Former Twitter employees are taking the company to court. They believe women are disproportionately affected by mass layoffs on the platform. Twitter would discriminate on the basis of gender, they argue.
Businessman Elon Musk took control of Twitter in October after buying the platform for $44 billion (more than $41 billion). Shortly thereafter, he fired more than half of his 5,134 employees.
According to the lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco court, 57 percent of women lost their jobs, compared to 47 percent of men. In the more technical professions the ratio would have been even more unbalanced: here Twitter would have fired 68 percent of women and 48 percent of men.
The two plaintiffs, Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal, say it’s no surprise that women are hardest hit by mass layoffs. According to the two, Musk regularly speaks misogynistically.
The accusation also includes the policy that Musk introduced after the mass layoffs to the detriment of women. The CEO has required staff to work long hours in the office, which has forced employees who have to take care of children off their jobs.
The lawsuit, which Striffling and Turkal are filing on behalf of a larger group of women, isn’t the first against Twitter since mass layoffs in November. Previously laid-off employees sued the company because they were not notified of their job loss earlier than the legally required period. Twitter has not yet responded to the allegations.
