Two months after Twitter’s mass layoffs, affected employees still await compensation offers | CNN Business

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Two months after Elon Musk laid off half of Twitter’s workforce, some affected employees say they have yet to receive a formal severance offer or severance agreement.

A former Twitter employee told CNN they expected to hear from the company by Wednesday, the official last date of employment for many workers affected by the first wave of layoffs under Musk based on state and federal regulations of the notice period

As of early Thursday, however, the former employee said he had not yet received any documents related to a settlement or a severance offer. Other fired employees tweeted similar comments this week, including one who said they had “never even seen a termination letter let alone been offered severance pay.”

A spokesman for Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing hundreds of former Twitter employees, confirmed that her clients who were affected by the Twitter layoffs in early November also had not received any layoff information until Thursday. “There was some anticipation that they would be sent yesterday, but we haven’t seen that,” Kevin Ready, the spokesman, said of the severance agreements.

“Yesterday was the official severance date for thousands of Twitter employees, and after months of chaos and uncertainty created by Elon Musk, these workers remain on strike,” Liss-Riordan said in a statement Thursday.

The employee concerns come as Musk struggles to cut costs at the company he bought in October for $44 billion, including a significant amount of debt. After laying off half the company in early November, Musk continued to cut and fire additional employees, even requiring any who remained to sign a commitment to “hardcore” work.

The company was recently sued by a business owner and a private flight company alleging that Twitter has not paid its bills. And the New York Times reported last month that Twitter was considering denying laid-off employees their severance pay as a cost-cutting measure, citing people familiar with conversations between company leaders, adding to the sense of uncertainty over to the affected workers.

Twitter, which cut much of its public relations department as part of the layoffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on claims that it has not offered or paid any compensation. At the time of the layoffs, Musk promised that “everyone who quit was offered 3 months of severance,” a period of time that appears to include the 60-day notice that Twitter was required to provide.

A report Fortune on Thursday afternoon, citing an unnamed source familiar with the situation and screenshots seen by the publication, said Twitter planned to send severance agreements to affected employees on Thursday, though it was unclear exactly when would they leave According to the report, the severance agreements were set up to provide laid-off U.S. employees with one month’s base pay and would include a provision that would require employees to waive participation in pending lawsuits against the company.

Liss-Riordan has filed four proposed class-action lawsuits against Twitter on behalf of employees affected by the layoffs, with claims that include Twitter backtracking on promises to allow remote work and consistent compensation, as well as related complaints with alleged disabilities and discrimination based on gender. . He has also filed three claims against Twitter with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of former employees. Liss-Riordan said Thursday that she has also filed another 100 arbitration claims against Twitter on behalf of former employees, after filing an initial 100 last month.

Last month, employees represented by Liss-Riordan won an early court victory when a judge ordered Twitter to inform fired employees of pending lawsuits before asking them to sign any separation agreement that included release of legal claims.