- Fired Twitter employees in the UK are suing the company for failing to honor its severance terms.
- Law firm Winckworth Sherwood said Twitter carried out a "sham redundancy process," per the FT.
Dozens of laid-off Twitter staff in the UK are suing the company, claiming that their dismissal was illegal and that severance terms weren't honored, a report says.
A lawsuit filed by London-based Winckworth Sherwood, and seen by the Financial Times, reportedly accuses Elon Musk's company of "unlawful, unfair and completely unacceptable treatment" and a "sham redundancy process."
Winckworth says UK Twitter staff who were let go were offered two months of gross basic salary, in addition to an extra two weeks' gross basic salary for each year of employment.
However, this fell short of the company's previous severance terms before Musk took over, according to the FT, and those offered by other big tech companies. Meta offered 16 weeks basic pay for employees it laid off in November.
In addition, the law firm argued that Twitter illegally fired workers by ending access to laptops and offices on the day that cuts were announced, before retrospectively trying to impose a formal redundancy program.
UK labor laws make it harder to fire large numbers of workers, as redundancies of more than 100 people require a 45-day consultation period where terms might be negotiated.
The firm, which represents 43 of Twitter's 180 laid-off workers in the UK, said the matter could be taken to an employment tribunal if a resolution was not found, the FT reported.
The head of UK trade union Prospect, Mike Clancy, has also written to Twitter over the same issues outlined in the legal action and called on the company to halt the redundancy process, per the report.
It's the latest in a long line of lawsuits since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October. He is estimated to have laid off about half the company's workforce since the takeover, or about 3,500 people.
This week lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents hundreds of Twitter employees in the US, said Musk was trying to "fleece" former workers over its severance offer.
Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.