OAKLAND, California: Twenty-six workers sued Meta Platforms Inc. on Monday, alleging its AI-assisted layoff system disproportionately selected employees with disabilities or protected medical and family leave.
The federal complaint said Meta used a collection of internal artificial intelligence tools to score, rank and place employees on termination lists during its May restructuring. The workers said the system failed to adjust performance data for legally protected absences.
The disputed tools allegedly included Meta’s internal assistant, Metamate, employee-trained AI agents, and dashboards that recorded employees’ AI-token usage. The complaint also alleged that productivity monitoring covered documents, correspondence, keystrokes, screen activity and internet usage.
Meta rejected the allegations. Company spokesperson Tracy Clayton said workforce and organisational decisions were made by people, not artificial intelligence, and described the claims as lacking merit.
The lawsuit followed Meta’s decision to eliminate about 8,000 positions, equal to roughly 10% of its workforce, as the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp owner reorganised operations around artificial intelligence.
The plaintiffs come from six US states and the District of Columbia. They allege violations of federal and state protections covering disability, pregnancy, medical leave and family-care responsibilities.
Workers received layoff notices in May, with their employment scheduled to end on July 22. They asked the judge to temporarily halt the terminations while the legal challenge proceeds.
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The plaintiffs acknowledged that Meta employment contracts generally require individual arbitration. However, they argued that the agreements do not prevent a court from considering an emergency request for temporary relief before arbitration begins.
