A lawsuit has been filed by 26 Meta employees alleging that the company utilized artificial intelligence technology to determine layoffs, with a focus on individuals on medical, parental, or family leave. This group is part of the 8,000 employees, approximately 10% of the total workforce, that Meta announced it would lay off back in May. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims that Meta employed internal AI systems, activity monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithmic performance rankings to identify employees for termination.
According to the lawsuit, certain scores and ratings crucial for employment decisions could not be accrued by employees on protected medical or family leave or those whose productivity was impacted by a disability. The legal action alleges that Meta did not consider protected leaves when evaluating employees’ performance and did not pause the system for the necessary individualized review as mandated by law. Consequently, employees on protected leave were disproportionately targeted for layoffs, as all 26 anonymous plaintiffs in the suit had taken protected leave, requested, or received accommodations for disabilities.
Despite being informed of their impending layoffs, all 26 employees are still employed by Meta, with separations scheduled to commence on July 22. Many of the employees involved in the lawsuit had taken parental or pregnancy leave, during which their productivity had decreased due to not working. Additionally, some employees had taken medical leave, with one disclosing a serious health condition and disability approved by Meta’s provider. However, the lawsuit claims that this employee was discouraged from taking leave by a manager who insinuated that doing so would lead to their selection for layoffs, and Meta allegedly did not provide any accommodation for the disability.
Meta has responded to the allegations by stating that the claims are without merit and not based on factual information, emphasizing that human decision-makers, not AI, were responsible for workforce management choices. The lawsuit asserts that the layoffs violated various state and federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
The plaintiffs’ legal representatives have stated that the lawsuit’s primary goal is to maintain the current situation to keep the affected workers employed until arbitration is completed. They argue that irreversible consequences such as loss of employer-subsidized health coverage during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, medical treatment interruptions, forfeiture of unvested equity, and triggering immigration ramifications would occur once the separations are finalized.
