Meta Accused: Did AI Target Employees on Medical Leave for Layoffs?
Meta Accused: Did AI Target Employees on Medical Leave for Layoffs?
Shocking lawsuit alleges Meta's AI layoff system disproportionately impacted employees on protected medical and parental leave. Was your data used against you?
Tech giant Meta is currently facing a lawsuit from 26 former employees who claim the company used artificial intelligence to unfairly target workers on protected medical or parental leave for layoffs. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Oakland, California, casts a spotlight on the controversial use of AI in human resources decisions.
According to the complaint, Meta deployed various internal AI tools, including keystroke and activity monitoring, AI usage dashboards, and algorithm-assisted performance rankings, to identify who would be cut from its workforce. These layoffs affected approximately 8,000 employees, about 10% of Meta's total staff. The core accusation is that these AI systems disproportionately penalized employees who were not actively working due to legally protected leave.
The lawsuit argues that Meta's system unfairly evaluated workers on leave because they couldn't generate the same productivity data as actively working employees. This allegedly led to lower performance scores and made them more vulnerable to layoffs. The plaintiffs contend that Meta failed to adjust these evaluations to account for protected leave or disability accommodations, effectively counting reduced activity against those affected.
All 26 plaintiffs had taken protected medical, parental, or family leave, or had requested disability accommodations before they were selected for layoff. Among them, roughly half were on leave related to pregnancy or caregiving, including eight women on maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four men on parental leave, and one employee on family caregiving and bereavement leave. One employee even claims a manager warned them that taking medical leave for a serious health condition would increase their chances of being laid off, and the lawsuit alleges Meta failed to accommodate his disability.
The complaint asserts that Meta's layoff process violated the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides certain employees with job-protected leave for family and medical reasons. In response to these serious allegations, a Meta spokesperson stated on Tuesday that the claims lack merit, setting the stage for a significant legal battle over AI's role in the workplace.
