Twitter is accused of refusing to pay $500 million in severance payment, and former employees file a class action lawsuit

CTOnews.com, July 13 (Xinhua)-- Twitter refused to pay at least $500m in severance pay to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk's acquisition of the company, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

Before she was laid off in January, Courtney McMillian, the "head of general compensation" who was in charge of Twitter's employee benefits program, filed the proposed class action in federal court in San Francisco.

McMillan claimed that according to a severance payment plan drawn up by Twitter in 2019, if laid off, most employees are promised two months' base salary and a week's salary for each full year of work. Senior employees like McMillan should receive a base salary of six months, according to the lawsuit. But Twitter only gives employees who have been laid off for up to a month of severance pay, and many have received nothing.

Twitter laid off more than half of its employees in an effort to save costs after Mr Musk bought the company last October.

The lawsuit accuses Twitter and Musk of violating a federal law that regulates employee benefit programs. Twitter has previously been sued for failing to pay severance pay, but those cases involve claims for breach of contract rather than welfare law. The company says it has paid its former employees in full.

A pending lawsuit filed last month alleges that Twitter also failed to pay millions of dollars in bonuses to remaining employees, which Twitter said were unfounded. The company also faces a series of other lawsuits over layoffs that began last year, including claims against women and people with disabilities. Twitter denies any wrongdoing in cases that have been filed for defense.