joycem10 said:
So I'm reading the story on Yahoo about the French "First Employment Contract" legislation and the protests against it...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2006030...BAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
...which seems to basically make young employees "at will" for the first 2 years of employment. I was wondering, what exactly does it take for you to get fired in France under ordinary conditions?
Incompetance, swings in the business cycle, violence in the workplace, harassment, theft, staring at the internet for 2 hours a day, mouthing off... can any of these things get you fired? Whats the process? If I opened a small business in France and hired your average Jacque does he basically have a job for life?
No attempt at being a smart ass here, purely interested.
Okay. So. Arhm. There is no job for life in France. The closest could be when you are an union member, in which case it will be VERY tricky to fire you. Fortunately a mere 10% of the work force is unionized, and it's actually lower in the private sector, so it is not very common.
Then you have several "kinds" of firing.
You can fire someone "pour faute grave" (for a serious offence). That's where the employee misbehaved, and badly. Cheating, stealing, sexual harassment, all that stuff.
You can fire someone as a "licenciement economique" (economical reason). The trick is, if your business fires too many people in too short a time as a "licenciement economique", you must come up with a "plan de licenciement" (firing process), something very costly for the company because it basically gives to people that are laid off a financial package AND a reemployment help (a job in another branch of the company, for instance). It is quite common for companies to try to trickle the rate of firing so that they do not have to come up with a firing process, and is it quite common for these companies to be sued and loose.
So basically, in France, when you fire someone, you must have a good economical or professional reason. You definitely can not fire someone for his political stickers
When someone is fired, he gets a "preavis", a period of notice, that is three monthes long. The same goes when you quit your job : you must give a three months notice to the company.
When things go well, you can actually make a deal with your company so that you don't have to do these three months. But when you're fired, it's nice to know you have three months during which you have time to find another job.
It is also important to note that every litigation related to the work place falls under a specific juridiction, the "Prud'hommes". Your case will not be judged by a judge, but by a panel of other professionnals : union members, CEOs, employees...
Now for the current "CPE", contrat de premiere embauche. When you hire someone in France, there usually is a probation of 3 monthes during which the employee or the employer can terminate the contract at will, without the mandatory 3 months notice.
You can thus understand that people are wary of a new contract that will extend that 3 months probation by 21 months.
Im my humble opinion, there is a current right now in France to try to turn the workplace more like an "American-style" workplace, where it is much more flexible for the employer to adjust its workforce.
This of course works very well in the US. But is it suited to the French mentality ? I'm not sure.
There are, again IMHO, more important issues to solve first : the fact that it is an economically viable choice right now to remain unemployed for a very long period, for instance. If you are fired, you will get something like 80% of your salary for two years, after wich you will still get some other aids. Not much, but enough to live on.
Okay, that's about it. Other French people, please correct me if I'm wrong
