I am a 15-year brand strategist and recruitment marketing professional who has spent almost a decade building the very brands that are now discarding workers in the dark of night.

I know how these decisions are made because I have lived them.

I was part of a small, 200-person company where my role was erased on a random Monday in November 2024. I wasn't laid off because the company was failing or I was underperforming; I was laid off so my salary could be used to inflate revenue percentages and trigger bonuses after years of stagnation. My livelihood was treated as a liquid asset to be traded for a higher profit margin.

And I was thrown into 16 months of unemployment as a single parent. I shouldered the mental, financial, and emotional toll of going from an expert responsible for company growth and industry accolades, to a line item that needed to be erased in order to raise revenue a percentage point. 

While my story didn't make the news, the Oracle "Stargate" layoffs did. 30,000 individuals were erased via 6:00am automated emails. Despite reporting $12.4B in net profit, Oracle utilized a 1988 legal loophole to bypass the WARN Act; using "garden leave" and claiming remote workers don't count as a site of employment. This allowed them to destabilize 30,000 lives without notice to fund AI infrastructure and shareholder dividends, and bring in a new CFO with a $26M stock share.

We are calling on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to end the era of "Humanity Extraction" by modernizing federal labor law through these three actions:

1. The Economic Necessity Standard (Prevention)
Inspired by successful models in France and the Netherlands, we demand a Just-Cause Standard for mass layoffs. If a company reports a net profit margin over 10%, a mass layoff should be prohibited unless the employer can prove to the Department of Labor that the cuts are strictly necessary for business survival, not just for shareholder leverage, leadership bonuses, or AI funding. Furthermore, profitable companies must demonstrate a "Retraining First" initiative, offering internal reskilling programs for emerging roles before any external hiring or mass terminations are authorized.

2. Close the Remote Site Loophole (Protection)
Redefine the "site of employment" for all remote and hybrid workers as the corporate headquarters. No mass layoff should be invisible to federal law just because it happens in a home office. Every worker deserves the dignity of a 60-day transparency window.

3. The 50-Employee Threshold (Parity)
Expand federal labor protections to apply to any company with 50 or more employees, matching the FMLA standard. Whether you work for a 200-person firm or a global giant, your livelihood should not be disposable.

We are living in the greatest country in the world, yet we have created a destabilized society and economy where worker livelihood is sacrificed for shareholder leverage. We cannot continue to prioritize the personal pockets of a select few at the top while the base of the American workforce is intentionally crushed. We need a system that recognizes human labor as an investment to be protected, not a cost to be extracted.

And for everyone who signs:

If you've been through a layoff, if you're navigating this current job market and instability, please share your story here. Our power is in numbers, and our stories are what will highlight why a new social contract is so necessary.