Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson, posted an announcement on the company’s website of plans to cut 11% — roughly 800 to 900 employees — of its workforce. But in delivering the bad news to its staff, the company used language that suggested to some that the decision was based on race.
From the announcement on Twilio’s blog:
“… so we were particularly focused on ensuring our layoffs – while a business necessity today – were carried out through an Anti-Racist/Anti-Oppression lens,” Lawson wrote.
This comes after the New York Post reported that the Minneapolis Teachers Union planned to fire white people ahead of people of color.
From the New York Post:
Minneapolis public school teachers of color will have additional job protections this upcoming school year under a new contract that would allow them to keep their jobs rather than white instructors with more seniority.
The labor agreement’s intent was to protect “underrepresented populations” and keep the district’s predominantly white staff from becoming more homogenous, a report said Monday.
About 60% of Minneapolis students are non-white compared to 16% of the district’s tenured teachers and 27% of its probationary teachers, according to a June Minneapolis Star Tribune report.
The agreement states that teachers of color “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order,” according to Minnesota outlet Alpha News, which published language from the contract Sunday.
Read the full report here.
