Employees of Twitter Africa — Four days after Musk’s takeover, Twitter opened a physical office in the Ghanaian city of Accra and fired all but one of its African staff. However, based on their employment contracts, the employees of roughly a dozen claim that they were not provided with severance compensation, which is required under Ghana’s labor regulations.
They further assert that unlike employees in the US and Europe, they were not told of the following measures until a day after CNN covered their predicament. Twitter was approached by CNN for comment, but no answer was given.
Employees who were laid off at Twitter’s Africa office claim the company tried to “silence and intimidate” them after they were let go by “deliberately and recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana.”
The group has retained counsel and written to Twitter requesting that it adhere to the country’s labor regulations, give them more severance, and offer them other benefits comparable to those that other Twitter employees would receive.
They have also petitioned the Ghanaian government to compel Twitter to “adhere to the laws of Ghana on redundancy and offer the employees a fair and just negotiation and redundancy pay,” according to a letter to the country’s Chief Labour Officer obtained by CNN.
“It is clear that Twitter, Inc. under Mr. Elon Musk is either deliberately or recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana, is operating in bad faith and in a manner that seeks to silence and intimidate former employees into accepting any terms unilaterally thrown at them,” the letter states.
They want the vesting of stock options granted in their contracts, 3 months’ worth of gross income as severance compensation, and other perks like healthcare continuation that were promised to employees globally.
The Employment and Labor Relations Ministry in Ghana has been contacted by CNN for comment.