Contract workers employed by Covalen, which provides content moderation and data labeling for Meta’s AI products, protested planned layoffs outside Meta offices in Dublin. Covalen previously warned 700 employees that jobs were at risk due to reduced demand. Many affected workers would receive no severance because they had been employed for less than two years, while others would receive only the minimum required under local labor laws: two weeks’ pay per year of employment. Workers voted to strike and marched to Meta’s nearby European headquarters, seeking double the current severance and some compensation for those below the two-year threshold. They also requested removal of a six-month cooldown period that restricts work on other Meta accounts after layoffs.
"We trained the bots. We did the grind. Now we're being left behind,"
"A large swath of the affected workers won't receive any severance because they've been employed for less than two years. The rest are being offered the minimum payout required under local labor laws-two weeks' pay for every year of employment-according to the Communications Workers' Union (CWU), whose members include Covalen employees."
"To try to compel Covalen into revising the severance package, workers voted to strike outside the company's corporate office, before marching to Meta's nearby European headquarters. According to John Bohan, an organizer at the CWU, Meta could use its leverage as an anchor client to pressure Covalen into offering its employees an enhanced severance package. The workers are asking for double what's currently being offered-and at least some form of payment for workers who don't meet the two-year threshold."
"The company could also release Covalen workers from a "cooldown period" preventing them from working on another Meta account for six months after being laid off, Bohan says. (Meta previously described the cooldown period to WIRED as an industry standard.)"
#ai-content-moderation #data-labeling #labor-layoffs #severance-and-worker-rights #meta-and-vendor-contracting
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