Just the other day, another company owned by American billionaire Elon Musk called SpaceX fired a “number” of employees for criticizing the CEO, the newest from his other company, Tesla is a report that two former employees have now filed a lawsuit against the company alleging its decision to carry out a “mass layoff” which violates federal law as the company did not provide advance notice of the job cuts.
The lawsuit was filed on Sunday in the state of Texas by two former workers who said they were fired by the company’s gigafactory plant in Sparks, Nevada in June.
They alleged that over 500 other employees were also fired from the Nevada factory.
However, the workers alleged that the company has failed to adhere to federal laws on mass layoffs which require a 60-day notification period under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, according to the lawsuit.
- Advertisement -
They are seeking class-action status for all former Tesla employees throughout the United States who were laid off in May or June without advance notice.
“Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately,” the complaint said.
As of now, the EV maker is yet to comment on the number of layoffs it has made and requests for comment have been abortive over the news of the lawsuit.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk wrote that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and so Tesla needed to cut staff by about 10%, according to an email that was gotten by Reuters.
Over 20 individuals who identified as Tesla employees said they were laid off or had their positions terminated this month, according to online postings and interviews with Reuters.
The action filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who was fired on June 10 and June 15 respectively, seeks pay and benefits for the 60-day notification period.
“It’s pretty shocking that Tesla would just blatantly violate federal labor law by laying off so many workers without providing the required notice,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney representing the workers told Reuters.
She said Tesla is offering some employees only one week of severance, adding that she is preparing an emergency motion with a court to try and block the company from trying to get releases from employees in exchange for just one week of severance.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas.
