The Spanish YouTuber Jota has become the first content creator in the world to take Google to court for an alleged case of unfair dismissal. The lawsuit is directed at Google Spain, for what the plaintiff describes as unjustified dismissal, which would imply that he considers his activity on YouTube to be paid work for the Spanish unit of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O). The case could set a precedent for the labor rights of content creators, according to the Spanish union UGT, which supports the plaintiff.
The lawsuit seeks to demonstrate an employment relationship between Jota, who maintains a political satire video channel, and YouTube. According to his legal representative, it is believed that the plaintiff worked as a false freelancer for Alphabet because he regularly provided his services and received remuneration derived from advertising revenue.
Google Spain blocked Jota’s YouTube channel ‘Último Bastión’ from earning advertising revenue last August. The YouTuber reports that the company withdrew money that was already in his YouTube payment account.
“We consider this to be a breach of the employment relationship,” his lawyer Bernardo García told Reuters. The lawyer assures that they have asked the court to classify as “unjustified” the employment relationship between Jota and YouTube and his effective dismissal.
Jota’s channel includes political satire videos that generally use broadcasts from official channels such as Parliament and the municipal plenary sessions of city councils throughout Spain. Their modus operandi is to add subtitles and special effects to support their points of view. Neither his lawyer nor UGT have wanted to establish a direct relationship between the type of content on his client’s channel and Google’s decision to cut his channel’s advertising revenue.
Google, for its part, argues that the content creators are not its employees and that in this particular case Jota’s channel did not comply with YouTube’s monetization policies.
“We are deeply committed to the success of creators, which is why we share the majority of revenue with them. We collect a lot of feedback when we meet with hundreds of creators each year. However, contrary to claims, they are not employees of YouTube due to the nature of their relationship with our company,” Google Spain said in an emailed statement.
The first hearing of the trial has been scheduled for June 26 of next year in a court in Madrid.
Spain became a pioneer in Europe in the rights of collaborative economy workers when it forced food delivery companies to hire their delivery drivers as staff in 2021.
The UGT insists on its commitment to fighting against false self-employment and the precarious working conditions that, according to its claims, the technology giants seek to impose.
UGT spokesperson Eduardo Magaldi said the collaborative economy may be something new, but the concepts behind it are the same. “Some control the platform or the means of production and others are the ones who offer their work, in one way or another, from a workplace or from their homes. Publishing something (on the Internet) or producing by hand,” he said.