Meta Sued by 26 Employees Over AI-Driven Layoffs Targeting Medical Leave Workers
Meta faced a lawsuit from 26 current and former employees, who claim that the company's AI systems unfairly targeted individuals on medical leave for layoffs in May.
Key Allegations:
- The plaintiffs argue that Meta's AI-powered systems, including keystroke monitoring, AI token dashboards, and "Metamate," a large language model assistant, generated scores that penalized workers who had taken protected leave.
- These systems were used to rank and select employees for termination during the company's mass layoffs of approximately 8,000 staff on May 20.
- The suit suggests this could be the first legal challenge against a major US tech company regarding the use of AI in layoffs.
Plaintiffs' Claims:
- Violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and state-level leave protections.
- Allegations that Meta deployed a monitoring program in 2026, capturing keystrokes, screen content, browser history, messages, emails, and location data from company devices without proper consent.
- The data was used to develop AI tools, including for a new engineering organization to which employees were reassigned.
Next Steps:
- The plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to halt their terminations while individual claims are pursued in arbitration.
- They also allege that Meta failed to test its AI systems for bias, violating recent California and New York City laws on AI use in employment decisions.