Twenty-six Meta employees say the company turned artificial intelligence loose on layoff decisions and that the system quietly punished people for doing what the law says they are allowed to do: take medical and parental leave.
Story Snapshot
- Twenty-six current and former Meta workers filed a federal lawsuit over mass layoffs tied to artificial intelligence scoring.
- The complaint says Meta used internal artificial intelligence tools and activity tracking that automatically penalized people on medical, parental, and disability leave.
- Workers claim those tools drove who landed on the layoff list, even though protected leave should not count against them.
- Meta denies the claims, saying humans made the choices and the lawsuit “lacks merit,” but the case shows how hard it is to prove what software did.
Workers say Meta’s layoff math punished medical and parental leave
A group of twenty-six Meta employees went to federal court in Oakland, California, with a clear complaint: the company’s use of artificial intelligence and digital tracking during a recent layoff round hit people on protected leave hardest.
They are part of roughly eight thousand jobs Meta said it would cut, about ten percent of its workforce. The lawsuit says Meta used internal artificial intelligence systems, keystroke and screen monitoring, email and browser scans, and algorithm-style performance rankings to decide who stayed and who went.
The workers say those numbers were stacked against anyone who was not at their keyboard every day. People on medical leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, or caring for a family member could not build the same scores as co-workers who never stepped away.
The complaint argues that these scores “by design” could not be earned by someone who was on legally protected leave or whose output was lower because of a disability, yet Meta did not adjust or pause the system to account for that. In plain terms, the math did not care why you were gone.
The tools inside Meta that turned everyday activity into layoff scores
The lawsuit describes several internal systems that, together, formed a kind of digital supervisor. One is “Metamate,” an artificial intelligence assistant trained on employee communications and documents that the company promoted as a “second brain.” Another is a productivity score based on keystrokes, screen content, emails, and browser history.
The complaint also points to dashboards tracking use of artificial intelligence tokens and code output. When Meta chose about eight thousand people for layoffs, the plaintiffs say these scores were used to rank employees on a termination list.
A lawsuit accusing Meta of discriminatory artificial intelligence use in firing workers demonstrates how companies leaning on the emerging technology for employment decisions can incur liability. https://t.co/jpeh9SPay7
— Bloomberg Law (@BLaw) July 28, 2026
Workers on leave say this setup turned their legal absence into a quiet strike against them. When a new parent stepped away for maternity or paternity leave, their code commits and artificial intelligence tool use dropped to zero. When a worker stayed home for surgery or to care for a sick parent, their keystrokes and email traffic slowed or stopped.
The lawsuit argues those lower numbers became a stand-in for protected leave status and were used without proper safeguards when managers looked at who to cut. One plaintiff reportedly received a layoff notice while on approved pre-birth leave just two days before giving birth, which gives the claim a human face and a sharp edge.
The laws the workers say Meta broke and how Meta responds
The employees are not just saying the layoffs were unfair. They are saying they were illegal. The lawsuit claims Meta violated several major laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, along with related state civil rights rules.
These laws exist to make sure workers are not punished for taking time off when they are sick, pregnant, or caring for family in ways the law protects.
Meta’s public answer is short and firm: the company says the claims “lack merit and are not based on facts.” A Meta spokesperson insists that “workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not artificial intelligence.”
That line matters. It sets up the core fight. The workers say artificial intelligence scores heavily shaped the layoff lists. Meta says humans made the calls and the software did not decide who was fired.
The hard problem: proving what software did behind closed doors
The workers asked the court for a quick ruling to block layoffs that were set to start July twenty-two while they fight their individual discrimination claims in arbitration.
A judge declined to halt the layoffs, stressing that the plaintiffs “were not in the rooms where it happened,” which shows the uphill battle they face in proving their case.
That line captures a deep problem in modern workplaces: employees often do not see the models, dashboards, or ranking sheets that shape their careers.
This Meta dispute fits a broader pattern that should bother anyone who cares about fair treatment at work. When companies use opaque scoring, productivity analytics, or automated decision support in layoffs, workers often argue that these tools quietly punish protected groups. In contrast, companies argue it is just data helping human managers.
The employer holds the logs, code, and emails. The workers hold the suspicion and the personal stories. That information gap makes it hard to test whether the system respected the law or followed the numbers wherever they led.
Sources:
abc7.com, theguardian.com, reuters.com, youtube.com, abcnews.com
