On Monday, Twitter workers circulated a list of demands urging billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to address their issues after he completes his acquisition of the social media platform.
The letter was sent in reaction to claims that Musk intended to reduce the firm by up to 75% upon gaining control — and asked, among other things, that Musk “preserve” the current personnel number.
The letter, addressed to “Workers, Elon Musk, and the Board of Directors,” says that eliminating the platform’s staff would jeopardize the “public discourse” to an intolerable level.
“Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation. A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation,” a draft of the letter read. “Twitter has significant effects on societies and communities across the globe. As we speak, Twitter is helping to uplift independent journalism in Ukraine and Iran, as well as powering social movements around the world.”
The letter went on to say that Twitter would cease to exist unless they were all promised that they would be able to maintain their employment and all of their perks.
“We cannot do our work in an environment of constant harassment and threats. Without our work, there is no Twitter,” they wrote. “We, the workers at Twitter, will not be intimidated … We will not stop serving the public conversation.”
Calling on Musk to “cease these negligent layoff threats,” they followed those statements with a list of concrete demands.
Under the heading “respect,” they said, “We demand leadership to respect the platform and the workers who maintain it by committing to preserving the current headcount.”
Under “safety,” they added, “We demand that leadership does not discriminate against workers on the basis of their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. We also demand safety for workers on visas, who will be forced to leave the country they work in if they are laid off.”
Under “protection,” they demanded a commitment to preserve current benefits and allow for continued remote work — a topic Musk has already addressed at Tesla — as well as “fair” severance policies.
Under the last heading, “dignity,” they concluded, “We demand transparent, prompt and thoughtful communication around our working conditions. We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.”
The authors vowed not to make the letter’s signatories public “unless we have critical mass.”