Teenager fired for not showing up for work wins severance pay in court

A 14-year-old boy fired for not showing up to his Saturday part-time job at a butcher shop in Tilburg has been awarded severance pay by the court. His employer, butcher chain Fons Pessers, must pay the boy 428 euros and cover his legal costs of 892 euros, RTL Nieuws reports based on a ruling recently published by the Zeeland-West Brabant court.

The boy started working at a Fons Pessers branch in June last year. He earned 5.50 euros per hour. On Tuesday, August 29, his father informed his employer that the boy would not come to work that Saturday.

The employer said he expected crowds that day due to the opening of a new store and needed all his staff. The butcher asked the boy to fulfill his obligations and come to work. The father replied with the text: “I honestly find your response quite blunt, especially since you don’t know what the reason is!”

The boy didn’t show up for work that Saturday. The butcher tried to call him several times but got no response. The butcher then texted him not to come back to work. “We’ll stop this immediately.”

The boy and his father took the matter to court on the grounds of unfair dismissal. They argued that the boy’s trust in employers had been damaged and that he lost self-confidence in seeking new work. They also said that the boy had bought diving equipment with the expectation that he could pay for it with his earnings from his part-time job.

The boy asked for a transition payment of 36 euros, fair compensation for unfair dismissal of 150 euros, and the wages for his remaining contract period, amounting to 1,247 euros.

The court ruled in the boy’s favor. According to the judge, the butcher should have “at least had a conversation” with the boy about the incident or should have settled the matter with a warning. “Failing to show up for work once is not grounds for summary dismissal,” the court said.

The court ordered the employer to pay the boy “compensation for irregular termination” of 428 euros - the salary and holiday pay he would have received during his notice period of eight Saturdays. The court ruled the other severance payments demanded excessive.

Butcher Koen Plessers told RTL that he won’t appeal. “This all costs a lot of time and money. Moreover, I agree with the ruling. The demanded severance payments have largely been rejected. And my message was perhaps a bit too short-sighted. He was otherwise a very nice boy. He is perhaps the biggest victim of this case.”