A Twitter software engineer who was fired in Elon Musk's layoff order last week reportedly filed a complaint with U.S. labor authorities for helping his colleague's Retaliation from the company for saving information from a work email account. The former Twitter employee, Emmanuel Cornet, said in filings with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Monday that he was fired on Nov.
That day, he used the company's Slack channel to share a Google Chrome extension he had released. This extension helps employees save information related to performance reviews or stock awards. Employees can use this information to challenge layoffs or seek compensation from the company. Twitter then removed the Slack channel link.
The NLRB filing said, Connett alleges that Twitter's inclusion of him on the first list of mass layoffs was related to his helping colleagues protect themselves from layoffs.
Twitter has yet to comment. Complaints filed with the NLRB are handled by district officials, who if they find the allegations are substantiated and cannot secure a settlement, file a complaint on behalf of the NLRB's general counsel, which is adjudicated by the agency's judges. These judges can also appeal to the NLRB Commissioner in Washington and then to U.S. federal court. The agency has the power to ask companies to reinstate laid-off workers and pay them back but typically does not hold executives personally liable for related misconduct or award punitive damages.
Connet is also the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed last Thursday alleging that Twitter violated U.S. federal and state laws that require large companies to give months' notice for mass layoffs.
Musk has said that all laid-off employees will be compensated for three months. Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for Conett, said Monday that Conett did not receive the compensation, and it was unclear which employees received it.