Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the person with the most money in the world, said recently that he had a “terrible feeling” about the economy.
According to the lawsuit, more than 500 people lost their jobs at the Nevada factory.
According to the claim, the workers say that the company didn’t follow government rules about mass layoffs, which call for a 60-day notice period under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
They want a class-action status for all former Tesla workers in the U.S. who were laid off in May or June without being told ahead of time.
“Tesla just told the workers that their jobs are ending right now,” the protest said.
According to online posts and meetings with Reuters, more than 20 people who called themselves Tesla employees said they were fired, let go, or had their jobs end this month.
John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who were fired on June 10 and June 15, respectively, wrote down what they did to try to get pay and benefits for the 60-day notice period.
Tesla hasn’t said how many jobs were cut, and it didn’t respond to questions about the claim.
Musk, on the other hand, called the claim “paltry” on Tuesday.
“We shouldn’t put a lot of weight on a precautionary claim that doesn’t hold up,” he said at the Qatar Economic Forum, which was put together by Bloomberg.
“It seems like anything that has to do with Tesla gets a lot of attention, no matter how small or big it is. I’d put that claim you’re bringing up in the “small” category.“
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer who talks to experts, told Reuters that she is very worried that the richest man in the world thinks it is “not important” that his company is blatantly ignoring government rules meant to protect workers.
“Two months’ pay probably doesn’t mean anything to him, but it means a lot to the people who worked hard to make his organisation what it is,” she said.
She said that Tesla is only giving a few representatives a few weeks’ worth of severance pay. She also said that she is setting up a crisis movement with a court to try to stop Tesla from trying to get sets of workers to quit for only a few weeks’ pay.
The claim was written down in the U.S. Area Court for the Western District of Texas.