On Thursday, Mars Man Musk sent out an email to Twitter employees telling them that his plan to slash the company’s workforce will begin on Friday. The email informed staff that by 9 a.m. Pacific time Friday, workers would receive an email with the subject line: “Your Role at Twitter.”
Those keeping their jobs would be notified on their company email. Those losing them would be told via their personal email.
Team,
In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.
Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder.
If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email.
If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.
If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email peoplequestions@twitter.com.
To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home.
We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.
We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process.
Thank you.
-The Washington Post
Musk also plans to eliminate Twitter’s ‘work from anywhere’ policy.
But—Musk is obviously unaware of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires employers to provide advance notice, generally within 60 days, of mass layoffs or plant closings.
On Thursday, five current or former workers filed suit against Twitter alleging the social media company violated federal and state law that requires 60 days’ notice of mass layoffs, according to a court document.
“Twitter is now engaged in conducting mass layoffs without providing the required notice under the federal WARN Act,” the lawsuit says, referring to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that requires 60-day notice for certain plant closings or mass layoffs.
As of Friday morning, the state Employment Development Department had not received any WARN notifications from Twitter regarding layoffs at the company, an EDD spokesperson told this news organization.
Employers are required to give a 60-day notice to employees, as well as state and local officials, of any mass layoffs or a plant shutdown.
