Ex-employees sue Musk-run Tesla for mass layoffs

San Francisco: Electric car-maker Tesla has been sued by former employees who were sacked in the ongoing mass layoff at the company, accusing it of violating federal law in the US.

John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who worked at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada state, said in the lawsuit that they were among “more than 500” Gigafactory employees who were terminated, reports The Verge.

According to the lawsuit, the Tesla mass layoff violates the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.

The act requires employers to notify workers at least 60 days in advance before shutting down a facility or laying off 50 or more workers from the same site.

“Tesla has failed to give Plaintiffs and the Class Members any advance written notice of their terminations,” read the lawsuit.

“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,” it added.

They requested class-action status for their lawsuit, along with demanding pay and benefits for 60 days.

Musk on Tuesday said that Tesla will reduce its salaried workforce by 10 per cent over the next three months.

The world’s richest man said that the electric car-maker will cut salaries by 10 per cent over the next three months, as the company navigates the global macro-economic conditions.

This would result in reducing Tesla’s total headcount by roughly 3.5 per cent.

Tesla employs more than 100,000 people across its facilities.

Last week, Musk-owned SpaceX fired a group of employees who were involved in writing an open letter criticising Musk’s behaviour in the public sphere.

The firing has likely violated US labour laws and the fired employees may also approach the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to sue SpaceX.