As far as the Warn act goes, notice of impending layoff and staying technically as an employee for 60 days is the equivalent of a "penalty" of two months wages.

As far as the Warn act goes, notice of impending layoff and staying technically as an employee for 60 days is the equivalent of a "penalty" of two months wages. What twitter did there is normal business practice. You raise a point about severance. I think you are right that it is not technically "severance" pay, but it is alternative. I would be willing to bet that either "severance" is either defined very carefully in any employee contract or it's not a guarantee, but merely semantics. Either way the employees got their Warn act, they got their two months salary, what does it matter? You raise an interesting technicality - they are still "employees". But I disagree about CA - I believe that basically ALL non-competes are unenforceable in CA. And this is a theoretical concern anyhow - there's no way twitter is binding the employees they just let go or holding them to this or going after them so there is no cause of action unless they did. https://www.callahan-law.com/are-non-competes-enforceable-in-california/ https://www.callahan-law.com/are-non-competes-enforceable-in... https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-reminds-employers-and-workers-noncompete-agreements-are https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont... What about the workers outside CA? Are you saying it would have been any different if they laid the worker off immediately and payed two months of severance vs. paying two months salary and then laying them off without severance? It's hard to see what the difference is other than semantics. What they promised was never 2 months notices and then two months severance. It's not magically 4 months. So seems mostly semantics at that point. If people that got laid off got 2 months salary, what's the beef about what it's called? Yes - it could have be done more compassionately. But I don't think there's a actionable lawsuit here.