Yahoo Finance Elon Musk has 'worked every day to find new and creative ways to screw over the company's workers,' attorney suing Twitter over layoffs says
The attorney suing Twitter has filed an emergency motion to protect employees from signing away their rights.
Musk has fired about half the company's staff, or about 3,700 people.
Musk sent his first email to employees on Wednesday, giving them only one day to return to office.
From firing CEO Parag Agrawal on his first day to the gray checkmark fiasco, things at Twitter have been chaotic ever since Elon Musk took over on October 27.
Twitter's staff is bearing much of the brunt of the chaos: Musk has already laid off half the company's staff — about 3,700 people.
On Wednesday, attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan filed an emergency motion that would prevent Twitter from seeking severance agreements from laid-off employees, court documents show. The motion comes a week after Liss-Riordan on November 3 filed a class-action lawsuit against Twitter in San Francisco federal court, alleging Twitter failed to give employees due notice of layoffs.
"This emergency motion that we just filed is an effort to protect the employees Twitter is laying off from signing away their rights to get what they are owed by the company," Liss-Riordan said in a statement to Insider. "We will fight to recover what they are owed, even individually in arbitration if necessary. "
Musk "has worked every day to find new and creative ways to screw over the company's workers," Liss-Riordan added in the statement.
Late on Tuesday, Liss-Riordan also filed an amended complaint in the case, alleging that Musk went back on the promises that Twitter made to employees regarding their severance package and remote working arrangements.
On Wednesday at 2:39 a.m. ET, Musk sent his first email to employees. In the email, Musk said the company will no longer allow remote work — giving workers just one day to get back to the office.
"The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed," read the email. "Starting tomorrow (Thursday), everyone is required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week."
Among the thousands of Twitter workers Musk has laid off in the past weeks is a pregnant employee who said her laptop access was cut off before she received an official announcement that she was going to be terminated. A week after they were laid off, several people said they were asked to come back as managers realized they were needed for the new features that Musk plans to roll out.
"Given Musk's background and his well-documented history of refusing to follow the rules or the law, we have to assume that he is preparing to pressure employees to take a deal that shortchanges them before they have the opportunity to learn whether they are entitled to more," Liss-Riordan said.
"Through this litigation, Twitter employees are going to show the richest man in the world that even he is not above the law," she added.
Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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