Tech giant Twitter on Friday began a process of culling its 7,500 workforce globally, with more than half of its 500 workers in Dublin expected to be axed.
Twitter staff woke on Friday morning to find that their offices had been closed and that access to its IT systems had been shut off in “order to protect the security of our confidential information and user data”.
The company, which was acquired last week by Elon Musk for $44 billion, sent communications to the personal emails of staff at threat of being made redundant. The notice stated that “does not mean that we have made any final decisions in relation to this process or your role”, adding that they would have the opportunity to “express their views” via “employee representatives” who would be elected by staff shortly.
According to the email sent to employees in Dublin who face layoffs and obtained by The Irish Times, they will get statutory redundancy as well as a "ex gratia payment of an additional month's salary" and two weeks' compensation for each year of service that has been completed.
The employer informed the personnel that they would have to take gardening leave to complete their notice period.
Twitter informed personnel that it was thinking about cutting back on employment "to achieve efficiencies and stabilise its financial condition." Even though nothing has changed with regard to content moderation and we done everything we could to placate the activists, Mr. Musk claimed that since his takeover, Twitter "has experienced a big reduction in revenue due to activist groups pressing advertisers."
In 2011, Twitter opened an office in Dublin's Cumberland Place that employs roughly 500 employees as its European headquarters. According to local sources, there is "carnage" going on inside the company's Irish division, and layoffs are "random and indiscriminate."
Some have questioned whether Twitter may have violated local employment legislation given the brutality of the notices sent to employees on Friday.
According to Richard Grogan, an employment lawyer in Dublin, "the position on it is, in certain situations, you have to go via the collective redundancy statute if you are making a number of people redundant, like half your workforce, and you have 500." Therefore, notice must be given to the Minister. Before any employees are let go, there is a 30-day period of employee consultation. You can't just send emails to folks telling them they are redundant.
Due to the cost-cutting plan, which employees claim Twitter is implementing without providing adequate notice and in violation of both federal and state law, the corporation is being sued in a California court.
On Friday, the Taoiseach expressed the government's "alarm" over the recent events at Twitter.
"No matter who you are or what industry you work in, one must always treat people with decency and respect, and the employees of Twitter deserve to be treated with respect," Micheál Martin remarked during the opening of a primary care facility in Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
