Tesla sued by former employees who allege company made ‘mass layoffs’ without adequate notice

Tesla is being sued by former employees who claim the company violated US law when it failed to provide employees adequate notice before making “mass layoffs,” according to legal documents first reported by Bloomberg.<br><br>In June, CEO Elon Musk confirmed Tesla was cutting around 10% of its salaried workers in response to economic uncertainty. The news followed an email from Musk telling employees to stop coming into work and prepare for possible layoffs. He said at the time that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy.<br><br>In the suit, the now-former Tesla employees allege that Tesla did not provide a 60-day notice period, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). The law requires companies to alert employees of impending layoffs if they meet certain conditions. It’s unclear whether Tesla was exempt from the requirement, or if it was considered a mass layoff, which would trigger the need for a 60-day notice.<br><br>“Tesla has failed to give Plaintiffs and the Class Members any advance written notice of their termination, in clear violation of the WARN Act,” the complaint reads. “To the contrary, over the past two weeks, Defendants (without any notice or warning whatsoever) have advised thousands of employees that their employment with Defendants would be coming to an end.”<br><br>The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status, which would require a judge to agree that the former employees’ case is representative of a larger group of former employees. They are also seeking 60-days worth of pay and benefits.<br><br>Tesla has not commented on the lawsuit. The company dissolved its communications and PR department in 2020.<br><br>The layoffs at Tesla were part of a broader round of over 500,000 layoffs in the tech industry in 2022. Other companies, like Meta and Twitter, also made cuts to their workforce, and other companies like Better.com and Coinbase reduced their headcount multiple times.<br><br>This is not the first time Tesla is being sued for a mass layoff. In 2022, employees sued Tesla after Musk reduced the workforce, citing similar concerns.<br><br>The post Tesla sued by former employees who allege company made ‘mass layoffs’ without adequate notice appeared first on TechCrunch.