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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

#391

Post by ivan_gammel »

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 would call any legal system making it practically impossible to sue without a lawyer a failure. But even if using professional help is recommended, it doesn’t have to be expensive - you can use legal insurance to cover majority of the costs.

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

#392

Post by gnicholas »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #391
gnicholas wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would call any legal system making it practically impossible to sue without a lawyer a failure. But even if using professional help is recommended, it doesn’t have to be expensive - you can use legal insurance to cover majority of the costs.

How does legal insurance work? The only time I ever heard of it I was pitched what sounded like an MLM. Is there another kind out there?

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

#393

Post by stingraycharles »

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.

We have “juridisch loket” over here in .NL which is advices people on legal matters for free. Especially common for housing and/or employment issues, but they deal with anything.

It’s not unlikely the employee from the article used their services, even if just initially.

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

#394

Post by PebblesRox »

galangalalgol wrote: post #235
O__________O wrote: post #174

From Glassdoor for related employer: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Chetu-Reviews-E231082.htm >> Review: “You'll discover during training week that the the company will watch over you all day, even long tenured employees are watched via their WebCam.” >> “Glassdoor Alert: Attempt to Inflate Reviews — We have evidence that someone has taken steps to artificially inflate the rating for this employer with positive re…

Between this, and them shuttering any official EU accounts or presence after the award, I really foubt they will pay the award, and it seems unlikely they were contributing or collecting any taxes related to the employment.

I thought they closed up their Dutch branch after the firing, not after the court case:

"Less than a week after the plaintiff was fired, the Rijswijk branch of Chetu Inc. was deregistered from the Chamber of Commerce and shut down on 2 September, records show."

Seems fishy, but could an innocent explanation be that he was their only Dutch employee?

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

#395

Post by Roark66 »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #186
phpisthebest wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, in most states in the US it would be illegal for an employer to reveal to another employer that the employee was on a PiP, I am surprised that is allowed in the EU with all the privacy laws. The US has lots of anti-black listing laws in almost every state that would make something like that very very illegal

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.

Having worked in UK for over a decade with various employers I never got an actual reference letter other than a confirmation of employment. Nor I have ever been asked for one when being hired. In fact if I remember correctly it might have been stated in some company documents that "they don't give references" and that "they'll confirm the job start and end date, the employee's job title and number of sick days taken and nothing else(that's required by the law if I remember correctly)". Although I had managers privately tell me of their willingness "to talk to" anyone I might need to give a reference to in private.

I never knew in Germany one is expected to obtain actual proper reference letters from past employers. Good to know just in case.

Long time ago (15+ years ago) I had worked in Poland. Back then I did get a written reference from the company I worked for. I can't say if those letters are required these days in PL.

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

#396

Post by testfoobar »

geek_at wrote: post #78
sebazzz wrote: post #36

I love it when US companies meet Dutch labor laws.

European in general. My wife works for a biotech company in Austria which was recently aquired by an american company and it's so funny to hear about their efforts to adapt to EU law and culture. Most of their training material is still unchanged from their US branch so there are things they list as benefits for all employees like - 3 Weeks paid vacation (we get 5 by law) - Health insurance (you know the drill) - 3 w…

In contrast, the extra capital buffer required to maintain such benefits directly reduces the amount of risk a startup business can take. Starting a risky venture in the EU vs the US seems like starting with an immediate financial drag. Stability for workers is achieved in part by forcing companies to lower the risk they can take.

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

#397

Post by s1artibartfast »

anigbrowl wrote: post #380
s1artibartfast wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Juppor is talking about suing in Florida courts. Florida is absolutely at will. He may be able to sue to collect a foreign court judgement instead, but it is notoriously difficult to collect judgments, even us Court judgments, if the other party stonewalls you

That's not how choice of law works. If you are operating a business in jurisdiction A and open a branch in jurisdiction B, you have a nexus to jurisdiction B and can't say your branch exists under the legal umbrella of jurisdiction A. Of course, you can assert that your customer and employment contracts are under the law of jurisdiction A, but such assertions don't magically trump statutory law. Contractual provision…

He already sued and won in jurisdiction B. The money is in jurisdiction A. No banks and police in jurisdiction A will honor a legal document from jurisdiction B. This leaves you to the situation described above.

The best option is to take the decision from jurisdiction B into a new court proceeding and jurisdiction A and ask them to honor it with a local court order in A.

They may or they may not.

Even within the United States you might have a court order in one state or payment, and another state that refuses to enforce it within their jurisdiction.

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

#398

Post by astrange »

bernulli wrote: post #335
yibg wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases it’s probably legitimately “unfair”. Me for example am probably at the more unfair end. I - have high income so pay a large % into taxes - not a citizen so don’t enjoy some of the benefits of military protection - wasn’t raised here so didn’t use any of the earlier year services - likely won’t retire here so won’t use those either Most of my tax dollars goes to fund others in the country. But as a socie…

But you still benefit even from the mere _existence_ of human beings younger than you are (e.g. service, manufacturing, research, medical, etc.). If you think you don't, think about the fraction of people you will interact with in 20 or 40 years that are younger than you will be, or about the innovations you will be using in 20 or 40 years that were developed by people younger than you. Those human beings have to com…

The European countries with these benefits don't have higher birth rates, so it doesn't seem like it's actually producing more younger people.

Instead, it's African countries and then ones with more practicing religious people who do.

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

#399

Post by astrange »

jen20 wrote: post #352
bernulli wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a tragedy of the commons with a changing demographic, where DINK are more prevalent that, say, 50 years ago, where most tried to contribute to raising the next generation. But the amount of entitlement still baffles me - where do these people think everyone younger than them comes from? How much time and money do they think it costs to train a human being to be a member of society, of benefit to them!, a…

> DINK are more prevalent that, say, 50 years ago A good standard of living was possible with a single income 50 years ago (just). It's barely possible today with two average incomes in much of the US.

A standard of living in 2022 wasn't achievable at any cost 50 years ago; the reason both people want to work in a modern family is that it gets you more money and they want to spend more.

You'd only want to not work if your job couldn't effectively contribute to the household (you're already rich or your spouse is a super high earner) or else you can't pay for the childcare work you're no longer doing (you're poor). Both of you working is a sign of being middle class.

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

#400

Post by withinboredom »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #314
simonh wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software companies still need to sell stuff much of which can be remote, it looks like this local branch was a sales operation to the Dutch market.

I don't know if you're from the US or not, but in the US the term telemarketer usually refers to someone that makes cold calls to private residences. It is usually low paid work and usually outsourced to countries with cheap labor.

Dude was getting paid 70k in the Netherlands. That’s a pretty big chunk of change. Not “low paid” work at all…
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