to represent. They asked the court to reject their attempts to bring claims for such a large employee base. 

Twitter argued that the class was not defined by the plaintiffs, referring only to “thousands” of other Twitter employees and “other similarly situated Twitter employees,” in a court filing filed Dec. 23. 

Shannon Liss -Riordan, an attorney representing the employees, told Insider Sunday evening that she and the employees she represents are confident in their claims. 

Liss-Riordan stated that she would do everything to protect the rights and freedoms of Twitter employees.

She said, “We call on Elon Musk for holiday spirit and to honor the law and promises made Twitter employees,” “If Elon Musk does not show holiday spirit, we will take him on in 2023.”

Insider’s request for comment by Twitter’s attorneys on Sunday night was not immediately responded to. 

A group of Twitter employees filed the lawsuit claiming that the layoffs were so unexpected and offered little severance that they went against the assurances they’d received from the company’s previous leadership prior to Musk’s purchase. 

According to employees, they expected that they could work remotely for a year following the takeover. Musk however instructed them to return to work. They claimed that many of them are receiving severance pay for one month, rather than two months as they had previously received from Twitter before Musk’s takeover. 

Twitter’s lawyers informed the court that employees who brought the case had different issues and should therefore be treated differently. Only one of them, for instance, has already been pushed out — Emmanuel Cornet, who alleged he was laid off on Nov. 1 without any notice. 

The other employees are being officially fired over the next two-months. They have been given the required notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. This federal law requires large companies to properly notify staff about mass layoffs. Twitter has informed the court. 

Twitter also claimed that some employees in this group are subject to arbitration and that their claims should be heard there.