According to a recent article published by Reuters and shared by Autoblog, two recently laid-off Tesla employees have filed an emergency plea against Tesla related to the company's ongoing layoffs. The motion filed with a Texas court reportedly aims to stop the EV maker from producing unfair severance agreements.
The laid-off workers claim that Tesla's severance separation agreements don't offer the severance that's required by law. Reuters reports that amid Tesla's current layoff situation, the automaker is requesting laid-off employees to release the company of all claims while agreeing to a severance package that covers only one to two weeks of pay and benefits.
Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), employees are entitled to a severance of 60 days worth of pay and benefits. The two former Tesla employees were aware that the company's severance was unfair, so they filed the motion in support of themselves and over 500 other workers who Tesla laid off at its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, over the last two months. According to Reuters, a portion of the motion reads:
"Employees who have lost their jobs are typically eager to get whatever additional pay that they can get and have no reason to know that they are entitled to more due to Tesla's violations of the WARN Act. In short, Tesla hopes to buy off these class members' claims for pennies on the dollar."
Clearly, the former workers believe Tesla is hoping other victims of the layoffs won't be aware of the rules, and will just settle for the small severance package and be on their way. It's important to note that the same two laid-off Tesla employees previously came forward with claims that Tesla didn't provide the required notice related to the layoffs. They filed a lawsuit since Tesla didn't give full 60-day notice of a "mass layoff."
Read More About Tesla's Recent And Ongoing Job Cuts:
The original reports related to this story claimed that Tesla was going to cut staff by some 10%. However, the details came from a few leaked emails from Elon Musk to employees, which were never shared in their entirety. Musk has confirmed that while Tesla is laying off some salaried employees, the company's headcount will grow.
Source: Reuters via Autoblog