From today’s Los Angeles Times:
After months of waiting, hundreds of Twitter employees laid off by Elon Musk in early November received their separation agreements by email Saturday morning.
The agreements offered one month of severance pay, but with a major catch — employees must sign away their right to ever sue the company, assist anyone in a legal case against the company unless required by law, or speak negatively about Twitter, its management or Elon Musk.
More striking is what the document omitted, said one former engineering manager who was laid off Nov. 4. The separation agreement does not include year-end bonuses, cash contribution for healthcare continuation, additional severance based on tenure, or the cash value of restricted stock units that are typically vested every quarter. These were all part of Twitter’s general severance package prior to Musk’s acquisition of the company in October, according to a previous companywide email.
After opening the agreement, the manager said he immediately knew he was going to pursue legal action. So did many others in former employee groups in which he participates.
“There’s a lot of sentiment that Twitter did us wrong,” he said. “We don’t want to give them any free passes on anything.”
Lisa Bloom, a lawyer who already has filed arbitration claims against Musk on behalf of several laid-off employees, called the terms in the separation agreement “pretty disturbing.”
Not only are former employees barred from voluntarily assisting in legal cases against the company, they also must assist and cooperate with Twitter in any kind of investigation or lawsuit against the company.
Read the complete story here.