Two former Twitter employees have filed a class action lawsuit against the company and its CEO Elon Musk alleging gender discrimination. They claim mass layoffs at Twitter last month disproportionately affected female employees more than male employees. Plaintiffs Carolina Bernal Strigling and Willow Wren Turkal also allege that Musk’s new work policies at Twitter have a disparate impact on women.
According to the lawsuit, Musk didn’t take into account Twitter employees’ job performance, qualifications, experience, and abilities while laying off thousands of employees early last month (via). The layoff decisions were made in a hurry. However, it still impacted more women than men. Plaintiffs claim 57 percent of female employees lost their job on November 4, while Twitter terminated the employment of only 47 percent of male employees. That’s despite the company having significantly more employees in the US.
“Not only is this a large percentage difference, but it is also extremely statistically significant,” the lawsuit states. Shortly after the layoffs, Musk said that Twitter is retaining more employees in engineering-related
roles. But that still doesn’t explain this alleged gender discrimination because the layoffs affected 63 percent of females and 48 percent of males in engineering-related roles. The story is the same in non-engineering roles as well.
The lawsuit states that Twitter laid off 51 percent of females in non-engineering-related roles on November 4, while 42 percent of male employees in similar roles were laid off. “It is clear that women were far more likely than men to be laid off from Twitter, and those differences are highly statistically significant,” plaintiffs allege. They also cite several tweets and media reports that allegedly show Musk’s “discriminatory animus against women.”
The gender discrimination lawsuit also targets Musk’s hardcore work culture at Twitter
Shortly after completing his Twitter takeover, Musk banned remote work and ordered all employees to be ready for an on-site hardcore work culture. Reports suggested employees had to work 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week. Some employees reportedly slept in Twitter offices over the weekend. Plaintiffs allege that this policy would have a “disproportionate impact on women” and Musk knows that. They say women are “more often caregivers for children and other family members, and thus not able to comply with such demands.”
The lawsuit alleges that Musk used this policy to force more women employees out of Twitter. He had given an ultimatum to the remaining employees to specify whether they were ready for the new work culture at “Twitter 2.0”. Those who didn’t accept his work policy could leave with three months of severance pay. This ultimatum also resulted in more female employees leaving than male employees. Plaintiffs are seeking “lost back pay, front pay, lost benefits, bonuses, and equity, as well as emotional distress damages, punitive damages, interest, and any other appropriate relief.”
Twitter and Elon Musk are already facing multiple other lawsuits over last month’s mass layoffs. One class action lawsuit came even before the layoffs began. There’s also a lawsuit alleging the company of discrimination against people with disabilities. This is regarding Musk’s mandatory on-site work policy. Time will tell what comes out of these lawsuits. We will keep you posted.
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