4 ms·

I am pretty sure you are mistaken about firings being illegal, having witnessed firings. Yes, in France. Employment is certainly not "at will", but employers c

by ovi256 17y ago

I am pretty sure you are mistaken about firings being illegal, having witnessed firings. Yes, in France. Employment is certainly not "at will", but employers can fire for the usual reasons: economic causes, performance problems, incidents, the last one causing the employee to lose the safety net. I have witnessed mass engineer layoffs at a startup for economic reasons, and the employer was not on the hook for much. I have witnessed firing "for personal reasons" which can include differences about work tools or methodology. The ridiculous amount of money you cite is not huge at all, 20% of monthly salary for each year of work at the company (5 year with the company = one month of compensation). The employee can contest the firing at the French equivalent of the work board, but it's usually cut and dried. If that is what you are actually complaining about, about employment not being "at will", I do not have a good answer, other than it being a cultural difference that turns irrelevant in practice. I am wondering what is going on around here, relative to France. Both in HN and Times comments I have witnessed only ignorance (not a single knowledgeable comment) on French employment, laws, and worse, attitudes. It's not a worker's paradise, and nobody feels unnaturally entitled to their job. About the overhead, yeah, the patronal taxes suck badly.

shin_lao 17y ago
I'm afraid you might have misunderstood my post: The problem in France is that you CANNOT fire people without an excellent reason The key point is without excellent reasons The reasons you gave (economic causes, performances, etc.) are valid but are clearly defined by the law. I'm sure you've witnessed people being fired from startups, but I'm also quite certain that these people could have gained more in going to court ("conseil de prud'hommes") There's a new way of breaking a contract when both parts agree to discontinue the business relationship, but it generally involves negotiating a certain amount of money (again). The amount of compensation for a lay off you're talking about is the legal minimum. It's called "indemnité légale". On top of that there is the "indémnité conventionnelle" which is defined by the "convention collective" you probably know about. When I talked about insane amount of money it's when you're not able to give a good reason for the lay off. In which case giving one year of income isn't rare. When you want to fire someone for "insuffisance professionelle" (which is "inability to perform "), you need to back that up with extremely solid proof. When you want to fire someone for "faute" (fault), you need to back that up. You need proof. And even when you have proof, you generally end up paying more if the person sues you for abusive lay off. The problem is that the system is extremely rigid. When you have valid reasons for firing someone, even for fault, you need to be extremely rigorous in every step. If ever you did something wrong (forgot to send the warning letter, didn't formalize the proof well, there's an insane list of what you must do...), you might be force to reintegrate the person into your team. I'd also want to assert (again) that I find normal that employees are protected and cannot be fired at will. Abusive employers aren't rare. And last but not least I'd like to say that I never had to consider to let go someone in my life because I work with the most talented people a boss could dream to have, and I truly hope I'll never need to call my lawyer to assist me in the unpleasant task of firing someone.

by ovi256 17y ago

shin_lao 17y ago

I'm afraid you might have misunderstood my post: The problem in France is that you CANNOT fire people without an excellent reason The key point is without excellent reasons The reasons you gave (economic causes, performances, etc.) are valid but are clearly defined by the law. I'm sure you've witnessed people being fired from startups, but I'm also quite certain that these people could have gained more in going to court ("conseil de prud'hommes") There's a new way of breaking a contract when both parts agree to discontinue the business relationship, but it generally involves negotiating a certain amount of money (again). The amount of compensation for a lay off you're talking about is the legal minimum. It's called "indemnité légale". On top of that there is the "indémnité conventionnelle" which is defined by the "convention collective" you probably know about. When I talked about insane amount of money it's when you're not able to give a good reason for the lay off. In which case giving one year of income isn't rare. When you want to fire someone for "insuffisance professionelle" (which is "inability to perform "), you need to back that up with extremely solid proof. When you want to fire someone for "faute" (fault), you need to back that up. You need proof. And even when you have proof, you generally end up paying more if the person sues you for abusive lay off. The problem is that the system is extremely rigid. When you have valid reasons for firing someone, even for fault, you need to be extremely rigorous in every step. If ever you did something wrong (forgot to send the warning letter, didn't formalize the proof well, there's an insane list of what you must do...), you might be force to reintegrate the person into your team. I'd also want to assert (again) that I find normal that employees are protected and cannot be fired at will. Abusive employers aren't rare. And last but not least I'd like to say that I never had to consider to let go someone in my life because I work with the most talented people a boss could dream to have, and I truly hope I'll never need to call my lawyer to assist me in the unpleasant task of firing someone.