The company fired a remote worker for not wanting to turn on the camera for the whole day – now it will pay him $ 20,000 and $ 50,000 fine.
Florida-headquartered software company Chetu has to pay a remote worker from the Netherlands thousands of dollars after he was fired for refusing to keep his webcam on all day. The Dutch court, which ruled in favor of the employee, believes that this kind of surveillance violates human rights.
Chetu said the employee had to visit a “virtual office,” which included turning on a webcam and remote screen tracking for the entire day. The plaintiff stated that the surveillance was conducted “for 9 hours a day”, felt like an invasion of his privacy and made him feel uncomfortable, so he refused to turn on the camera.
The company immediately fired the employee for his “refusal to work” and “disobedience.” He sued the company in a Dutch court for unfair dismissal and won the case. “Tracking with a camera for eight hours a day is disproportionate and not permitted in the Netherlands,” the court said in its verdict.
The court considered that the case concerned human rights and quoted the “Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”: “Video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, hidden or not, should be considered as a significant invasion of the employee’s privacy.”
Most likely, Chetu would have been able to avoid any consequences of the layoff if the employee lived in Florida, where employers can lay off workers for any reason.
The firm was ordered to pay the employee $ 2600 unpaid salary, $ 92
5 in assistance to the employee in moving to a new place and $ 8150 for improper termination of the contract. She must also pay a $50,000 fine and remove the employee’s non-compete clause.
Chetu did not respond to the case. Instead, it liquidated its Dutch subsidiary and was removed from the country’s commercial register as of September 1, 2022.