Extrajudicial negotiations between content moderators, Meta and Sama; The former content review partner of the social giant in Africa, due to a labor dispute before a Kenyan court, has collapsed.
This emerged today when the court was informed of the outcome of the mediation, after it allowed the parties to reach an out-of-court settlement in August. The suit will now move to Kenya’s employment and industrial relations tribunal.
More than 180 moderators have sued Sama and Meta for illegal dismissal. The moderators claim that Meta and Sama did not issue them layoff notices under Kenyan law, and that their terminal expenses were dependent on them signing confidentiality agreements. They are also suing Majorel, Meta’s other content moderation partner in Africa, for alleged discrimination. Moderators claim that Majorel blacklisted former Sama employees.
Meta declined to comment.
The lawyer representing the moderators told the court that the mediation was unsuccessful because “they felt there was no genuine effort on the part of the defendants (Meta, Sama and Majorel) to reach an out-of-court settlement.”
The moderators ask for compensation for the “damage caused” and for Sama to revoke the dismissal notice. They demand that Meta establish a mental health support system similar to that provided to employees in its centers worldwide. They also wanted Meta, Sama and Majorel to be forced to recognize their right to unionize. Their demands were likely not met, causing the talks to collapse.
Sama has maintained in the past that it complied with Kenyan labor laws in carrying out the layoffs. Meta has argued in previous proceedings that it was not the moderators’ employer, to which a Kenyan judge disagreed, saying the moderators did Meta’s job, used his technology and adhered to its performance metrics. and precision.
Sama laid off 260 content moderators at its center in Kenya after the venture capital-backed company closed its content moderation division to focus on tagging (computer vision data annotation) work.
Meta and Sama have also been sued by Daniel Motaung, a South African, for labor and human trafficking, unfair labor relations, union busting and failing to provide “adequate” psychosocial and mental health support. Motaung alleges that he was fired for organizing a strike in 2019 and trying to unionize Sama employees.
Ethiopians also sued Meta in Kenya for failing to employ adequate security measures on Facebook, which, in turn, fueled the deadly Tigray war that left more than 500,000 dead.
