Former employees of Tesla Inc who worked in the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada have filed a lawsuit against the company. The lawsuit alleges that they were fired from the company without following federal law. According to US Federal Laws on employment, workers must be provided with advance notice of being fired.
The suit filed in the US District Court in the Western District of Texas also mentioned that more than 50o employees got similarly terminated from gigafactory without any advance notice being issued. Petitioners are calling the move a “mass layoff” without following federal laws.
According to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a company should give each worker a 60-day notification period before any lay off which affects more than 50 employees.
The notification period is to ensure that employees get enough time to find another work and to make necessary changes.
The suit has been filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, both of them from Sparks factory. John was forced on June 10th while Daxton was fired 5 days after on June 15th. Both of them did not receive any kind of advance notice or notification period of 60 days.
By the suit, petitioners requested the court to provide them with pay and other benefits for 60 day notification period to which they are entitled.
This is not the first-time tesla is laying off workers for different reasons.
Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly told in an email to employees that he has a super bad feeling about the economy and that tesla will cut staff by almost 10%
He also said in another email that all employees should work for at least 40 hours every week from the office. And also threatened to take action against those who don’t comply with the directive. This move faced a lot of flak from even executives of other companies in the United States.
Tesla, which has not commented on lay-offs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.
Shannon Liss Riordan, Attorney representing workers John and Daxton told Reuters that it was shocking how tesla blatantly violates federal laws. “It’s pretty shocking that Tesla would just blatantly violate federal labour law by laying off so many workers without providing the required notice,” – she said.
Elon Musk’s reaction
Even though Tesla or any company representative has not commented about the lay-off lawsuit, Elon Musk made a few statements regarding the suit at the Qatar Economic forum organised by Bloomberg.
Elon Musk said that the lawsuit was trivial and asked to not spend much on pre emotive lawsuit which has no standing.