They Trained the Bots. Now the Bots Are Replacing Them.

On a warm spring afternoon, more than 150 contract workers marched from a modest office on a residential Dublin street to the gleaming headquarters of Meta. They carried drums and whistles. They chanted: "We trained the bots. We did the grind. Now we’re being left behind."

The date was May 29, 2026. The protesters, employed by outsourcing firm Covalen, were protesting mass layoffs. Their job? Content moderation and data labeling for the social media giant. They annotated data to train Meta’s AI. They reviewed material generated by those models. They crafted prompts to test safety systems. It was grueling work. One former employee described days spent "pretending to be suicidal or a pedophile" to improve the systems.

Now those same workers face the end of their roles by late June. Around 720 jobs tied to Meta projects are being cut. Many will receive nothing. Irish law requires two years of service for statutory redundancy payments. More than half the affected staff fall short of that threshold. The rest get the legal minimum. Union leaders call it crumbs.

The contrast with Meta’s own staff cuts is stark. In April, the company announced plans to shed about 8,000 roles globally. Full-time employees reportedly receive four months’ pay plus two weeks for every year served. Covalen workers get far less. And they aren’t even Meta employees. "These workers exist in a situation where they’re constantly using Meta tools," noted John Bohan, a union organizer. "But they’re denied all the privileges and benefits of Meta staff."

Meta says it is shifting strategy. The company told WIRED it would reduce reliance on third-party vendors and strengthen internal systems. A spokesperson emphasized that the protesters were not Meta employees and that staffing decisions belonged to Covalen.

Union demands go beyond pay. The Communications Workers’ Union wants recognition for collective bargaining. It seeks double the current severance offer. It also calls for an end to a six-month cooldown period that bars laid-off Covalen staff from taking jobs with other Meta contractors. One worker who emigrated from France for a data annotation role said the cooldown "is virtually forcing me to be unemployed for six months."

Covalen has moved some affected staff into other roles. Yet the bulk of the cuts remain. The firm’s headcount stands to drop by nearly half. In a statement, the company said it continues to consult proactively and follow legal processes. It declined invitations to meet at the Workplace Relations Commission, drawing sharp criticism.

Legal experts agree the deck is stacked. Michael Doherty, a labor law professor at Maynooth University, described Irish rules as leaving employers with wide latitude. "The big weakness in Ireland is this utter inability even to get the employer to sit down. It’s pretty much open season."

Workers who still have jobs joined the pickets in solidarity. Owen O’Reilly, a content moderator whose position is safe for now, called the situation infuriating. "It makes us feel as if we really have no worth."

This episode reveals tensions at the heart of the AI transition. Companies celebrate efficiency gains and record profits. Meanwhile the humans who trained the systems, scrubbed toxic material from feeds, and endured psychological strain find themselves expendable. Their replacements are the very models they helped build.

The chants echoed through Dublin streets: "We scrub the feed. We take the pain. Meta profits from our strain." The message was clear. Contractors who powered Meta’s AI ambitions refuse to disappear quietly. The grind that built today’s models may be ending. The fight over what comes next has only begun.