Spanish YouTuber Sues Google Over "Wrongful" Dismissal

The lawsuit seeks to demonstrate an employment relationship between Jota, a creator of political satire content and YouTube.

A Spanish YouTuber is suing Google Spain, a unit of Alphabet Inc, for wrongful dismissal in a case that could set a precedent for content creators' labour rights, Spanish union UGT said on Thursday. The lawsuit seeks to demonstrate an employment relationship between Jota, a creator of political satire content whose real name has not been disclosed, and Alphabet's YouTube because he regularly provided his services and received remuneration derived from advertising revenue, UGT said.

Google Spain blocked Jota's YouTube channel "Ultimo Bastion" (Last Stronghold) from earning advertising revenue in August. He says that the company withdrew money that was already in his YouTube payments account.

"We consider this to be a severance of the employment relationship," his lawyer Bernardo Garcia told Reuters. He said they had called on the court to classify Jota and YouTube's a labour relationship and his effective dismissal as "wrongful".