Peter Gillis’ Oostappen Group must still pay the overtime that former employee Samir made. He will also receive a retroactive salary increase for all the hours he worked at the Prinsenmeer park in Ommel, the subdistrict court ruled on Thursday. The exact amount Samir will receive is not yet known, but he wants more than two hundred thousand.
Samir, who worked at Prinsenmeer as a catering manager and was also often seen in the real-life soap about the Gillis family, Massa is Kassa, went to court in February. He is demanding more than 210,000 euros from his former employer, because he always had to be there for him, but was not paid for all hours. He also holds Oostappen responsible for the health problems he has.
Amount still unknown
The judge ruled that Samir had indeed worked a lot of overtime. According to Peter Gillis, he had compensated for this himself by working fewer hours in the winter. But because no administration was kept of this, which is the employer’s responsibility, it is not clear whether all hours were compensated. That is why Oostappen Groep must still pay out 1,632 overtime hours.
The judge also ruled that Samir’s salary had been too low all this time. This must be compensated. It is legally impossible for the judge to name a specific amount, because Samir himself came up with an amount of over 210,000 euros. Oostappen Groep must therefore start calculating and come up with an amount for the overtime and the ‘new’ salary within four weeks.
The salary increase and unpaid overtime will likely amount to several tens of thousands of euros.
‘Everything is going to hell’
In February, Samir told the court in Eindhoven about his situation. He worked far too many hours, received too little money and never had a day off, let alone a holiday. He always had to be there for his boss Peter Gillis, worked from ten in the morning until one at night. Everything had to be sent to the boss by email: “Then I get an answer from Mr. Gillis at three in the morning. Either he says ‘well done’, or he says ‘everything is going to hell'”, Samir indicated.
Gillis sees it differently. The bond between him and Samir was actually very good. Samir lived in the park and was given all the space to manage his own time. That is why all those overtime hours were not recorded, because they could easily be compensated in the winter. According to the entrepreneur, that is how it has worked for years at Prinsenmeer and that is how it works for all the staff. The judge sees it differently.
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Read the report of the trial here
