A Twitter engineer claimed he was fired days after Elon Musk purchased the social media website as a result of he developed a device that allowed staff to avoid wasting essential paperwork in anticipation of mass layoffs, in line with a lawsuit.
Emmanuel Cornet, a 41-year-old software program engineer based mostly in San Francisco, filed a criticism with the US Nationwide Labor Relations Board on Monday, claiming the corporate violated his protected exercise proper.
“Protected actions” are actions that staff can take with out concern of employer retaliation underneath US labor regulation.
Cornet was fired on Nov. 1, a number of days earlier than Twitter started shedding about half of its 7,500 staff in a cost-cutting bid by Musk, the world’s richest individual.
The criticism states that after listening to rumors of mass layoffs, Cornet started designing a Google Chrome Extension that allowed staff to obtain emails and different private paperwork from their firm accounts that they could want to say compensation or problem their termination.
Cornet posted a hyperlink to the software program in Twitter’s inside Slack channel on Nov. 1, and was fired later that very same day with out warning. Twitter then eliminated the hyperlink from the messaging system, in line with the criticism.
“Mr. Cornet alleges that Twitter chosen him to be one of many first staff let go in its mass layoff, in retaliation for having assisted his fellow staff to assist defend themselves within the occasion that they have been laid off,” the criticism reads.
The criticism added that the extensions have been designed to assist staff save paperwork corresponding to “statements reflecting their inventory in Twitter, efficiency opinions, and different human useful resource paperwork.”
A French nationwide, Cornet joined Twitter in 2021 after a 14-year stint at Google.
Cornet wrote in his private weblog that “the extension does one thing that anyone can do manually with out it,” alongside an in depth account of his ouster.
He later wrote, “A few individuals a lot smarter than me have instructed that this can be an excuse to fireside me over a “troublemaker” vibe coming from me.”
If the labor relations board finally guidelines in favor of Cornet’s criticism, it may order Twitter to reinstate him and pay him his wage misplaced whereas away from the corporate.
Cornet had additionally joined 4 different Twitter staff in submitting a lawsuit in California federal courtroom on Friday accusing the social media firm of violating federal and California legal guidelines requiring employers to provide 60 days’ discover earlier than participating in mass layoffs.
Musk in a sequence of tweets on Friday stated Twitter staff who have been laid off have been supplied 90 days of severance pay, which may fulfill Twitter’s obligations underneath the discover legal guidelines.
With Submit wires
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