Val_2 Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 employees legally is now a nightmare here since new legislation has come in,mostly in favour of those in the wrong as well. We have had a bloke working for us for the past 2.5years and just recently he became racist against any english customers we were working for,a know-it-all when he had never done such a job before,damaging vehicles and breaking tools with no remorse and actually denying it was him and taking days off supposedly ill. Anyway I discovered he had been taking lessons and a driving test to be a heavy goods driver with no hint that he was thinking of leaving us until I forced his hand a week ago now. He subsequently said my husband was abusive all day long and walked off. He won't resign because he will not get chomage payments for so many weeks and we need to sack him through his serious fault of not turning up for work and going elsewhere so we can get on and find someone else. This is now going to cost us 412,08€ to go through the legal process of registered letters and paperwork,one has already been sent anyway with no response and none of this our fault. When we have sacked previous workers all we had to do was send three registered letters within a couple of weeks and if no reply,they were gone with no redress. I really don't think its fair to smallbusinesses to have to cough up this sort of money just to get rid of useless workers do you? therefore I am posting this just to warn anyone else what you might end up paying out if you are suffering the same with useless workers and one thing else,never take the word of a french employee regarding the laws about sacking because unless they have consulted a legal person,they usually have no idea what is really involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Val, sorry to hear you are having problems like this. Can you not get rid of this person on economic grounds? i.e. with fewer English people buying houses there has been a downturn in the amount of work available. This reason is certainly being applied around our area, so I would think it could apply to you as well. It seems that as long as the employee gets a comparatively small compensation payment to comply with the law (which as he has worked for over two years he is entitled to) there is little he can do about it other than claim unfair dismissal which would involve him in a lot of legal and bureaucratic hassle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Val_2 Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 Good idea Will except we have many more french clients these days than the ever-disappearing english ones which I think will eventually peter out as people start to look for cheaper properties elsewhere or move back to the UK as so many are doing at the moment due to the higher cost than they realised,of living in France or the pull of family. I was annoyed the other day when visiting prospective clients to find another brit there pricing up at exactly the same time,they could have been a bit more subtle as it was quite embaressing.We didn't say a word but the chap gave us his card and upon checking his siret number seems he's registered but not in building matters and has only been trading three weeks. We'll leave it to the householders to decide who comes up with the goods I think,its their money after all. I have an english friend who wants to sell her lovely house here but not to english people she says and shes dropped it over 15000€ already since it went up for sale a couple of months ago. Times are a-changing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punch Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Val Have you not recently seen the new contract employment laws CNE (contrat nouvelles embauches) which have been made much more favourable for employers. Before the new laws it was difficult to lay off workers, but now I believe you can do so quite easily with standard notice. They have only been in for a month or so I believe and were, brought in to help companies who had taken on employees and then through no fault of their own had problems due to recession, loss of clients etc. They will also boost employent as companies (including mine) will be less afraid to take on new employees for the very reasons you state. The government said they would rather give more freedom to employers rather than see more companies go bust through reasons beyond their control. There is also more good news with the new cheque emploi system for very small businesses with maximum five employees such as ours. The new CNE contrats are CDI for two years and are simple for both employee and employer to terminate fairly.By the way, did you get my PM the other day in reply to yours?Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teamedup Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Hope that you sort this out. A builder friend of ours had terrible probs with one of his employees and it took a lot of time and money to get rid of him. From what Punch has said it sounds better and promising for the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Val_2 Posted October 25, 2005 Author Share Posted October 25, 2005 Paul. Yes I did get your PM,thanks very much,it was good to hear we are not alone!! I also asked about the new simplified Cheque Emploi system for the building trade and our gestion personnel are absolutely against it because it means we,ourselves have to calculate all the costs and deductions and the cotisations for the employee on this system and they really don't like it interferring with their paperwork,plus I really wouldn't know where to begin with all that stuff as neither of us are mathematicians or accountants.I have seen lots of paperwork concerning the new system for dismissal etc but unfortunately we seem to be "controlled" somewhat by our gestion accountants who insist their members do what they want. I've received today a wad of paperwork from their legal office as to what will be involved in getting rid of this s**t as he refuses to demission and leaves us with no alternative but to licenciement going through the usual hoops of warnings first even though he went last week. We could easily go it alone and do our own paperwork etc but not being absolutely hot on employment rights and wrongs here in paper and litigation land, to say nothing of the threat of the prud'hommes which every employer dreads,it really isn't worth that nightmare so we will have to cough up the 400+€ and let the people we are paying do the legalities. Oh for a peaceful life!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la bezarderie Posted October 29, 2005 Share Posted October 29, 2005 I only ask out of curiosity but is there not a "gross misconduct" clause in French employment law? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardhat Posted October 30, 2005 Share Posted October 30, 2005 im astounded by the number of employers on this and other forums along with there supporters who really think it should be there god given right to utilise work people for years and then just sack them when it suits,france is a socialist country one of the reasons i came here,everyone is entitled to to a fair deal and slaging a work man who is never going to be able to tell his side of a story seems a bit sad,two and a half years with a company the guy must have been doing something right like making the employer money or why would anyone want to keep him so long .there are two sides to a story and people should not take as gosple every thing they read on here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teamedup Posted October 30, 2005 Share Posted October 30, 2005 I used to work for ICI, they had more passengers than British Rail then and sadly most employers have more than their fair share of passengers.The truth is that not all people work well, efficiently or give a monkey's about anyone other themselves.And France's socialism, well, for all the nannying if one had a job, when one had not got one there was not a safety net AT ALL and that was not that long ago. French caring and socialism was not all that. And actually still isn't if you know how the system works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardhat Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 all those passengers ici are carrying its asstonishing they get to make ten trillion billion pounds proffit every year year in year out,that will be the passengers fault will it,if they worked twice as hard then the lazy greedy shareholders could make zillions of trillions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teamedup Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 My second day at ICI, a bloke at the next desk brought some paperwork over to me and asked if I knew how to do it. He had worked there for 28 years and that was his job. I said that I did not. So found myself working next to someone who was useless in absolutely everything he did and not only useless but lazy too. The laziness being in his favour otherwise the rest of us would have been spending half our days trying to sort his constant messes out. He was the first I came across, and was one of toooooo many. NOT all workers are good or efficient and I can think of many a bank employee in France that should be out on their ears, they are slow, impolite, and poor at their jobs. That these people end up with jobs for life amazes me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardhat Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 hi teamedup,i have to agrre with you that there are lots of lazy incompitent workers who should be out on there ears both here and in england,but what can we do about it, go back wards with labour laws,give employers the right to sack someone on the spot,for whatever takes there fancy.when this thread started it was about a worker who had been with a company for two and a half years not two weeks,ive run my own companys and sacked people for being lazy and thick,but i spot them in weeks not years and as far as i know you can still do this here and in england. the guy at the desk for 28 years,you tell the story well,but theres always two sides to a story, he could tell his grand children that he started work with ici knowing every thing there was to know about his job and every day he would share his knowledge with the younger thick people so they could get on in life,then came high tec stuff computers and things and every thing changed,never needed sat there 20 years worrying about getting the sack, no one to turn to taking more and more antidepressants to combat the lonlyness ect ect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 31, 2005 Share Posted October 31, 2005 hardhat, if you read the post, this guy seems to have altered recently at that is why the problems are just cropping up-----------------------------------------------------------and just recently he became racist against any english customers we were working for,a know-it-all when he had never done such a job before,damaging vehicles and breaking tools with no remorse and actually denying it was him and taking days off supposedly ill. Anyway I discovered he had been taking lessons and a driving test to be a heavy goods driver with no hint that he was thinking of leaving us until I forced his hand a week ago now------------------------------------------------------------No doubt Val & her husband are like many other employers, keen to get on with the job with a reliable team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardhat Posted November 1, 2005 Share Posted November 1, 2005 i did read the post, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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