MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2022) Laid-off employees of Twitter's Africa headquarters in Ghana have accused the new social media boss, Elon Musk, of grossly violating the country's labor law and trying to "silence and intimidate" them, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
The dismissed workers have reportedly contacted a lawyer and then officially urged the company to respect Ghana's labor law, which provides them with severance pay and some benefits on a par with other Twitter staff around the world. The group has also called on the Ghanaian chief labor officer to force the social media leadership to "adhere to the laws of Ghana on redundancy and offer the employees a fair and just negotiation and redundancy pay," the broadcaster quoted its sources as saying.
"It is clear that Twitter, Inc. under Mr Elon Musk is either deliberately or recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana, is operating in bad faith and in a manner that seeks to silence and intimidate former employees into accepting any terms unilaterally thrown at them," a letter to the chief labor officer, obtained by CNN, read.
Following Musk's takeover of Twitter, all but one of around 10 African employees were dismissed just four days after the company's material headquarters opened in the Ghanaian capital city of Accra on November 2, according to CNN. None of the dismissed workers have reportedly been provided with severance pay.
"The employees are distressed, humiliated, and intimidated by this turn of events. There are non-Ghanaian employees, some with young families, who moved here to take up jobs and have now been left unceremoniously in the lurch, with no provision for repatriation expenses and no way to communicate with Twitter, Inc. and discuss or plead their case," the letter said, the broadcaster reported.
Meanwhile, Carla Olympio, the lawyer representing Twitter Africa's sacked workers, told CNN that the dismissal had been in a total breach of the Ghanaian labor law, which obligates an employer to send a three-month notice to authorities and hold negotiations with workers on severance pay.
"In stark contrast to internal company assurances given to Twitter employees worldwide prior to the takeover, it seems that little attempt was made to comply with Ghana's labor laws, and the protections enshrined therein for workers in circumstances where companies are undertaking mass layoffs due to a restructuring or reorganization," Olympio said in her letter to CNN.
US company Twitter Inc. was founded in 2006. The main product of the company is a social network for exchanging short messages. In late October, US entrepreneur Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion. In November, a little over a week after taking over, Musk started laying off the company's workers around the world in a bid to place Twitter "on a healthy path" and ensure the firm's "success moving forward."
