The friday 5: viral firing, AI layoffs, legal reckoning

Happy Friday, HR friends! 🙌

This week's edition comes with a lesson no policy manual covers: the "off-the-clock" era is officially over.

A JPMorgan executive director with a career built on inclusion, storytelling, and community engagement became the latest cautionary tale. If your organization's code of conduct still doesn't address public behavior and social media, it’s a good time to fix that.

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IN TODAY’S EDITION

• 🏀 The Knicks parade just ended a JPMorgan executive's career 

• 🕐 California starts the WARN Act AI countdown

• 🤖 GM laid off 1,000 workers, then installed 50 cobots

• ⚖️ The Workday hiring bias case just got a lot harder to ignore

• 📉 Oracle's workforce is down 21,000, and AI gets the credit. Again.

THE FRIDAY 5

🕵️ The internet is always watching

🏀 A JPMorgan executive director walked off the Knicks parade with a city trash can and walked right out of her career.

Angie Báez, executive director of community and industry engagement at JPMorgan Chase, went viral after a TikTok video caught her at the New York Knicks NBA Finals celebration, carrying away a team-branded city garbage can. JPMorgan confirmed her departure within days.

This story is the latest in a growing pattern, from the Astronomer CEO Coldplay Jumbotron moment to a Polish manufacturing CEO snatching a signed hat from a child at the US Open, that confirms public behavior is now a workplace issue whether HR codifies it or not.

🔗 Read more — Inc.

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🕐 California just started a countdown that could rewrite how every employer in the state handles AI-driven layoffs.

Governor Newsom signed an executive order directing multiple state agencies to study AI's impact on the labor market, giving the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency 180 days to recommend changes to the state's WARN Act.

Separately, Senate Bill 951 would amend Cal-WARN to require 90 days' notice for AI-driven layoffs (30 more than standard), lower the trigger threshold to just 25 workers, and give affected employees the right to bid on open roles.

Employment attorneys are advising HR leaders to audit AI use in employment decisions and review WARN readiness now, before California's recommendations take shape.

🔗 Read more — HR Executive

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🤖 GM cut 1,000 workers at its Factory Zero plant, then installed 50 new cobots in their place.

General Motors laid off over 1,000 workers at its Michigan flagship plant, and UAW Local 22 President James Cotton got a firsthand look at what came next: roughly 50 new Fanuc collaborative robots installed to assist with unit assembly.

GM framed the cobots as a safety and ergonomics improvement; the union framed them as job elimination by another name.

🔗 Read more — The HR Digest

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⚖️ A federal judge just told Workday that being the vendor does not get you off the hook for your AI's hiring decisions.

A California federal judge again refused to dismiss most claims in Mobley v. Workday, allowing key allegations under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act to proceed.

The suit alleges that Workday's AI-powered screening tools filtered out candidates in ways that correlate with race, age, and disability, and the court's ruling suggests that vendors can face direct liability for the outcomes their systems produce.

🔗 Read more — HR Executive

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📉 Oracle shed 21,000 workers in a single year and put AI adoption in the fine print.

Oracle's regulatory filing revealed its headcount dropped from 162,000 to 141,000 full-time employees, a nearly 13% reduction, tied to a restructuring plan that cost $1.8 billion in severance and exit costs.

The company cited "adoption and integration of AI technologies across certain functions" as a factor and noted that future cuts are likely as AI deployment continues. Oracle also acknowledged the risks on the other side: shortages of AI-skilled talent, damage to morale, and difficulty retaining institutional knowledge.

🔗 Read more — Human Resources Director

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That’s it for today!

Thanks for reading to the end and we hope today’s edition helped saved you a few hours in scouring the web for the latest news! 🧠

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Have a great weekend!