the billionaire Elon Musk have not bought yet Twitter and is already facing its first labor protests. Company employees released a draft open letter against plans to cut jobs, which emerged during negotiations by the company.
Musk’s plan is to fire, at best, to 75% of Twitter’s workforce. The South African has not yet referred to the letter.
Let us remember that the tycoon will pay 44 billion dollars for the company created by Jack Dorsey, although after a long novel that included his withdrawal (arguing the number of bots on the platform) and a legal confrontation.
The acquisition must be completed this Friday, or the lawsuit filed by Twitter in a Delaware court will resume. as Time explains.
The layoff threats on Twitter
Musk had indicated that he would reduce Twitter’s workforce from 7,500 workers to just 2,000, as quoted by the Washington Post. Given this, the employees released the draft of an open letter, criticizing the decision.
“Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will harm the company’s ability to engage with the public conversation,” the letter said. “A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.”
Among the employee demands is Musk’s commitment to preserve Twitter’s current workforce. they also want that workers are not discriminated against for their political beliefs and that there are “fair” compensation policies, in addition to greater communication about working conditions.
“We demand to be treated with dignity and not be treated as mere pawns in a game of billionaires,” the workers stressed.
It is unknown how many employees signed the letter. In a note sent to the group, it was stated: “The signatures will not go public unless we have a critical mass.”
Elon Musk and the layoffs in his companies: the Tesla case
At the end of last June, Tesla laid off 200 workers dedicated to running Autopilot, vehicle driving assistance system.
It was made after an advance by Musk, in which he argued that the decision was due to the global economic crisis resulting from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The initial plan was lay off 10 thousand workers, but the figure was not definitively arrived at.