Meta’s AI-based layoffs allegedly targeted workers who had taken protected leave

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A scientist was chosen for a reduction in force while on pre-birth pregnancy leave.

A manager was demoted following a medical leave, then selected to be laid off weeks into his second medical leave.

An engineer’s rating was lowered because of the “broken time” when an injury kept him from working.

These are among the allegations made by 26 current and former workers at Meta who were included in the company’s May reduction in force, according to a lawsuit filed this month in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

The plaintiffs alleged that the company used artificial intelligence-based systems that “disproportionally” selected for layoff workers who had taken or requested protected leave in the previous two years for its approximately 10% reduction in force.  

“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” per the lawsuit. “Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems … to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list.”

The AI tools rely on inputs such as “performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI-native’ ratings, and AI-token consumption — that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability,” the lawsuit said. 

The company did not “neutralize” those inputs to account for protected leave, nor did it exclude those who had taken protected leave or sought accommodations from the layoff selection, the workers alleged.

“The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves,” per the lawsuit.

Such actions are in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the workers said. 

A Meta spokesperson said the claims “lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”

The plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction preventing Meta from finalizing their separations, per the lawsuit.