Twenty-six Meta employees have filed a lawsuit accusing the technology company of using AI-assisted systems that disproportionately disadvantaged workers with disabilities or those who took medical leave when selecting employees for mass layoffs.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, alleges that Meta relied on factors including productivity scores and AI token usage to score and rank workers for termination. According to the complaint, employees who missed work because of medical conditions or to care for family members were placed at a disadvantage by the metrics used in the process.
The plaintiffs were informed in May that their jobs would be eliminated beginning July 22. They are seeking a preliminary court ruling to temporarily block the layoffs while their claims are pursued through private arbitration.
According to the lawsuit, Meta used several internal AI-assisted systems in the employee assessment process. These allegedly included “Metamate”, the company’s large language model assistant, an employee-trained “second brain” that tracked workplace communications and documents, and a productivity score generated using data from keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history.
The employees accuse Meta of violating federal and state laws protecting workers with disabilities, employees taking medical leave and pregnant workers. They also allege that the company failed to test its AI systems for bias as required under recently adopted laws in California and New York City.
Meta has denied the allegations. A company spokesperson told Reuters that the claims lacked merit and said workforce management and organisational decisions were made by people rather than AI.
The case comes as Meta restructures its workforce while sharply increasing investment in artificial intelligence. The company laid off nearly 8,000 workers, around 10% of its global workforce, in May and has increasingly placed AI agents at the centre of its products and internal working practices.
Reuters said the lawsuit appears to be the first against a major US company challenging the alleged use of artificial intelligence in conducting layoffs.
The case could test how workplace AI systems account for medical leave and other protected absences when measuring employee productivity. If activity and AI usage become signals in workforce decisions, the way those systems interpret periods of lower activity may face growing legal scrutiny.
Source: Reuters
