Meta Faces Lawsuit Over AI-Driven Layoffs Targeting Disabled Workers
Twenty-six employees allege the company used algorithmic performance systems to discriminate against staff who took medical or family leave.
Meta is facing legal action from 26 current and former employees who claim the company deployed artificial intelligence systems to systematically target workers with disabilities and those who had taken medical or family leave during its May layoffs.
The lawsuit, filed Monday evening, challenges the legitimacy of Meta's workforce reduction that eliminated roughly 8,000 positions—10 percent of its staff—as part of a strategic pivot toward AI development. The company simultaneously closed 6,000 open positions and reassigned 7,000 employees to AI-focused roles.
The AI performance system allegations
According to the complaint, Meta did not rely on managerial judgment to determine which employees to terminate. Instead, the plaintiffs allege the company used "a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems" to create performance rankings that inherently disadvantaged workers who had exercised their legal right to protected leave.
All 26 plaintiffs had either requested or been approved for protected leave within the two years preceding the layoffs.
The AI tools Meta allegedly deployed included a dashboard tracking employees' use of AI in their work, systems monitoring keystroke and mouse activity, browser history tracking, and messaging data. Meta began using employee communications to train its AI models in April, according to the lawsuit. The monitoring program was announced in a secondary internal channel rather than through official employee communications, and many workers never received a consent option, the employees claim.
Why it matters
This case highlights emerging concerns about algorithmic bias in workforce management decisions. If the allegations prove accurate, Meta would represent a troubling precedent: a company not only using employee data to train AI systems that could automate their jobs, but also deploying similar technology to execute layoffs in ways that allegedly violate disability and family leave protections. The outcome could establish important legal boundaries for how companies can use AI in employment decisions, particularly regarding protected classes of workers.
Company response and relief sought
Meta denied the allegations in a statement, asserting that "workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."
The plaintiffs are requesting the court halt their terminations and mandate an independent audit of Meta's layoff selection process.
These details were first reported by Mother Jones.
This is an original analysis by the Omega editorial team. Source reporting: AI Watch.
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