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Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

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Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#381

Post by google234123 »

watwut wrote: post #173
xiphias2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While quality of life in Europe is still great, EU GDP share of the world going down is starting to effect European people more (especially now with the proxy war between US and Russia). I wish Europeans were a bit more business savy and corporate, and not see businesses as just bad things that are part of life, but of course when I’m in US I see the other extreme where businesses want to extract all value from me al…

Oh please. EU countries have more stakes in that conflict considering some of them would be next to be attacked if Russia won in Ukraine. The Russia is an actual threat for EU countries. Which is why the biggest hawks in that conflict are EU countries.

The biggest hawks are former soviet counties - the big EU countries to the West have not done their part. Germany has supported Russia for years.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#382

Post by Beltalowda »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #202
sebazzz wrote: post #36

I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws.

> I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws. This is the first time I've heard of any US company requiring an employee to keep a camera on themselves 9 hours per day. Obviously, that's not some standard US company practice. I wouldn't be surprised if these same practices would fail in a US court.

I recently did an interview with a German company, and they had the same requirement. They mentioned it early on, and it was probably the shortest interview I ever did.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#383

Post by nibbleshifter »

tharkun__ wrote: post #216
nibbleshifter wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also not legal in Germany, in fact, its pretty impossible to legally give a bad reference. HR departments have a workaround though - instead of a bad reference, they will simply confirm that yes, you worked there. Nothing else.

Are reference letters no longer done in Germany? When I was there that was how this was done. Basically you would always get a reference letter when ending employment. The reference letter's language always sounds good, as in not giving a bad reference. However, a reference letter that states things like "employee X delivered his tasks on time and to the satisfaction of work standards" basically means that he's a sla…

I never got a reference letter when leaving at any of my German employers, but when references were checked that's how it worked - the language would either be explicitly good, or "neutral good" meaning bad.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#384

Post by Beltalowda »

brightball wrote: post #150
sebazzz wrote: post #36

I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws.

You say that, but stories like this will just mean US companies hire fewer Dutch remotes. I’ve already seen it happen, after legal claims using “lines of code” to assert ownership of the code base.

My impression is that the Dutch labour laws are mostly designed for working-class employees, and they actually work fairly well for that, but once you move up in the pay range it starts breaking down. I've worked at several businesses that had expensive "unfirable" employees, and if people decide to be difficult they can draw out the firing process for years.

I've been let go earlier this year in spite of good performance reviews because they thought I'd probably do fine, but weren't 100% sure and they didn't want to take the financial risk of being "stuck" with me.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#385

Post by m000 »

unity1001 wrote: post #255
watwut wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. EU countries have more stakes in that conflict considering some of them would be next to be attacked if Russia won in Ukraine. The Russia is an actual threat for EU countries. Which is why the biggest hawks in that conflict are EU countries.

No they aren't. Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal are staying away from it as much as possible. Many central European countries, the same. This is an Anglosaxon + Germanic project, with the addition of Poland. Its their war. ... There can be no bigger enemy than the country that blew up European pipelines to sink European industry. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-09/european-...

I'm not sure how much of a Germany's war is this. From what I gather, if we had any kind of deal to stop the war tomorrow, they would be more than happy and eager to start discussing (energy) business again.

Also, Greece is not staying as away as you may think. First EU country to send military supplies to Ukraine. Supplies were complete junk btw, so you can even call it a lose-lose gesture. Worse, the only external country who has a PM stupid enough to say in an interview "we are at war with Russia" [1].

[1] https://www.tovima.gr/2022/09/22/international/mitsotakis-de...

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#386

Post by collegeburner »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #313
skeeter2020 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it removes some of the stigma Stigma around being on a corrective performance plan should be removed?

I guess it depends on whether your goal is to improve performance, or punish and humiliate people BTW: If anyone finds themselves on any sort of "performance improvement plan", do the BARE MINIMUM to not get fired outright. Ideally go to a therapist, talk about how stressed out you are and how fucked your situation is, and get an official FMLA (legally protected leave of absence). That'll give you some time to relax…

idk man seems plausible that the social pressure of not wanting to be the PIP bozo could be effective. also love how you assume that "anyone.. on any sort of performance improvement plan" is 100% not at fault, it must be the evil kkkapitalist boss "trolling" or "gaslighting". there are retards who don't do their jobs well and a PIP is sometimes trying to push them into doing better instead of firing.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#387

Post by jcadam »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #157
ineedasername wrote: post #80

he was ordered to take part in a virtual training period called a "Corrective Action Program." This is the sort of name given to processes uses when an employee is already performing below expectations. (Where I work it’s a more euphemistic Performance Improvement). If that’s the case here then his firing was a bit less sudden than it appears. Though the entire monitoring process seems draconian regardless.

Well, I worked on a company with a performance program (I can really remember the exact euphemism), in which all new employees were supposed to take part when joining, and then if marked as low performer go through it again, with a neat addition... random employees were also selected to go through it again just because.

> random employees were also selected to go through it again just because.

I can imagine being in the middle of a critical project, on a tight deadline, and getting the "You've been randomly selected to attend the performance program again." email.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#388

Post by m000 »

foepys wrote: post #196
whoooooo123 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war is "between" Russia and Ukraine but the US is funding and arming Ukraine because the US wants to hurt Russia. How is that not the dictionary definition of a "proxy war"? Swap the US and Russia and replace "Ukraine" with "North Vietnam" and you have a historical conflict which everyone agrees was a proxy war. How is this different?

Basically all of Europe is arming Ukraine because Europe knows that if Russia takes Ukraine, Russia will eventually want to annex all other ex-USSR states as well. If not more.

> Russia will eventually want to annex all other ex-USSR states as well

I don't know how people buy such uninformed BS. First, a lot of ex-USSR states are already NATO members. So, no game.

Further, USSR was a political construct. Their whole expansionism was based on that. Russia on the other hand is a nation state. They are not capable of annexing any region where there is no Russian-speaking + Russia-aligned population. Putin knows that very well.

As put by people who probably know better [1]:

  One obvious difference between the Soviet Union and Russia is that the Soviet governing elite embraced Marxism-Leninism and its objective of world revolution. Today's Russia is not a messianic power.
[1] https://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-not-soviet-union...

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#390

Post by jlawer »

gnicholas wrote: post #378
CameronNemo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way more expensive legal fees though, and a much slower "justice" system. In the Netherlands court, the legal fees were sub 1k, and the decision happened less than 2 months from the filing.

How can the legal fees be less than a thousand dollars? It would take at least a few hours to research the law and write a brief, let alone prepare for court and make an appearance. Even if a lawyer was paid only $150/hr, it seems hard to come in under $1k. Regardless, it would certainly be much more expensive in the US, where decent lawyers are hundreds or thousands an hour.

I assume he did it without a lawyer. I know in Australia we have forums where you can represent yourself in these low level workers rights cases.

He spent time himself researching the law and going through the process, but he can't claim for that

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