A former Paramount Global employee who was laid off in the company’s round of cuts last week alleged in a lawsuit that he wasn’t provided legally required advance notice of the layoffs. Paramount said the “claims are not grounded in any fact.”
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The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks class-action status. It was filed on behalf of Julian Hagins, whose employment was terminated by Paramount on or about Sept. 24, and “seeks the relief sought herein on behalf of all others similarly situated,” according to the lawsuit. The suit names CBS Interactive as a defendant alongside Paramount Global. A copy of the lawsuit is available at this link .
Hagins and more than 300 other employees “who worked at and/or reported to” Paramount’s headquarters at 1515 Broadway in Manhattan were provided written notification on Sept. 24 of their termination effective Sept. 30, according to the lawsuit. That, the complaint alleged, is “far less than the 90 days’ advanced notice required” under New York’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) law. Per the lawsuit, Hagins worked remotely from his home in Orange, Calif., for Paramount on a full-time basis from approximately March 2022 until September 2024.
According to the lawsuit, the New York district court has jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s New York WARN claims because “more than 100 putative class members are affected by Defendants’ alleged violations” and more than $5 million is “in controversy.”
The lawsuit seeks a judgment forcing Paramount to provide Hagins and other laid-off employees 60 days’ worth of “unpaid wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, accrued vacation pay, pension, 401(k) and healthcare contributions and other benefits.” The New York WARN act states that if an employer does not provide employees at least 90 days advance notification of a mass layoff, the employer must provide affected employees with 60 calendar days of wages and benefits, per the lawsuit.
Paramount Global disputed the central allegation in the lawsuit. “These claims are not grounded in any fact. Paramount employees entitled to Federal or State WARN notice receive it,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Variety .
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According to the New York Department of Labor, the state’s WARN Act applies to private businesses with 50 or more full-time employees in New York State and defines “mass layoffs” as involving: 25 or more full-time employees (if the 25 or more employees make up at least 33% of all the employees at a given site) or at least 250 full-time employees.
Paramount on Sept. 24 announced the “phase two” of its layoffs in a companywide memo from its three co-CEOs. The round was part of the company’s targeted 15% reduction to its U.S. workforce, which is estimated to affect 2,000 employees .
The three co-CEOs currently leading Paramount — George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins — previously announced plans to cut $500 million in annualized costs , including through layoffs, before the deal with Skydance Media was clinched with controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and Paramount’s board.
The cost-cutting targets of the Skydance team have been even more aggressive. Jeff Shell, set to become president of the combined company, has said Skydance, working with consulting firm Bain & Co., is aiming to achieve at least $2 billion in annualized cost synergies at Paramount . Paramount has said the $2 billion number incorporates the company’s previously announced $500 million annual cost-cutting target.
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