Twitter abandons African staff after Elon Musk fired them without pay

Former Twitter employees who were fired in Ghana in November were not given any severance compensation, and the company has not contacted them in three months, CNBC has reported.

The action, according to Twitter was necessary as part of a measure by Elon Musk to cost cut. The billionaire, during the heat of global job cut wave in November last year, tweeted that the company was losing over $4 million daily.

Meanwhile, he noted that those who were affected - nearly all staff - were offered 3 months of severance, which equals 50% more than legally required.

According to Ghanaian employment legislation, employees must receive redundancy pay and three months' notice before being let go. However, sources who spoke to the business news claim that Twitter employees in Accra's capital were given less than a month.

How Twitter abandoned former workers

According to a source, the corporation has treated the employees unfairly ever since the layoff.

He added that until this was covered by worldwide media and the Ghanaian labor office became interested, no attempt had been made to negotiate a severance.

He said: It’s been a tedious process and they rejected some of our requests, which we thought were fair given the circumstances and how we’ve been treated.

The workers eventually contacted Twitter through their attorney to accept what they perceived to be a weak severance package in May, but Twitter has remained silent ever since.

We played ball and accepted the offer that they made just so we could move forward with our lives. However, they have completely ignored us since our lawyer reached out to theirs to accept the offer in May. For many of us, expenses owed have also not been paid,” the second source added.

Another source told the news organization that everyone is exhausted and irate and added that the compensation isn't even what was initially promised.

The delay in the anticipated severance, according to him, is unfortunate because some people whose jobs were lost haven't found new employment despite having families to support.