Ex-Twitter Employees, on Behalf of ‘Thousands,’ Seek Arbitration for X

Nine former Twitter employees filed a motion Friday to compel and for preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland on behalf of the “thousands” of former employees with whom Twitter and X “have refused to proceed with arbitration,” said their memorandum of points and authorities (docket 4:23-cv-03301) in support of their motion.

Twitter and X refuse to arbitrate “despite having successfully blocked employees from pursuing their claims in court by compelling them to arbitrate their legal claims,” said the memorandum. Last week, the court granted a request of the company and former employees to lift the stay in their arbitration dispute that was imposed Sept. 21 while they unsuccessfully pursued mediation (see 2401050030).

After having succeeded on its motions to compel arbitration in order to block multiple class action cases from proceeding against it in court, Twitter found itself faced with more than 2,000 individual arbitration cases from its former employees, said the memorandum. “Facing that front of individual claims, for which it must pay the bulk of the arbitration fees, Twitter decided to change course and avoid these arbitrations, thus refusing to lie in the bed it has made,” it said.

When ordered to pay arbitration fees by both agreed-upon arbitration providers, the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services and the American Arbitration Association, Twitter “did an about-face and informed both JAMS and AAA that it would not proceed with these arbitrations,” said the memorandum. Twitter has also blocked arbitrations from proceeding in cases brought by employees who worked in states where JAMS doesn’t have an office or arbitrators. Moreover, It has done the same when employees lack a copy of their signed arbitration agreement, it said.

Despite compelling former employees to arbitrate their claims against the company, Twitter “has taken every opportunity to prevent many of them from actually pursuing their claims in arbitration,” said the memorandum. The court shouldn’t “countenance this behavior.” Instead, it should enter an immediate order compelling Twitter to arbitrate, it said. In addition, it should order Twitter “to pay the fees it has been ordered to pay by JAMS and AAA, in order for those cases to proceed,” it said.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup for Northern California entered such an order in 2020 when another defendant, DoorDash, refused to pay arbitration fees when thousands of claimants filed arbitration demands, said the memorandum: “Likewise, here, Twitter should not be rewarded for its hypocrisy and gamesmanship.”