Tesla sued by former workers over Elon Musk staff cuts
Tesla is being sued by former employees who have accused the electric car company for illegally laying off staff without notice during Elon Musk’s recent cuts.
Two Nevada-based workers have launched a class action lawsuit saying the company failed to heed US laws on mass layoffs that require a 60-day warning period.
Mr Musk said earlier this month that Tesla needed to cut around one in 10 salaried jobs, or around 10,000 people, because of a “super bad feeling” about the economy.
The lawsuit filed in Texas, where Tesla is based, claims the company has violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act, which requires companies to give employees affected by mass redundancies 60 days notice and to pay them throughout that period.
“Tesla has failed to give plaintiffs and the class members any advance written notice of their terminations,” it states.
“Instead, Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately. Tesla has also failed to provide a statement of the basis for reducing the notification period to zero days advance notice.
“Tesla’s failure to provide its employees with any advance written notice has had a devastating economic impact on plaintiffs and the class members.”
The lawsuit is seeking pay and benefits for the 60-day period, legal fees and “any other and further relief to which plaintiffs and the class members may be justly entitled”.
It has been filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, two employees at Tesla’s gigafactory in Nevada who were laid off on June 10 and June 15 respectively.
Mr Musk told executives at the start of the month that the company needed to freeze all hiring and that Tesla had become “overstaffed in many areas”.
The company’s shares fell 9pc after the email became public. Tesla shares have fallen by more than 45pc since the start of the year.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
