Women sue Musk's Twitter after layoffs

(9 Dec 2022)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4410144
ASSOCIATED PRESS
San Francisco – 8 December 2022
HEADLINE: More lawsuits filed against Musk's Twitter
1. Lead attorney walking towards microphones
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Shannon Liss-Riordan, lead attorney:
"We have now filed four class action lawsuits against Twitter related to the horrific experiences that these employees have been put through. Elon Musk has every day it seems like figured out a new way to trample on workers rights."
3. Mid of attorney with people outside the courtroom
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Shannon Liss-Riordan, lead attorney:
"And then, we filed a case on behalf of disabled employees."
5. Mid of plaintiffs outside courtroom
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Dmitry Borodaenao, Ex-Twitter engineer:
"Work from home accommodation, which was particularly important for me as a cancer survivor. I'm at an additional risk from COVID because if I get COVID and my cancer returns, I can't go back to chemo. And timing of going into cancer treatment is essential. It's basically a life or death situation."
7. Mid of plaintiffs outside courtroom
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Shannon Liss-Riordan, lead attorney:
"Buying this company seems to have been a bit of a toy for Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. But there are people's lives at stake here. There are people's livelihoods. Real people were impacted by these decisions."
9. Wide of plaintiffs walking into Federal building
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Justine De Caires, Ex-Twitter engineer:
"It's very important for Elon Musk to realize that he may be the richest man, but he is not above the law. And the law in this case is clear."
12. Wide of plaintiffs walking into building
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Shannon Liss-Riordan, lead attorney:
"We did analysis of the data of who got laid off on November 4th and found that 57% of women were laid off while 47% of men were laid off.
13. Wide of plaintiffs walking into building
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Shannon Liss-Riordan, lead attorney:
More women engineers were let go than male engineers proportionally. And so we're feeling pretty strong about these claims of sex discrimination, which is so unfortunate."
15. Plaintiffs outside the Federal building
ANNOTATION: The discrimination lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges over Musk's decimation of Twitter's workforce through mass layoffs and firings.
STORYLINE:
Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter when billionaire Elon Musk took over are suing the company in federal court, claiming that last month's abrupt mass layoffs disproportionately affected female employees.
The discrimination lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges over Musk's decimation of Twitter's workforce through mass layoffs and firings.
Days after the world's richest man bought the social media platform for $44 billion, the company told about half of employees on Nov. 4 that they no longer had a job but would get three months severance.
The lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court this week alleges that 57% of female employees were laid off, compared to fewer than half of men, despite Twitter employing more men overall before the layoffs.
The cutbacks continued throughout November as Musk fired engineers who questioned or criticized him and gave all remaining employees the choice to resign with severance or sign a form pledging "extremely hardcore" work, long hours and dedication to Twitter's new direction.
Scores more lost their jobs after declining to make the pledge.
The plaintiffs are scheduled to speak about the lawsuit on Thursday.
(AP video shot by Haven Daley)

[dirkgrotepas]

These fine specimens were the same ones that made the decisions as to whether you did or didn't get to express your opinions on Twitter... They will not be missed.

[douglasdowney]

Musk will not lose any of these thoughtless and petty lawsuits

[sharonfoley]

Are you sure? We're not quite clear anymore about the definition of a woman are we!

[messy]

How about all other cancer survivors who went back to work ?

[nestoralegre]

A sad State of affairs to have to work with these people

[letsgobrandon]

Damn. Elon taking over the you're fired phrase

[ilikedabeans]

1:09
When did Chris Chan get out of jail?

[VictorGallagherCarvings]

So certain types of people are exempt from being fired ? Also if I am not mistaken they are still on the payroll until mid January they are just not allowed to come in the office.

[ME-ypfn]

How can you just prove there is a discrimination based on some statistics?!! You can't say something is systematically happens without a long-term trend, means that you need to know how many times over years similar layoff happened by Elon Musk, but Elon Musk just acquired Twitter recently, so there is no historical data to support your claim. But I understand that your aim is for resettlement outside the court as usually happens in these cases !!!

[ОлександрБойко-ще]

Man with some gormone pills and some operations will never get a job