Twitter accused of ducking legal fight over Elon Musk's mass layoffs

By Joel Rosenblatt

Twitter Inc. is refusing to engage in arbitration with ex-employees who were fired when Elon Musk took over the company after pushing them to use that process to resolve claims that they weren’t paid, didn’t get promised severance, or were discriminated against, according to a lawsuit.
 

The company now known as X Corp. has been accused in multiple suits of numerous labor and workplace violations, including its failure to pay thousands of workers laid off late last year after Musk’s acquisition. About 2,000 former Twitter employees have resorted to fighting their claims in arbitration as the company has demanded — but Twitter hasn’t shown up, according to a complaint filed Monday in San Francisco federal court. 

The social media platform won a ruling in January requiring workers who had signed arbitration agreements to resolve their grievances in closed-door hearings overseen by private judges instead of through a class-action lawsuit in open court. It’s the legal equivalent of hand-to-hand combat, usually against a better-armed and financed opponent. Studies have shown that a benefit for companies is that workers will often give up rather than pursue their fight in arbitration. 

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer representing former Twitter employees in several suits against the company, has continued to file arbitrations on behalf of individual workers.

Twitter is refusing to pay the fees for the arbitrations, as required by its employment agreements, according to the complaint.

Twitter is further hurting its former employees in its “failure, neglect, and refusal to arbitrate under its own written agreement,” according to the complaint.

Twitter declined to comment.

The case is Fabien Ho Ching Ma v. Twitter, 23-cv-03301, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).