A group of 26 Meta employees have taken legal action against the company, alleging that it utilized artificial intelligence systems to identify individuals for layoffs, with a particular focus on those on medical, parental, or family leave. These employees are part of the 8,000 workers, representing around 10% of Meta’s staff, who were slated for layoffs in May. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, asserts that Meta employed various internal AI tools and monitoring methods, such as keystroke and activity tracking data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithm-based performance evaluations, to decide on layoff selections.
According to the lawsuit, many of the assessment metrics and rankings used by Meta were inherently biased against employees on protected medical or family leave, or those affected by disabilities. The lawsuit claims Meta failed to consider protected leave when evaluating employee performance and neglected to pause the system for the required personalized review mandated by law. Consequently, individuals on protected medical or family leave were unfairly targeted for layoffs. All 26 employees involved in the lawsuit had taken protected leave, requested accommodation for disability, or received such accommodation.
While these employees have been informed of their impending layoffs, they continue to be employed by Meta until separations commence on July 22. A significant portion of the employees involved in the lawsuit had taken pregnancy or parental leave, resulting in reduced measured output during that time. Additionally, some employees had taken medical leave due to serious health conditions or disabilities, with one employee receiving approval from Meta’s provider. However, the lawsuit alleges that this employee was dissuaded from taking leave by a manager who indicated that doing so would increase the likelihood of being laid off, and Meta did not make accommodations for the disability.
Meta has refuted the claims, stating that decisions regarding workforce management and organizational matters were always made by humans and not AI systems. Around half of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit had taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy-related reasons, with eight being women on maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four men on parental leave, and one woman on leave to care for a family member and later for bereavement. The lawsuit alleges violations of various state and federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
The plaintiffs’ legal representatives have emphasized that the primary goal of the lawsuit is to maintain the current employment status of the workers until arbitration is conducted, as irreversible consequences such as loss of health coverage, time-bound leave rights, forfeited equity, and triggered immigration issues would arise once the separations become final.