Twitter must tell fired workers about severance lawsuit, says US judge

Twitter Inc. must tell departing employees there’s an active lawsuit against the social media company over severance pay and benefits, a federal judge ruled.
 

Twitter has been requiring employees who accept a severance package that includes a month of base pay to sign a waiver agreeing not to join lawsuits against the company. The agreement doesn’t mention the existence of a suit filed just before hundreds of people were fired in early November following Elon Musk’s takeover.

“Twitter is directed to provide notice of the pendency of this case before asking an employee to release his or her legal claims,” US District Judge James Donato said in Wednesday’s order.

Filed by a handful of workers, the suit alleges Twitter failed to give the required 60 to 90 days notice about the mass layoffs and is shortchanging the former employees on severance pay. Twitter faces separate claims that it retaliated against an employee who tried to organize a strike and that its layoffs disproportionately targeted female workers.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, an employment lawyer who previously tangled with Musk over layoffs at Tesla Inc., his electric-car company, argues in the Twitter suit that former workers are entitled to at least two months’ base pay, and maybe more depending on the number of years they worked there.

Under the previous agreement they’re also supposed to get three months of equity vesting, health-care contributions, and bonuses, she said.

Twitter argued its former employees are bound by contractual agreements requiring them to resolve any disputes with the company in closed-door arbitration rather than in open court. A hearing on the company’s request to force the workers into arbitration is set for January.

After Musk bought the social media company for $44 billion, he fired half the workforce, asked some essential employees to return, rolled back its expansive work-from-home policy, and called on workers to sign a pledge to remain “extremely hardcore” at Twitter or quit.

The case is Cornet v. Twitter, 22-cv-06857, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).