Cleaners at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco have told JEE News they have been fired without pay.
One of them told JEE News that a member of Elon Musk’s team had said that their jobs would be replaced by robots.
The California state senator said Musk was treating former staffers “like trash.”
San Francisco City Attorney David Chew said he was investigating whether Mr. Musk broke the law. Twitter has not responded to JEE News’s request for comment.
“Elon Musk has a long history of violating labor laws,” Mr Chew told JEE News.
“While I’m not surprised that this happened, I do feel for these workers. We will look into it further.”
JEE News spoke to four cleaners who say they were fired from Twitter on Monday – their interviews were conducted in Spanish.
Adrianna Villarreal, who worked for Twitter for four years, said she now worries she won’t have enough money to feed her family for Christmas.
“It is sad and disappointing for our families and children,” he said.
Cleaners were working on Twitter last week until they were told their jobs were at risk.
Olga Miranda, president of the cleaners’ union, said they had organized a strike on Monday to protest. She says the cleaners were then told they were immediately fired.
“They did it three weeks before Christmas,” she said. “I think we got fired because we’re a union.”
Julio Alvarado was a cleaner on Twitter for 10 years. He says that during his tenure there the atmosphere was always friendly.
But he says things changed when Elon Musk took over Twitter in October.
“People work without any problems,” he told JEE News. “Now we’re scared.”
Since Mr. Musk acquired the company, Mr. Alvarado says he has been escorted by private security while cleaning out parts of the office.
He also says he was told by someone on Mr. Musk’s team that his job would soon be gone because robots would eventually replace human cleaners.
Without his job, Mr. Alvarado says he worries about paying his bills. He also says he is helping his family back in Mexico.
“I can only tell you, I don’t have money to pay the rent,” he says. “I’m not going to get medical insurance. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Juana Laura Chavero Ramirez said she worked on Twitter for five years. A diabetic, she worries she won’t be able to take her medication.
“It’s just horrible,” she said. “We’re not only losing our jobs, we’re losing our income.”
Adrianna Villarreal, who had worked at Twitter since 2018, said she was worried she wouldn’t be able to afford Christmas presents.
“We’re going to have Christmas presents for our kids,” he said, “a plate of food on our table and overnight we have nothing.”
The cleaners say they don’t know what to do – because there are currently few cleaning jobs available in San Francisco.
A small group of cleaners has protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco since Monday.
California state senator Scott Weiner told JEE News that the cleaners were treated “appallingly”.
“In the short term, I want to see him [Elon Musk] treat his janitors like human beings,” Mr. Weiner said, “and get them back to work — not just before Christmas. Throw them out.”
