Meta initiates mediation with 184 workers who denounced illegal dismissals in Kenya

A group of 184 content moderators for Africa who denounced last March for alleged illegal dismissals in Kenya to Goalparent company of the social network Facebookagreed with the company to start a mediation process that started on Wednesday.

“The parties should seek an out-of-court resolution of this petition through mediation,” indicates a consent document signed by the parties and sent this Thursday to EFE.

“Only the parties to the lawsuit, their appointed attorneys, and the mediators will participate in the mediation process.”adds the text, naming two facilitators, including Willy Mutunga, former president of the Kenyan Judiciary (2011-2016).

Agreement

The agreement establishes a limit of 21 days to carry out the process from its beginning on Wednesday and indicates that, “If the parties fail to reach an amicable agreement within the established period, the matter will proceed.” before justice.

This new path was opened after the court ordered last June to Goal and to the Kenyan outsourced company Samasource Kenya EPZ to maintain the contracts and salaries of the 184 claimants pending determination of whether their dismissals were illegal.

Then, Judge Byram Ongaya, of the Milimani Commercial Court (Nairobi), not only ordered the extension of the contracts of the workers who denounced Meta and two other subcontracting companies, but also concluded that Meta was their “main” employer. and primary”, something that the company denies.

In addition, according to Ongaya, “it cannot be said that the work carried out by the complainants has become superfluous or has disappeared,” so the reason given for their dismissal “is not valid.”

This is not the only dispute that Meta is facing on the African continent: on December 14, three litigants filed a lawsuit in Nairobi worth nearly 2 billion euros against the company in relation to Facebook’s role in the spread of violence and hate speech in Africa.

Among the plaintiffs is Abraham Meareg, an Ethiopian academic whose father, a chemistry professor from the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia), was the victim of a racist attack on Facebook and later murdered, in November 2021.

Likewise, both Meta and Sama are at the center of another complaint in which a former South African content moderator who worked in Kenya, Daniel Motaung, accuses them of exploitation and poor working conditions.

According to Motaung, Facebook’s content moderators not only worked for very low wages and were not allowed to unionize, but were forced to monitor for hours on end “appalling content, including beheadings, torture, and rape,” leading many to contract post-traumatic stress disorder.

(Source EFE)