how about the 3 month thing? is it pretty much bulletproof for employers to $#!t can someone in the first three months without having to pay severance or anything else?
The 3 month rule in Art. 16 is for notice (or pay in lieu of notice). With 3 months of seniority, your minimum notice period is 10 days, and your (old system) severance pay is 3/12 of a month’s salary. Rounding your seniority up to the next month only applies to severance pay, not Art. 16 i.e. you really need 3 whole months to qualify for a minimum notice period, unless the contract is more generous.
Although the law requires no notice period if your seniority is under 3 months, you should still qualify for a tiny amount of severance pay, if you have a valid Art. 11 or Art. 14 termination.
Okay, but what about article 16, if one is given less than 10 days notice on a fixed term contract, does any severance apply, assuming one has worked over 3 months?
Whether or not severance pay is required – assuming the contract offers nothing more favorable to the worker than what the LSA demands – is determined by whether or not there’s a valid Art. 11 or Art. 14 termination (or in rare cases Art. 13 proviso or Art. 20, but not Art. 12 or Art. 15).
So to answer that question for your particular case, we would need to know what kind of termination it is. Feel free to PM me if you don’t want to give details here.
yeah, PM coming