Subjecting Workers To Webcam Monitoring Violates Privacy, Dutch Court Rules (theverge.com) 47
A Florida-headquartered company has been ordered to pay about $73,000 in compensation and other fees after firing a Netherlands-based remote worker who refused to keep their webcam on all day, NL Times reports. The Verge: The company, Chetu, said the unnamed employee was required to attend a virtual classroom with their webcam turned on for the entire day and their screen remotely monitored. But when the employee refused, saying that leaving their webcam on for "9 hours a day" made them feel uncomfortable and was an invasion of their privacy, the company dismissed them, citing âoerefusal to workâ and "insubordination."
Good! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That stupid webcam was making it very awkward for me to have a wank on company time!
In 'Murica I think that's called "taking a Toobin after the CNN dude that was caught on camera "pulling at his pud".
Re: Good! (Score:2)
Re: Good! (Score:2)
Just make it awkward for your company viewing you.
Play music in a speaker close to the microphone - like Rammstein, punk rock and Rebecca Black Friday.
Occasional erotic sounds is also awkward, and when they complain then you just state that it's the neighbors at it again.
Sounds from various ham radio digital modes can be fun too. "No, I don't hear anything, it must be some interference"
Camera randomly falling off from the monitor and viewing other stuff 'by accident'.
Re: (Score:2)
They are monitoring many employees, so the audio is almost certainly muted.
No shit. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
A company that mistakes control for accountability is a company not long for this world.
A $73K slap on the wrist is laughable. Something like this, will not end them.
Hell, this kind of "busted" treatment makes corporate over-policing of the employee slave force worth it every fucking time, especially after they sell off the whole 40-pound "WFH activities" data turkey carved up into little juicy statistical slices, and just in time for a Thanksgiving marketing special.
And their stupidity should just be prevented in the first place rather than letting it cost their employees.
If you wanted to prevent it in the first place, you would have voted for better lawmakers. This kind of abuse requires not fin
Re: (Score:1)
I think what is meant here (or at least, this is also my opinion): a company that doesn't trust its workers and wants to treat them like this will get no commitment from their staff, and they will lack any motivation to make this business a success. After all: it's the people that make the business, that talk to your customers, etc.
Aside from that, it should be illegal in the US as well.
Re: (Score:2)
I think what is meant here (or at least, this is also my opinion): a company that doesn't trust its workers and wants to treat them like this will get no commitment from their staff...
Huh. I wonder what should be said of Governments that do the same damn thing to citizens. Also known as voters. Do voters still blindly trust those promising everything and delivering nothing? There's your answer, as if US corporations would act any differently. Especially those who are now Too Big To Fail.
...and they will lack any motivation to make this business a success. After all: it's the people that make the business, that talk to your customers, etc.
It's products and profit that actually MAKE a business. Sometimes it's not even profit. Just hype, sold with clicks and likes. People are fucking expendable.
Let me say that again for the autonom
Re: (Score:2)
That is not how it works in the Netherlands. If you get a fine from a court, that does not mean you can continue the behavior. Having been previously fined for the same offense will mean you will get a much bigger fine. IBM found this out the hard way in the Netherlands with a penalty payment increased x100 after they just payed off the first one.
Damn EU (Score:3)
This is just another example of EU trampling on American companies because they are jealous of toxic corporations screwing their workers! Forwardslash-s
Re: (Score:1)
You are correct to observe that the EU is hostile to American companies. But a spittle-flecked reduction to absurdity isn't the right way to deal with it.
Did you know that one of the reasons we still have troops in Europe isn't to defend them (at our tremendous expense and to little thanks), but to guarantee US access to European markets. That's right, unless we maintain a military occupation, they'd be even more hostile to us. Crazy conspiracy theory, right? No, it comes from Alexander Haig, former S [upi.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You are correct to observe that the EU is hostile to American companies.
You may have missed the /s in my post indicating the sarcasm. I would spell it out for you but ... I literally already spelled it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Not everyone's familiar with that new-fangled sarcasm indictator! Lots of people need sarcasm spelled out to them! Almost all Americans do, in fact. /s
Re: (Score:1)
EU workers have all kinds of rights also 9 hours m (Score:3)
EU workers have all kinds of rights also 9 hours may also be an EU overtime volition as well.
I wonder if that MSP owner stopped doing that. (Score:3)
I wonder if that MSP owner I worked at for one horrible year still does that.
He'd perched 3 cameras on the back wall (not the ceiling -- the WALL), pointed at all our desks. To see what we were up to.
His office had a six-foot-wide glass window overlooking our desks.
It was more like a factory than an IT place. I was demoralized by the 2nd week, really.. only it took a bit of time to escape. But escape I did. That place had the shortest turnover time I'd ever seen -- measured in months. The moment I found I'd been accepted somewhere else back into systems I was positively giddy and had a BSEG on my face when I handed the quit letter to him. Right in the middle of a fire involving his most spectacularly dangerously clueless client.
I imagine there's no difference in doing the same thing, remotely. Were I a worker remotely monitored like that.. I'd be looking for another job pdq. Intolerable. Unconscionable. Sign of an insecure micromanaging control freak. And he was just that.
Re: I wonder if that MSP owner stopped doing that. (Score:2)
Those cameras would go bad or awol quickly.
Electric problems happens.
i don't understand (Score:2)
this was a us company hiring a dutch person. the thing with the webcam is indeed asinine, but the ruling isn't really about the reckless privacy invasion but about the subsequent "wrongful termination". it was my impression that in the us you can legally fire an employee at any time and for no reason at all?
Re: (Score:3)
The employee wasn't in the US, so US law is not the entire story. When someone intentionally does business in some jurisdiction, they expose themselves to the jurisdiction of courts there.
Re: (Score:2)
i see. it's this peculiarity what actually made me curious. i guess we're missing the contract, in my experience (in europe at least) contracts usually specify which jurisdiction is agreed upon to resolve any conflicts. then again, i find it odd that a us company contracts someone overseas and cedes ruling to the employee's random jurisdiction. that's really dumb (from the company's perspective). then again maybe this case isn't over because a us court may have still something to say?
the other part of my cu
Re: (Score:3)
A contract can't override state law, and in Europe worker welfare is definitely under the jurisdiction of the individual state laws. These in turn have to keep within the limits set by European law.
Re: i don't understand (Score:2)
Add to it that unions also can get interested and cause trouble.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, when companies use the term "insubordination" as part of their justification for firing someone they deserve to be laughed at. Unless they're some sort of military.
So what do you do when you task a subordinate with a task, and they refuse to perform it?
And I'm explicitly not talking about a stupid request, like tasking a worker to do something you know is retarded. I'm talking about tasking a perfectly acceptable thing, and having the worker say "no," or just blow it off passive-agressively. What do you call that? That's textbook insubordination, and in any company i've been in it's cause for a write up, and eventual dismissal.
I've refused plenty of retarded tasks,
Re: (Score:2)
You're using the term "subordinate" so you probably bark orders at people like you're all in the army.
My boss treats me like a professional, and we have conversations about what needs to be done because he pays me to do a job and he knows I know what I'm doing.
Re:i don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
You're not reading what I'm saying. I'm not boss anymore, by choice. Never did I "bark" at anyone when I was.
You have a real problem with terminology. Subordinate, worker, underling, all these words mean what they mean, and they do NOT imply the boss yelling or berating or barking. If that's how you interpret them, then that's on you, not me.
A boss that yells is not boss, he's just "asshole" and does not earn respect. A subordinate that routinely sloughs work off is also just "asshole" and similarly does not earn respect.
A real boss / worker relationship, both protect each other, and watch out for each other. Ditto for all members of the team. A real tight team watches out for each other, and doesn't make trouble for the other team members or those who depend on them.
The world would be a better place if people weren't so hung up on words, and focus more on results.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Subordinate and underling do both have definitions that are inappropriate to use to refer to your employees, and in my own personal experience, those definitions are how the words are most commonly used nowadays. Your experience may be different. You're not wrong if you use th
Re: (Score:1)
You're using the term "subordinate" so you probably bark orders at people like you're all in the army.
This is a major problem with discussion with certain left-leaning people on the internet today. They will read your post, simply imagine that you said something, and go off on you for what they imagined you might have said.
It's a huge problem. Once you know what to look for, you start seeing it everywhere. "The Roe vs. Wade decision was a wrong and defective judgement, and defective decisions can and
Re: (Score:1)
Why? The word has a definite meaning. If a boss gives a worker a reasonable task to do, and the worker refuses to do it, what the hell would you call it?
I suspect you just have a problem with hierarchies.
Re: (Score:2)
If a boss gives a worker a reasonable task to do, and the worker refuses to do it, what the hell would you call it?
I would say you have bigger problems if your people are refusing to do their jobs.
I have only been employed for 35 years or so, so I have not seen everything yet, but I've never actually seen that. Even one time.
I also don't work in America, so we have this thing called "employment rights" like the Dutch person in the article.
Re: (Score:1)
I would say you have bigger problems if your people are refusing to do their jobs.
Are you for real? You don't think any workers ever decide to not do their job, for one reason or another?
I also don't work in America, so we have this thing called "employment rights" like the Dutch person in the article.
Oh.. Well hell.. Yeah.. We don't have any employment rights in this country.. You fucktard.
Re: (Score:2)
Your prospect of health care is probably tied to your employment too, so you'd better not get sick or have an accident because you'll become too expensive and lose both your job and your healthcare.
I could go on, but those are two pretty key rights you don't enjoy. Feel free to call me more names.
Re: (Score:1)
You're a socialist, clearly.
Yeah.. what a tragedy that a small business owner should have the right to decide who works for him/her.
Your prospect of health care is probably tied to your employment too, so you'd better not get sick or have an accident because you'll become too expensive and lose both your job and your healthcare.
No.. I started my own small business. And then I hired good employees and fired ineffective ones. I could get sick for a year or more and never lose a dime of my income.
Unlike you, I have a spine. I'm responsible for myself. I don't need an authoritarian government telling someone else they have to continue giving me a paycheck when they don't want to.
At the end of the da
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Jesus that's sad.
Your situation? Yeah.. It is.
Mine? You think it's sad that a person can take charge of their own life and not be dependent on the government? See above.
Re: (Score:1)
it was my impression that in the us you can legally fire an employee at any time and for no reason at all?
No. It depends on the state. Every state has different employment laws.
Re: (Score:2)
> it was my impression that in the us you can legally fire an employee at any time and for no reason at all?
At Will [betterteam.com]
There are more details [wikipedia.org] about which states Public policy exceptions, Implied contract exceptions, and "Implied-in-law" contracts.
I wouldn't mind the cam (Score:2)
Sorry about the bathrobe falling open from time to time.
Re: I wouldn't mind the cam (Score:2)
It's too hot in my studio apartment so I work with a bare chest unless there's a meeting.
Re: (Score:1)
Do you really want that? (Score:2)
Fair warning, when working remote, I work naked or in my underwear. Finally, it's gonna be management that has to suffer for a change.