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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

#401

Post by astrange »

badpun wrote: post #242
phpisthebest wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I would prefer they send me a bill directly for fire services monthly, like water instead of having it obfuscated in general taxation. I prefer user fees not taxation. as for schools, to the extent I support their funding (which is more limited than I suspect you do) it is generally ethically justified because I too attended schools paid for by taxation, so in that manner I paying off a debt vs paying for others…

> for fire services monthly, like water instead of having it obfuscated in general taxation. I prefer user fees not taxation. That would have to be mandatory service though (remember, firemen can perform inspections, fine people etc. - they're not there just for fighting fires), at which point it's just simpler to pay for that through taxes.

Firemen mostly don't fight fires. We've decided to send them out on every ambulance call just in case, so they do have a lot of work, but it's not clear if they're adding anything or if it's busywork.

(Which isn’t to say we should make them work less, but we should get them smaller trucks like other countries have.)

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

#402

Post by astrange »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #267
phpisthebest wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> which requires politicians to step in Ironically politicians "stepping in" is the biggest reason cost of living is going up. Regulations preventing new housing, limiting new housing, etc. Monetary policies and massive debt fueled spending spree's causing massive inflation, draconian lock downs disrupting supply chains, irresponsible "climate" policies preventing farmers from growing food affordably, the 100's of o…

Bad regulations by a slow, bureaucratic government do that, yes. Meanwhile, the free market people always claim will solve everything? That same free market "solved" mobility by pushing car usage through the roof, resulting in extremely inefficient space usage now that population demands are changing. Neither bad regulations nor the free market are going to solve a lack of foresight. Worse, those regulations are larg…

The high car usage isn't "the free market"; nothing in the US has anything to do with a free market, and land use even less. It's all zoning regulations and federal highway funds all the time, and in general it's all a mixed economy. Free markets are a made up concept so people can have internet arguments about them and do not exist in real life.

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

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

#403

Post by astrange »

phpisthebest wrote: post #275
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad regulations by a slow, bureaucratic government do that, yes. Meanwhile, the free market people always claim will solve everything? That same free market "solved" mobility by pushing car usage through the roof, resulting in extremely inefficient space usage now that population demands are changing. Neither bad regulations nor the free market are going to solve a lack of foresight. Worse, those regulations are larg…

The problem here is what you identify as problems the market (thus people) do not agree are problems For example you decry the " inefficient space usage " of modern housing, and suburbs, however many people clearly prefer to have single family structures on plots of land over living in densely populated area's I am one of those people, I would never choose to voluntary live in a dense city like NYC or even LA I can t…

You're being intruded on by your neighbors more than you would be in a city. Suburbs are full of cars and noise pollution; the inability to safely play in the road and having to listen to other peoples' cars and gas powered leafblowers is much worse than sharing a wall with someone.

Of course, the kinds of apartment buildings allowed in the US aren't that good either, since few cities allow single-stair buildings like Europe does.

Sprawl is a government invention, as is suburbia. Residential zoning isn't a natural concept and didn't exist before post-WW2.

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

#404

Post by s1artibartfast »

withinboredom wrote: post #400
s1artibartfast wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's my exact point, it is unlikely that he was actually a telemarketer and the article is probably wrong.

Reread my posts

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

#405

Post by alexriddle »

gnicholas wrote: post #392
ivan_gammel wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In the UK legal insurance is often bundled with home insurance for a small fee (~£8 a month for me). This covers the cost of legal advice across a broad range of categories (employment, housing, consumer protection, personal injury are all usually included) and if a case is likely to succeed (more than 50% prospects of success as judged by the law firm) then they will cover all the costs up to a certain limit which is usually enough for most cases (say £50,000 or so).

It's not perfect but reasonably strong regulation of consumer insurance means that if you have problems with e.g the decision made, there is an independent organisation who can review the case for you.

You usually have to use a law firm which has an arrangement with the insurer, or one who will accept the lower rates the insurers have negotiated but again if you feel there is an issue with the quality on offer you can make a complaint.

I presume something similar is offered in NL.

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

#406

Post by astrange »

mjan22640 wrote: post #236
hallway_monitor wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, shouldn't we just make everything free for everyone? Housing costs are outrageous. It would be great if houses were free. And food too. And cars and clothing. I guess the only problem is then everyone's wage would have to be $0 as well.

The automation is going to bring that relatively soon.

Automation doesn't change anything fundamental in the economy, and could only make things free if it was a perpetual motion machine.

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

#407

Post by celdon25 »

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…

The type of place that you are most likely to need one of those will try to keep their official FTE headcount just below the minimum of 15 and use offshore contractors for the rest, or other loopholes such as shell companies, because there are so many labor laws (including FMLA) that don’t kick in until 15 employees.

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

#408

Post by Roark66 »

warent wrote: post #208
Symbiote wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries go further, but the EU does require a minimum. - 4 weeks paid holiday - 4 months unpaid parental leave, 14 weeks paid for the mother https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_labour_law is the best overview I can find.

For what it's worth I'm pretty sure there are systems in place in these countries which actually make it possible. right? Like, there are insurances and government assistance programs that businesses use to pay for things like parental leave. US businesses get no such help. So what is often attributed to US business greed is actually political greed, while businesses are just casualties.

>For what it's worth I'm pretty sure there are systems in place in these countries which actually make it possible. right?

>Like, there are insurances and government assistance programs that businesses use to pay for things like parental leave.

>US businesses get no such help. So what is often attributed to US business greed is actually political greed, while businesses are just casualties.

It really depends what are we talking about. In case of paid holiday leave (for example in Poland) everyone in normal employment gets at least 2 uninterrupted weeks by law. However even in my very first job many years ago I got 4 weeks total paid leave. All the pay gets paid by the employer.

However, there are things like maternity leave that can take a year. It is unreasonable to expect an employer (perhaps a small business) to pay an employee for a year of maternity leave. So during this time one is entitled to 80% of their pay, but it is paid not by the employer, but the national insurance. The actual amount taken by people varies. It can be split between parents, voluntary given up etc.

Then there is sick leave. If I remember correctly the usual thing was for the employer to pay for few initial days, the rest was paid for by the local equivalent of national insurance.

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

#409

Post by astrange »

phpisthebest wrote: post #155
trevvr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a hot take my friend? Do you pay your taxes? Sales taxes? Does the company you work for pay their taxes? Do you intend on retiring with a pension at some point? Rising tides and boats comes to mind.

Well now we are going to get into more unpopular hot takes, because IMO income based taxation is theft.... I do not plain on retiring, and if I did I do not expect government social security (I am in the US) will be there to fund it so I do have a private retirement account that currently the US Monetary policy and government regulations/spending is doing its level best to destroy

> Well now we are going to get into more unpopular hot takes, because IMO income based taxation is theft....

Most of the other replies to this point are not really that helpful. The actual economic point is that since income taxes apply to /everyone/, they do not make you in particular less rich, because your relative amount of money is maintained. In fact, they're one of the main things making the currency valuable by providing demand for it, so you could say they're what make you rich.

VATs are more effective taxes at collecting revenue though, which is why most European countries use them, but only land value taxes avoid deadweight loss. Thanks Henry George.

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

#410

Post by astrange »

unity1001 wrote: post #254
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…

> I wish Europeans were a bit more business savy and corporate Seeing how well that worked for the US, no thanks. The only reason European GDP is going down is because of 10-year-long trade war that was started circa 2005 by the US. It started with tariffs back then, moved onto trying to push NAFTA-like 'trade deals' via TTIP etc, and when all failed, they just blew the pipeline. Judging from what was done to Japan w…

The Japanese economy is healthy relative to the rest of the world but it's true that Japanese people are too poor and are not getting better fast enough. But this is mostly because "sacrificing and hardworking" was a dumb thing to set up the country to be. They were worried about people having too much free time so set up a super unproductive structure where every man was in the office 12 hours a day, gets micromanaged, and barely does any real work.

Of course, that's an old picture of the country; ~10 years ago when everyone though of Tokyo as a place where kids hung out on the street in cool fashion all day, that's because those kids were unemployed because they weren't willing to become salarymen. And there has been real reform towards productivity since then.

Also, Japan’s Phillips Curve looks like Japan.

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/japan.pdf

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