We trained the bots. We did the grind. Now we’re being left behind,” chanted a horde of contract workers outside Meta’s offices in Dublin, Ireland, on Friday afternoon. Waving flags and brandishing signs, these employees were out to protest a round of planned layoffs.

The workers are employed by Dublin-based company Covalen, which handles content moderation and data labeling services for Meta. In April, Covalen told 700 employees that their jobs were at risk, citing “reduced demand.”

With little to no severance packages offered—two weeks’ pay for every year of employment—the workers are asking for double what’s currently being offered—and at least some form of payment for workers who don’t meet the two-year threshold. The company could also release Covalen workers from a “cooldown period” preventing them from working on another Meta account for six months after being laid off.

The latest round of layoffs marks the second time that Covalen has cut staff since November, with the majority of the workers caught up in this latest round being data annotators. Their job involves checking material generated by Meta’s AI models for illicit content and cooking up prompts meant to bypass safety guardrails. “It’s quite a grueling job,” said one affected employee.

Metas own employees are reportedly in line to receive four months’ pay, plus two weeks for every year of employment, while Covalen staffers are set to receive far less. “These workers exist in a situation where they're constantly using Meta tools, they're on Meta platforms, but they're denied all the privileges and benefits of Meta staff,” said one union organizer.