Ireland’s Taoiseach (head of government), Micheál Martin, has described the firing of Twitter staff as “not acceptable” and “fairly unprecedented”. Micheál is not one of Elon’s "activists" either, he’s leader of the Fianna Fáil party which is described as conservative and a proponent of Christian democracy.
In a statement made to reporters, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said:
“We are concerned, and our concern is there for the employees of Twitter. There seems to be a fairly unprecedented approach being adopted here to a global workforce and that’s manifesting itself in Ireland. What I would say is no matter who you are or what sector you are in, one must always treat people with dignity and respect, and the employees at Twitter deserve to be treated with respect.
The summary notice of dismissal or ‘you’re no longer working’ is not acceptable. It’s not the way we conduct industrial relations or organized relationships between employers and employees.”
For those who’ve not been following along with developments today, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has apparently decided to cut 50% of the company’s workforce and many former employees have taken to Twitter to share pictures of them unable to log in to their work email addresses and computers. Some Twitter users are also not happy with Elon taking over the company, with almost a million deactivating their accounts.
In Elon’s defence, Twitter is not the only company cutting staff numbers. Lyft, Amazon, and Stripe were among companies yesterday they were cutting back numbers or freezing hiring.
Source: PA Media (Yahoo! Finance)