Mintball wrote:
Yet on the basis of what you've posted recently about your situation, it doesn't sound as though your employer did show you much respect.
Now, this is not a dig, but within the context of this discussion, does that mean you hadn't shown your employer respect/enough respect? Or if you had gone out of your way, as an employee, to go the extra mile for your boss over the years, what does that say about how much they respected you?
quite correct Mintball - I was treated badly because the company was losing mega bucks because of poor managerial decisions and I was the fall guy,I complained about certain safety rules that were being ignored and was slated as a troublemaker. - I took my case to the Industrial Tribunal (les Prud'hommes) and the hearing is on tuesday with the company basically admitting fault on three charges of unfair dismissal that are - firstly,discrimination,with the company rightly claiming they needed to cut the pay bill to survive trading and offering contract modifications for three of us,the other two were offered much better deals and they were junior to me,refusal of the contract modification by me meant the company had to offer me redundancy which I gratefully accepted with a decent payoff (I would have been better off on the dole for three years) - secondly,working too many days consectively (40 days at one point) without a rest day and thirdly,working too many hours overtime in a year (the maximum in france is 100 hours per annum).All three points can be proven in writing.
The company know they will lose and have admitted liability so maybe they will try to make a settlement 'out of court' before the hearing.
Saying that,in their defence they have not criticised my work because they know my work record is faultless but the manager was determined to get rid of me and he,another dutchman who doesn't understand the power of the working man in france thought he could get away with it.He made the mistake like most foreigners thinking that the french are a bunch of peasants...not aware that the french employer is faced with the most strict employment laws in europe.
During the 15 years I did my work correctly and had no problems with the three previous managers sent down from Holland to run the company - this guy took over 18 months ago and immediately lost more money than the previous three so he won't last long either.
my present employers are excellent and very fair - they know me well and know I am an honest worker who give 100% for the company - there's a lot of mutual respect.
