Twitter is being sued by former employees in a class action lawsuit filed by Elon Musk, the new CEO of Twitter, instigated by mass firings
Twitter is being sued in a class-action lawsuit filed by former employees laid off as part of a mass firing instigated by the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.
“If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email,” a copy of the email obtained by CNN said. “If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.”
The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”
The class action lawsuit filed Thursday alleges Twitter is in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) after laying off some employees already.
The lawsuit claims that the workers were not given enough notice of their firing, and that they did not comply with both the federal WARN and California WARN Act. The act requires that companies give employees at least 60 days of notice before mass firings.
According to the lawsuit, Elon Musk thinks complying with federal labor laws is trivial. We have filed a federal complaint to make sure that the rules are followed and to prevent employees from signing away their rights on the job.
And in less than a week since Musk acquired the company, its C-suite appears to have almost entirely cleared out, through a mix of firings and resignations. Musk has also dissolved Twitter’s former board of directors.
A Social Media Attorney Who Claimed to Inform Employees that they Can’t Subly Describe Their Rights in an Employer’s Interest Dispute
In an attempt to make sure that employees know that they don’t need to sign away their rights in order to have an avenue for pursuing their rights, the attorney who filed the complaint on Thursday night filed a lawsuit.
The company sent a letter to employees that said if they were laid off, they would be told at 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The email didn’t say how many jobs would be lost.
He also removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the sole board member. Many Twitter employees took to the social networking site to show their support for each other, using blue heart and blue bird symbols in their replies to each other.
Barry C. White, a spokesman for the Employment Development Department in California, said that the agency has not gotten any recent notifications from the social networking site.
The layoffs come at a tough time for social media companies, as advertisers are scaling back and newcomers — mainly TikTok — are threatening the older class of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., posted its second quarter revenue decline in a row and the shares are trading at their lowest levels in more than two years. The results of Meta followed weak earnings reports from both Microsoft andAlphabet.
CNN Business – Do We Really Need a Jobs Boom in the Holiday Season? The Case of Amazon (AMZN) and the Apple Share Price Crisis
CNN Business first published a version of the story. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here. Clicking on the same link will let you listen to the audio version.
Friday’s jobs report came in strong: the US economy added 261,000 new jobs in October, blowing away analyst expectations of 200,000, even as unemployment ticked up to 3.7%.
But don’t let the jobs boom lull you into a false sense of employment security. Job cuts and pauses on hiring are beginning to flow across the tech sector, which boasts some of the most valuable companies in the world. That is not good news for the economy.
▸ Amazon
(AMZN) announced on Thursday that it is pressing pause on corporate hiring. Beth Galetti wrote in a note that they anticipated keeping this pause in place for the next few months, and would be keeping a close eye on the economy and business.
Late last month, Amazon forecast its revenue for the holiday quarter would be lighter than analysts had expected, causing its stock to fall sharply. Amazon’s shares are down by over 45% this year.
The hiring freeze of Apple was only in research and development. In a statement, Apple
(AAPL) said that it will continue to hire and is confident in its future, “but given the current economic environment we’re taking a very deliberate approach in some parts of the business.”
Like other tech companies, Apple is worried about slower growth during the holiday season, higher interest rates and waning consumer spending. China is hurting production of the iPhone 14. Apple stock is down more than 25% this year.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
The Impact of Musk’s Takeover on the Online Payments and Twitter Competed with Anti-Hate Speech on the Premarket Stocks Trading
On Thursday, February 15, the company said it will lay off nearly 700 people, or more than 10% of its staff, as it rethinks its staffing to deal with rising inflation and a looming recession. According to an employee memo obtained by CNN, there is a written assurance from the co-foundeds of Lyft that today will be hard. We are facing a probable recession in the next year and rideshare insurance costs are going up.
▸ Online payments giant Stripe will lay off about 14% of its staff, CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff Thursday. In the note, Collison said that they were too optimistic about internet economy growth in the next couple of years. Just last year, Stripe became the most valuable US startup, with a valuation of $95 billion.
Third-quarter corporate earnings and headline jobs numbers still show a strong economy. But other companies won’t be immune to the softening demand from consumers and businesses that tech companies have noted.
More bad news for Twitter
(TWTR): Musk said on Friday the company has seen a massive drop in revenue, as more advertisers pause their spending on the platform following his controversial acquisition of the company.
He attributed the decline to “activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.”
General Mills and Volkswagen Group have confirmed to CNN that they have paused their paid activities on the platform in the wake of the Musk takeover. Mondelez International
(MDLZ) and Pfizer
(PFE) have also reportedly joined that list.
On Friday, a group of watchdog organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD, increased their pressure on brands to rethink advertising on Twitter. The groups pointed to Friday’s mass layoffs of Twitter staff as a key factor, citing fears that Musk’s cuts will make it difficult to enforce Twitter’s election integrity policies along with other anti-hate speech policy.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
The Effects of a Labor-Labor Relations Agreement on Railroad Supply Chains: What Can the US Rail Unions Learn from the Vote?
Two rail unions reached tentative deals with the railroads in September, ahead of a strike deadline, only to have their membership vote against ratifying them. US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said that without a deal Congress will impose contracts on the rank-and-file union members.
If any rail unions were to go on strike, all the rail unions — which together represent about 110,000 members — would honor their picket lines and refuse to work.
That would spell bad news for supply chains. About 30% of US freight moves by rail. Prices of goods from gasoline to food and cars could soar if trains halt. In addition, factories could be forced to shut temporarily due to parts shortages. Goods that people want to purchase during the holiday season may not be on store shelves.