Can your boss fire you for refusing to turn your webcam on? If you live in the US, probably.

BUSINESS INSIDER
October 10, 2022

If you get fired for not turning your webcam on for a work meeting, it’s unlikely you’d be successful making a wrongful termination claim in the US, legal experts told Insider.

It’s a meaningful difference amid recent headlines about a successful lawsuit in the Netherlands that saw a Dutch remote worker awarded $73,000 after he was fired after refusing to turn on his webcam during a virtual training program.

The Florida-based company who had employed the worker terminated him, citing “refusal to work” and “insubordination” as the reasons, according to court documents.

But in the US, where most people work in states that have at-will employment as underlying doctrine, employees would likely not have the same outcome if they are fired for not turning their webcam on, according to experts. Montana is the only state that doesn’t have at-will employment.