Source: Twitter

On Thursday, former International Business Times Media employees took to Twitter to protest what they believe to be meager severance packages (among other deplorable company practices) with the hashtag #IBTWTF.

On June 30, nearly 50 IBT Media employees, including reporters, editors, and analysts, were laid off in the company’s second and largest round of job cuts this year (15 employees were previously laid off in March).

IBT Media reportedly offered its former employees one week’s pay for each year they’d worked at the company. Employees who had worked at the company for less than one year, however, received nothing.

Not only was the severance package underwhelming and unbefitting, but it wasn’t even an option until employees confronted management en masse about their employers’ silence on the matter. Former IBT financial reporter Owen Davis, who was laid off in June, told me, “We didn’t get a written severance agreement until July 13th, we had to write a group email to get them to respond. Usually you get that on the way out the door.”

Since the layoffs took place on the last day of the month, the fired employees’ health care plans also just so happened to expire at the end of the day, timing that Davis says he can’t be sure was intentional. IBT has also said it will not be compensating its former employees for paid time off, according to Davis.

Davis said that some former IBT employees, sent a letter to management a week ago asking for two weeks of severance pay for every year they’d been employed and one week’s pay for those who had worked less than a year, in addition to compensation for accrued time off. Thirty-two people signed the letter, according to Davis.

On Wednesday, the Columbia Journalism Review reported, IBT Media rejected that request.

Davis said that some international and contract employees who were also laid off in this latest round of cuts have yet to be paid for the work they did for IBT in June.

Davis claims that management’s unwillingness to be forthcoming with IBT Media employees is nothing new. “There’s been a long-standing pattern of imperfect communication between management and editorial staff and employees,” Davis said, adding that the layoffs, “were done in a way that was a big shock to a lot of us.”

Davis pointed out on Twitter that IBT Media, despite supposedly not being able to offer an acceptable severance package to its employees, has donated more than a million dollars to Olivet University, a private Christian institution founded by the Korean pastor David Jang, in 2014.

A couple of major investigations over the past few years—including one by Mother Jones and another by the Christian Post—have revealed deep financial ties between IBT Media and Jang.

According to the 2014 Mother Jones investigation:

“Jang sees Community-affiliated media organizations, including IBT, as an essential part of his mission to build the kingdom of God on Earth. He has said that media companies affiliated with the Community are part of a new Noah’s ark designed to save the world from a biblical flood of information.”

IBT officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.