- James Clayton and Ben Derricko
- BBC News, San Francisco (USA)
Adriana Villarreal (left), Julio Alvarado and Juana Laura Chavero Ramirez have been fired this week.
Long workdays and inclement climate are some of the criticisms which have been leveled towards Elon Musk day after day for the reason that billionaire purchased Twitter in late October. Now, part of the social community’s cleaning crew, fired with out compensation, joins the refrain of discontent a number of weeks earlier than Christmas.
“All I can say is that I haven’t got the cash to pay the lease,” Mexican Julio Alvarado, who till this week was in cost of cleaning Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, instructed the BBC. Western United States.
“I haven’t got medical insurance. I do not know what I’m going to do”, he provides.
Alvarado has labored at Twitter for over 10 years and factors out that the work setting has at all times been nice.
However, he says, that modified with the arrival of Musk.
“People labored with out worrying,” he says. “Now we’re scared”, he claimed, including that for the reason that sale of Twitter, he is been noticed by safety guards whereas cleaning components of places of work, and he is additionally heard that cleaners will probably be changed by robots sooner or later. .
Julio Alvarado helps his household in Mexico, one thing he would not know what to do with
In this context, the California state senator denounced that Musk handled former workers “like trash” and that the janitor obtained “horrible” therapy.
“In the brief time period, I’d like to see him (Elon Musk) deal with his janitors like people”, Scott Weiner tells the BBC, “and rehire them, as a result of they have been fired earlier than Christmas”, the senator provides.
Meanwhile, San Francisco District Attorney David Chiu says he’s investigating whether or not Musk broke the regulation with the firing. Twitter didn’t reply to the BBC’s request for remark.
“Elon Musk has an extended historical past of violating labor legal guidelines,” Chiu argued. “While I’m not stunned by what occurred, I really feel very sorry for these staff. We will look into this additional,” he added.
The cleaners have been fired following a Twitter union protest on the firm’s headquarters in San Francisco
In addition to Alvarado, the BBC spoke to a few different Spanish-speaking workers on Twitter’s cleanup team. Everyone is anxious about their future as a result of there are at the moment few cleaning jobs accessible in San Francisco.
The cleaners say they have been working usually on Twitter final week till they have been instructed their jobs have been in danger.
Cleaners union president Olga Miranda explains that staff organized a strike final Monday (5/12) to protest. Immediately, they have been knowledgeable of fast dismissal.
“They did it three weeks earlier than Christmas. I feel they fired us as a result of we’re unionized”, he says.
Adrianna Villarreal, who has labored at Twitter for 4 years, would not know the way she’s going to feed her household on Christmas.
“It’s unhappy and disappointing for our households and our kids,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, Juana Laura Chavero Ramirez, who labored at Twitter for 5 years, is diabetic and fears she will not be capable to get her medicine. “It’s horrible,” he laments.
Sleeping in places of work
These aren’t the one criticisms leveled at Musk for the reason that billionaire took over Twitter and introduced to his workers that they must work “lengthy hours at a excessive depth.”
The BBC has obtained photographs of Twitter workplace bedrooms and sofas being became beds, which San Francisco authorities are investigating as potential violations of the constructing’s conference.
One of the photographs obtained by the BBC
“Staff now must sleep within the workplace,” Senator Scott Winner instructed the BBC on Wednesday.
“It’s clear that he (Elon Musk) would not care about folks. He would not care in regards to the individuals who work for him,” he added.
But it isn’t simply the employees who’re sleeping within the workplace, it is also Musk himself.
A former worker stated Twitter’s new proprietor has “virtually lived” on the headquarters since shopping for the corporate.
In a now-deleted tweet, Musk stated he would work and sleep within the workplace “till the group is fastened.”
A convention room-turned-bedroom at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters
Forbes journal ran a narrative of a “darkish room in a lately vacated company headquarters convention room”, noting that this was an obvious enchancment over the makeshift association of sleeping luggage on the ground posted by an worker on Twitter.
The room can even function housing for workers from Tesla and different Musk-owned corporations who work at Twitter, “some of whom come to the corporate for enterprise conferences,” the sources reported, in response to monetary information company Bloomberg. Bloomberg.
“We must be sure that the constructing is used in response to its conference,” an official with the Building Inspection Bureau instructed CBS News.
In response to a reporter on Twitter about this, Musk posted that town ought to prioritize defending kids from the implications of opioid use.
In May 2020, earlier than the Musk takeover, Twitter instructed its workers they might work at home “eternally” in the event that they wished, as its anti-remote work measures carried out throughout the lockdown proved profitable.
Last month, Musk ended that coverage.