Wrongful probationary dismissal

       The lazy employer

Unfortunately, it is often the case that an employer takes a lazy approach to employee rights and dismissal.

Like the employer of a former LegalWorx client. The employee contacted us to ask whether it was correct that the employer did not pay any transitional compensation (amount of transitional compensation was less than €100 gross). This was because he had been dismissed during his probationary period. The employer refused to pay the transitional compensation because (according to the employer) the employee had acted seriously culpable in a conflict situation. The employer subsequently failed to conduct a proper investigation into the conflict and no effort was made to ascertain the truth. For example, the employee had not been heard about the conflict and therefore no adversarial process had been applied.

The employer was lazy and probably thought that if it fired the employee during his probationary period that the whole situation did not need to be carefully examined and addressed.

Duration of employment contract too short

But an employment contract had been concluded with this employee for the duration of 6 months, this meant that (in this case) the probationary period clause had not been validly agreed and was null and void. This meant that this employee was simply still employed by the employer. After all, there can be no probationary dismissal if the probationary clause is null and void.
Now the employee did not want to return to this employer either, and an agreement was still reached to terminate the employment. Only now, the employer had to pay employee 30x more than what the transitional compensation was and all legal costs were reimbursed by the employer.

If the employer had paid the transitional compensation of less than €100 gross, this man would never have sought legal advice. Now that the employer had refused to pay the transitional compensation, the employee did contact LegalWorx and was allowed to receive a much higher compensation. In short if you are dismissed always seek advice and contact LegalWorx or calculate your transitional allowance.

Do you have a settlement agreement received and want to have everything checked to make sure it is correct? Please contact us via WhatsApp, call  +(31) 085-08 054 82, send a email or upload the settlement agreement here; our employment lawyer will be happy to talk to you. And provide the answers to all your questions.