More than 150 contract workers staged a protest and march outside Meta’s European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday, May 29, 2026, demanding better severance pay ahead of planned layoffs.
The workers are employed by Dublin-based firm Covalen, which provides content moderation and data labeling services used to fine-tune Meta’s AI products. In April, Covalen notified 700 employees that their jobs were at risk, citing “reduced demand.” Workers voted to strike and marched from Covalen’s corporate office to Meta’s nearby campus, where security guards stood at the gates as protesters chanted: “We scrub the feed. We take the pain. Meta profits from our strain.”
At the center of the dispute is a severance package that workers and their union say falls short. Employees with less than two years of service would receive nothing under the current plan, while longer-tenured workers are being offered the legal minimum — two weeks’ pay per year of employment — according to the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU). Workers are asking for double that amount, plus at least some payment for those below the two-year threshold.
“We’re just getting the crumbs here,” said Aadel Obaid, a Covalen team manager facing layoff. “Give us a little bit of the pie.”
CWU organizer John Bohan said Meta, as Covalen’s anchor client, has the leverage to pressure the firm into improving its offer. Workers are also asking Meta to lift a six-month “cooldown period” that bars laid-off Covalen employees from working on another Meta account — a restriction Meta has previously described as an industry standard.
The dispute highlights the gap in treatment between contractors and direct employees, with workers arguing they performed essential work training AI systems while standing to receive far less protection than Meta’s full-time staff.
Source: WIRED