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US

Factbox: FACTBOX Georgia on his mind: Donald Trump troubled by more legal woes

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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Donald Trump could learn soon whether he or any associates will be charged or cleared of wrongdoing in a Georgia probe into his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, one of a series of legal threats looming over the Republican former U.S. president:

GEORGIA ELECTION TAMPERING PROBE

On Tuesday, the prosecutor in the state of Georgia spoke to a judge on behalf of a special grand jury empanelled in May to investigate Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney and a Democrat who will ultimately decide whether to pursue charges against Trump or anyone else, said the grand jury had completed its task and decisions were “imminent.”

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss in Georgia.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue that his discussions were constitutionally protected free speech.

U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK

The U.S. Justice Department has investigations under way into both Trump’s actions in the 2020 election and his retention of highly classified documents after departing the White House in 2021.

Both investigations involving Trump are being overseen by Jack Smith, a war crimes prosecutor and political independent. Trump has accused the FBI, without evidence, of launching the probes as political retribution.

A special House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol urged the Justice Department to charge Trump with corruption of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or aiding an insurrection.

The request is non-binding. Only the Justice Department can decide whether to charge Trump, who has called the Democratic-led panel’s investigation a politically motivated sham.

MISSING GOVERNMENT RECORDS

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to investigate whether Trump improperly retained classified records at his Florida estate after he left office in 2021 and then tried to obstruct a federal investigation.

Garland also appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur for Maryland to investigate the removal of classified records in President Joe Biden’s possession dating to his time as vice president.

It is unlawful to willfully remove or retain classified material.

In Trump’s case, the FBI seized 11,000 documents from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate in a court-approved Aug. 8 search. About 100 documents were marked classified; some were designated top secret, the highest level of classification.

Trump has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.

NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed in September that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization business between 2011 and 2021.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Commerce, Georgia, U.S. March 26, 2022. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File Photo

A Democrat, James accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain lower interest rates on loans and get better insurance coverage.

A New York judge ordered that an independent monitor be appointed to oversee the Trump Organization before the case goes to trial in October 2023.

James seeks to permanently bar Trump and his children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years.

James also wants the defendants to hand over about $250 million that she says was obtained through fraud.

Trump has called the attorney general’s lawsuit a witch hunt. A lawyer for Trump has called James’ claims meritless.

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

DEFAMATION CASE

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, has filed two lawsuits accusing Trump of having defamed her when he denied her allegation that he raped her in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996.

Trump accuses her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Carroll first sued Trump after he denied the accusation in June 2019 and told a reporter at the White House that he did not know Carroll, that “she’s not my type,” and that she concocted the claim to sell her new memoir.

The second lawsuit arose from an October 2022 social media post where Trump called the rape claim a “hoax,” “lie,” “con job” and “complete scam,” and said “this can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

That lawsuit includes a battery claim under the Adult Survivors Act, which starting last Nov. 24 gave adults a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have expired.

A U.S. judge on Jan. 13 rejected as “absurd” Trump’s effort to dismiss the second lawsuit.

Trump and Carroll are awaiting a decision from a Washington, D.C., appeals court on whether, under local law, Trump should be immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit over his June 2019 comments.

That lawsuit would likely be dismissed if the court decided that Trump spoke within his role as president, and continue if Trump spoke in his personal capacity as Carroll argues.

Any decision would have no effect on Carroll’s second defamation and battery lawsuit. A trial in the first lawsuit is scheduled for April 10.

NEW YORK CRIMINAL PROBE

Although Trump was not charged with wrongdoing, his real estate company was found guilty on Dec. 6 of tax fraud in New York state. A judge this month sentenced Trump’s namesake real estate company to pay a $1.6 million criminal penalty, the maximum the judge could impose.

Jurors convicted the Trump Organization, which operates hotels, golf courses and other real estate around the world, of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty and was required to testify against the Trump Organization as part of his plea agreement. He is also a defendant in James’ civil lawsuit.

Reporting by Joseph Ax, Luc Cohen, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Texas AG to halt most of Citigroup’s municipal offerings on gun law row

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Jan 18 (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc (C.N) has discriminated against the firearms sector, the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said, making a decision that “has the effect” of Texas halting Citi’s ability to underwrite most municipal bond offerings in the state.

Republicans have been ramping up pressure on the finance industry over environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices. Texas enacted a law in 2021 prohibiting government contracts with entities that discriminated against the firearms industry.

“It has been determined that Citigroup has a policy that discriminates against a firearm entity or firearm trade association”, the assistant attorney general chief of the public finance division of Texas AG wrote on Wednesday in the letter seen by Reuters.

“Citi’s designation as an SB-19 discriminator has the effect of halting its ability to underwrite most municipal bond offerings in Texas,” Paxton’s office told Reuters, referring to the law.

Until further notice, The Texas AG will not approve any public security issued on or after Wednesday in which Citigroup purchases or underwrites the public security, she added in the letter.

“Citi does not discriminate against the firearms sector and believe we are in compliance with Texas law”, a Citigroup spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding that the company would remain engaged with the Texas AG office to review options.

In 2018, Citigroup put restrictions on new retail business clients that sell guns, requiring that they pass background checks. That followed a high school shooting in Florida in February of that year in which 17 people died.

Bloomberg News first reported the news on Thursday.

Reporting by Lavanya Ahire and Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru,Additional reporting by Urvi Dugar and Mrinmay Dey; Editing by Bradley Perrett, Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Twitter’s laid-off workers cannot pursue claims via class-action lawsuit-judge

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Jan 14 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc has secured a ruling allowing the social media company to force several laid-off workers suing over their termination to pursue their claims via individual arbitration than a class-action lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge James Donato on Friday ruled that five former Twitter employees pursuing a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before laying them off after its acquisition by Elon Musk must pursue their claims in private arbitration.

Donato granted Twitter’s request to force the five ex-employees to pursue their claims individually, citing agreements they signed with the company.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The San Francisco judge left for another day “as warranted by developments in the case” whether the entire class action lawsuit must be dismissed, though, as he noted three other former Twitter employees who alleged they had opted out of the company’s arbitration agreement have joined the lawsuit after it was first filed.

The lawyer who represents the plaintiffs, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said on Monday that she had already filed 300 demands for arbitration on behalf of former Twitter employees and would likely file hundreds more.

Those workers all claim they have not received the full severance package promised by Twitter before Musk took over. Some have also alleged sex or disability discrimination.

Last year, Donato had ruled that Twitter must notify the thousands of workers who were laid off after its acquisition by Musk following a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before terminating them.

The judge said that before asking workers to sign severance agreements waiving their ability to sue the company, Twitter must give them “a succinct and plainly worded notice”.

Twitter laid off roughly 3,700 employees in early November in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, and hundreds more subsequently resigned.

In December last year, Twitter was also accused by dozens of former employees of various legal violations stemming from Musk’s takeover of the company, including targeting women for layoffs and failing to pay promised severance.

Twitter is also facing at least three complaints filed with a U.S. labor board claiming workers were fired for criticizing the company, attempting to organize a strike, and other conduct protected by federal labor law.

Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru, Nate Raymond in Boston, and Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Deepa Babington

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Twitter lays off staff as Musk blames activists for ‘massive’ ad revenue drop

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  • Musk looking to axe around half of Twitter’s workforce
  • Employees file class action against Twitter
  • Staff lose access to systems
  • Volkswagen pulls ads

Nov 4 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc started a major round of layoffs on Friday, alerting employees of their job status by email after barring the entrances to offices and cutting off workers’ access to internal systems overnight.

The move follows a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending.

Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation. The groups said on Friday they are escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” Twitter said in an email to staff on Thursday evening announcing the cuts that came on Friday, which was seen by Reuters.

The company was silent about the depth of the cuts, although internal plans reviewed by Reuters this week indicated Musk was looking to cut around 3,700 Twitter staff, or about half the workforce.

Staff who worked in engineering, communications, product, content curation and machine learning ethics were among those impacted by the layoffs, according to tweets from Twitter staff.

Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter’s acting head of human rights, tweeted on Friday that the entire human rights team at the company had been cut.

Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.” However, his reassurances have failed to calm major advertisers, which have expressed apprehension about his takeover for months.

Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) recommended its brands pause paid advertising on Twitter until further notice in the wake of Musk’s takeover, it said on Friday. Its comments echoed similar remarks from other companies, including General Motors Co (GM.N) and General Mills Inc (GIS.N).

Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, which is part of the civil rights coalition, said he knew of two more major advertisers that were preparing to announce that they would pause ads on the platform.

Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done “everything we could” to appease the groups. “Extremely messed up! They’re (civil right groups) trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Speaking at an investors conference in New York on Friday, Musk called the activist pressure “an attack on the First Amendment.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT

Dozens of staffers tweeted they lost access to work email and Slack channels before receiving an official notice, which they took as a sign they had been laid off.

[1/9] Owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. Elon Musk arrives at the 29th Annual Baron Investment Conference in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

They tweeted blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees had used for years to celebrate the company’s work culture.

Twitter’s curation team, which is responsible for “highlighting and contextualizing the best events and stories that unfold on Twitter,” had been axed, employees said on the platform. The company’s communications team in India has also been laid off, according to a Twitter executive in Asia.

A team that focused on research into how Twitter employed algorithms, an issue that was a priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet from a former senior manager at Twitter.

Senior executives including Vice President of Engineering Arnaud Weber also said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday: “Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I’m proud of what we accomplished,” he tweeted.

Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the handle “SillyRobin” who had indicated they were laid off, quote-tweeted Musk’s previous tweet saying Twitter Blue would include “paywall bypass” for certain publishers.

“Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this,” the employee said.

Twitter’s head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, appeared to have kept his job, as did Vice President of Product Keith Coleman, who launched a tool called Birdwatch for users to write notes on tweets they identify as misleading.

Last week, Musk endorsed Roth, citing his “high integrity” after Roth was called out over tweets critical of former U.S. President Donald Trump years earlier. Musk has also tweeted that he likes Birdwatch.

Roth and Coleman did not respond to requests for comment.

DOORS LOCKED

Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be temporarily closed and badge access suspended in order “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”

Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.

A receptionist at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters said a few people had trickled in and were working in the floors above despite the notice to stay away.

A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by its employees, who argued the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of federal and California law.

The lawsuit also asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas, Katie Paul in Palo Alto, Calif., and Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.
Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin, Rusharti Mukherjee, Aditya Kalra, Martin Coulter, Hyunjoo Jin, Supantha Mukherjee and Arriana McLymore
Writing by Matt Scuffham
Editing by Kenneth Li, Jason Neely and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave

Thomson Reuters

San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.

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Business

More U.S. companies charging employees for job training if they quit

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WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) – When a Washington state beauty salon charged Simran Bal $1,900 for training after she quit, she was shocked.

Not only was Bal a licensed esthetician with no need for instruction, she argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality.

Bal’s story mirrors that of dozens of people and advocates in healthcare, trucking, retail and other industries who complained recently to U.S. regulators that some companies charge employees who quit large sums of money for training.

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Nearly 10% of American workers surveyed in 2020 were covered by a training repayment agreement, said the Cornell Survey Research Institute.

The practice, which critics call Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, or TRAPs, is drawing scrutiny from U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Sherrod Brown is studying legislative options with an eye toward introducing a bill next year to rein in the practice, a Senate Democratic aide said.

At the state level, attorneys general like Minnesota’s Keith Ellison are assessing how prevalent the practice is and could update guidance.

Ellison told Reuters he would be inclined to oppose reimbursement demands for job-specific instruction while it “could be different” if an employer wanted reimbursement for training for a certification like a commercial driving license that is widely recognized as valuable.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun reviewing the practice, while the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have received complaints about it.

The use of training agreements is growing even though unemployment is low, which presumably gives workers more power, said Jonathan Harris who teaches at the Loyola Law School Los Angeles.

“Employers are looking for ways to keep their workers from quitting without raising wages or improving working conditions,” said Harris.

The CFPB, which announced in June it was looking into the agreements, has begun to focus on how they may prevent even skilled employees with years of schooling, like nurses, from finding new, better jobs, according to a CFPB official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

“We have heard from workers and worker organizations that the products may be restricting worker mobility,” the official said.

TRAPs have been around in a small way since the late 1980s primarily in high-wage positions where workers received valuable training. But in recent years the agreements have become more widespread, said Loyola’s Harris.

Licensed esthetician Simran Bal, who was taken to court by her former employer to repay $1900 in trainings they required her to attend, poses for a portrait outside the King County District Court in Shoreline, Washington, U.S., October 13, 2022. Bal, whose case was dismissed, says she was already licensed for services the trainings covered. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

One critic of the CFPB effort was the National Federation of Independent Business, or NFIB, which said the issue was outside the agency’s authority because it was unrelated to consumer financial products and services.

“(Some state governments) have authority to regulate employer-driven debt. CFPB should defer to those governments, which are closer to the people of the states than the CFPB,” it added.

NURSING AND TRUCKING

Bal said she was happy when she was hired by the Oh Sweet salon near Seattle in August 2021.

But she soon found that before she could provide services for clients, and earn more, she was required to attend trainings on such things as sugaring to remove unwanted hair and lash and brow maintenance.

But, she said, the salon owner was slow to schedule the trainings, which would sometimes be postponed or cancelled. They were also not informative; Bal described them as “introductory level.” While waiting to complete the training, Bal worked at the front desk, which paid less.

When she quit in October 2021, Bal received a bill for $1,900 for the instruction she did receive. “She was charging me for training for services that I was already licensed in,” said Bal.

Karina Villalta, who runs Oh Sweet LLC, filed a lawsuit in small claims court to recover the money. Court records provided by Bal show the case was dismissed in September by a judge who ruled that Bal did not complete the promised training and owed nothing. Villalta declined requests for comment.

In comments to the CFPB, National Nurses United said they did a survey that found that the agreements are “increasingly ubiquitous in the health care sector,” with new nurses often affected.

The survey found that 589 of the 1,698 nurses surveyed were required to take training programs and 326 of them were required to pay employers if they left before a certain time.

Many nurses said they were not told about the training repayment requirement before beginning work, and that classroom instruction often repeated what they learned in school.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in comments that training repayment demands were “particularly egregious” in commercial trucking. They said firms like CRST and C.R. England train people for a commercial drivers license but charge more than $6,000 if they leave the company before a certain time. Neither company responded to a request for comment.

The American Trucking Associations argues that the license is portable from one employer to another and required by the government. It urged the CFPB to not characterize it as employer-driven debt.

Steve Viscelli, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who spent six months training and then driving truck, said the issue deserved scrutiny.

“Anytime we have training contracts for low-skilled workers, we should be asking why,” he said. “If you have a good job, you don’t need a training contract. People are going to want to stay.”

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Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Chris Sanders and Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Diane Bartz

Thomson Reuters

Focused on U.S. antitrust as well as corporate regulation and legislation, with experience involving covering war in Bosnia, elections in Mexico and Nicaragua, as well as stories from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Nigeria and Peru.

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World

Taiwan blames politics for cancellation of global Pride event

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Participants march under a giant rainbow flag during the LGBT Pride parade in Taipei, Taiwan October 26, 2019. REUTERS/Eason Lam

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TAIPEI, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Taiwan on Friday blamed “political considerations” for the cancellation of WorldPride 2025 Taiwan after it said the organisers had insisted the word “Taiwan” be removed.

Taiwan participates in global organisations like the Olympics as “Chinese Taipei”, to avoid political problems with China, which views the democratically governed island as its own territory and bristles at anything that suggests it is a separate country.

Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung had been due to host WorldPride 2025 Taiwan, after winning the right from global LGBTQ rights group InterPride.

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Last year after an outcry in Taiwan, it dropped a reference to the island as a “region”, wording that suggests it is not a country.

But the Kaohsiung organisers said InterPride had recently “suddenly” asked them to change the name of the event to “Kaohsiung”, removing the word “Taiwan”.

“After careful evaluation, it is believed that if the event continues, it may harm the interests of Taiwan and the Taiwan gay community. Therefore, it is decided to terminate the project before signing the contract,” said the Kaohsiung organisers.

InterPride said in a statement they were “surprised to learn” the news and while they were disappointed, respected the decision.

“We were confident a compromise could have been reached with respect to the long-standing WorldPride tradition of using the host city name. We suggested using the name ‘WorldPride Kaohsiung, Taiwan’,” it added.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the event would have been the first WorldPride event to be held in East Asia.

“Taiwan deeply regrets that InterPride, due to political considerations, has unilaterally rejected the mutually agreed upon consensus and broken a relationship of cooperation and trust, leading to this outcome,” it said.

“Not only does the decision disrespect Taiwan’s rights and diligent efforts, it also harms Asia’s vast LGBTIQ+ community and runs counter to the progressive principles espoused by InterPride.”

Taiwan legalised same-sex marriage in 2019, in a first for Asia, and is proud of its reputation as a bastion of LGBTQ rights and liberalism.

While same sex relations are not illegal in China, same sex marriage is, and the government has been cracking down depictions of LGBTQ people in the media and of the community’s use of social media.

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Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry

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Business

Tesla shareholders broadly follow board recommendations at annual meeting

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Aug 4 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) shareholders voted for board recommendations on most issues at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, including re-electing directors, approving a stock split, while rejecting proposals focused on environment and governance.

Votes on three of the 13 proposals did not follow board recommendations, according to preliminary tallies presented at the annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas.

Over board opposition, shareholders passed an advisory proposal that would increase investors’ ability to nominate directors.

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Two board proposals – cutting directors’ terms to two years and eliminating supermajority requirements – did not receive supermajorities necessary to pass.

Dressed in black, Chief Executive Elon Musk heavily influenced the voting and spoke to an enthusiastic crowd after the vote. He owns 15.6% of Tesla, according to Refinitiv data, after selling millions of shares last year. read more

Investors approved a three-for-one stock split. While a split does not affect a company’s fundamentals, it could buoy the share price by making it easier for investors to own the stock.

Shareholder proposals that failed included ones arguing for endorsing the right of employees to form a union, asking the company to report its efforts in preventing racial discrimination and sexual harassment annually, as well as reporting on water risk.

A proposal asking directors to enable large and long-term stockholders or groups with at least 3% of the shares to nominate directors, cleared objections from the board. The board had earlier said a proposal like this could create opportunities for special interests to skew Tesla plans.

Musk said the company aimed to hit a production run rate of 2 million vehicles per year by the end of 2022 and would continue building factories.

Tesla has factories in California and Shanghai and is ramping up two more in Austin, Texas and Berlin. Musk said Tesla might be able to announce an additional factory this year and he expected eventually to have 10-12 so-called gigafactories.

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Reporting by Ankur Banerjee and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Peter Henderson in Oakland and Kevin Krolicki in Detroit; Editing by Anil D’Silva

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Business

Tesla sued by former employees over ‘mass layoff’

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A Tesla logo is seen in Los Angeles, California U.S. January 12, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

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June 20 (Reuters) – Former Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) employees have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. electric car company alleging its decision to carry out a “mass layoff” violated federal law as the company did not provide advance notice of the job cuts.

The lawsuit was filed late Sunday in Texas by two workers who said they were terminated from Tesla’s gigafactory plant in Sparks, Nevada in June. According to the suit, more than 500 employees were terminated at the Nevada factory.

The workers allege the company failed to adhere to federal laws on mass layoffs that require a 60-day notification period under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, according to the lawsuit.

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They are seeking class action status for all former Tesla employees throughout the United States who were laid off in May or June without advance notice.

“Tesla has simply notified the employees that their terminations would be effective immediately,” the complaint said.

Tesla, which has not commented on numbers of layoffs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.

Musk, the world’s richest person, said earlier this month he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and that Tesla needed to cut staff by about 10%, according to an email seen by Reuters. read more

More than 20 people identifying themselves as Tesla employees said they were laid off, let go or had positions terminated this month, according to online postings and interviews with Reuters. read more

The action filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, who were fired on June 10 and June 15 respectively, seeks pay and benefits for the 60-day notification period.

“It’s pretty shocking that Tesla would just blatantly violate federal labor law by laying off so many workers without providing the required notice,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney representing the workers told Reuters.

She said Tesla is offering some employees only one week of severance, adding that she is preparing an emergency motion with a court to try to block Tesla from trying to get releases from employees in exchange for just one week of severance.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas.

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Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; editing by Richard Pullin

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US

Apple workers at Maryland store vote to unionize, a first for the U.S.

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June 18 (Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) workers in Maryland voted on Saturday to join a union, becoming the first retail employees of the tech giant to unionize in the United States.

More than 100 workers in Towson near Baltimore “have overwhelmingly voted to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers,” the union said on its website.

The local workers, forming the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, “have the support of a solid majority of our coworkers,” they wrote in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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“This is something we do not to go against or create conflict with our management,” they wrote.

Apple logo is seen in this illustration taken March 1, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

An Apple spokesperson, responding to Reuters request for comment, said by email the company had “nothing to add at this time.”

Unionization efforts are gaining momentum at some large U.S. corporations, including Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O). read more

Apple workers in Atlanta who were seeking to unionize withdrew their request last month, claiming intimidation.

Some current and former Apple workers last year began criticizing the company’s working conditions online, using the hashtag #AppleToo.

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Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard

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US

Taser maker halts drone project; most of its ethics panel resigns

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The headquarters for Axon Enterprise Inc, formerly Taser International, is seen in Scottsdale, Aizona, U.S., May 17, 2017. Picture taken May 17, 2017. To match Special Report USA-TASER/EXPERTS REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

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June 5 (Reuters) – Taser-maker Axon Enterprise Inc (AXON.O) said on Sunday it was halting work on a project to equip drones with stun guns to combat mass shootings, a prospect that a member of its AI ethics board told Reuters was prompting an exodus from the panel.

The May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers, prompted an announcement by Axon last week that it was working on a drone that could be operated remotely by first-responders to fire a Taser at a target about 40 feet (12 m) away.

“In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” Chief Executive Rick Smith said in a statement on Sunday.

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Earlier, ethics board member Wael Abd-Almageed told Reuters he and eight colleagues were resigning from the 12-member panel, in a rare public rebuke by one of the watchdog groups that some companies have set up in recent years.

The aim behind such groups is to gather feedback on emerging technologies, such as drones and artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Smith said it was unfortunate that some members “have chosen to withdraw from directly engaging on these issues before we heard or had a chance to address their technical questions.”

He said Axon “will continue to seek diverse perspectives to challenge our thinking and help guide other technology options that we should be considering.”

Axon, which also sells body-worn cameras and policing software, said in February that its clients include about 17,000 out of the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

It has explored the idea of a Taser-equipped drone for police since at least 2016, and Smith depicted how one could stop an active shooter in a graphic novel he wrote.

The company first approached its ethics board more than a year ago about running a limited police pilot with Taser-equipped drones, which members voted eight to four against, said Abd-Almageed, an engineering research associate professor at University of Southern California.

Axon last Thursday announced it was working on the technology anyway, hoping to spur discussion after the Uvalde shooting. read more Its shares rose nearly 6% on the announcement.

“In the aftermath of these events, we get stuck in fruitless debates” about guns, Smith said. “We need new and better solutions.”

Ethics board members had concerns that the system could be used in circumstances beyond shootings and exacerbate racial injustice, undermine privacy through surveillance and become more lethal if other weapons were added, Abd-Almageed said.

“What we have right now is just dangerous and irresponsible, and it’s not very well thought of and it will have negative societal consequences,” he said.

Fellow member Mecole Jordan-McBride, advocacy director at New York University law school’s Policing Project, last week said that the board needed more time to weigh the idea. The board had not evaluated non-police use of the drones, it said.

Formed in 2018, the panel has guided Axon productively on sensitive technologies such as facial recognition. But the company’s drone announcement prior to a formal report by the board broke with practice, according to Jordan-McBride and fellow member Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor.

Chair Barry Friedman was resigning as well, said Abd-Almageed. Friedman, reached by telephone, said he would be available to comment on Monday.

CEO Smith acknowledged limitations and uncertainties around the project, noting a drone without a Taser may be enough on its own to distract a shooter.

In response to questions on the social media service Reddit on Friday, Smith wrote that drones could be stationed in hallways and move into rooms through special vents. A drone system would cost a school about $1,000 annually, he said.

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Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif., and Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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