@Taran Wanderer, presumably ;)
But writing the previous story made me realise that we actually do have a somewhat epic story.
DW was working for one of the larger healthcare organisations in the city who provide care for the elderly (at home or institutionalised). She started working with a 1 year contract which has a 1 month trial period and a 1 month notice-period (2 for the employer but only with signature by a judge, local law).
She was supposed to receive training for one week, and be surpless for the 2nd so that she could tag along with more experienced colleagues. But, healthcare being healthcare, she had to start fulltime on the workfloor from day one including responsibilities where lower qualified personel called her in case of questions, emergencies etc. 29 days after starting she gets called into the office, her work is sub-par (well duh!) and colleagues have been complaining (without specifying about what). They were going to extend her trial period by one month after which she was no longer welcome (i.e. she was let go during her trial period).
She came home, quite distressed and I told her I would handle it. Since DW is foreing the language is a barrier so the legal terms would have been difficult for her. I called her HR contact, said my piece in a reasonable way and basically told them "you can't do this, it's unlawful, and fix it". They denied in all vehemence that what they did was unlawful and that my wife being foreing was the source of the whole problem (her language skills were appearently the problem, her previous employers lauded her attempts and had no problem that her grammar was often a bit off as long as she could make the meaning clear).
I had a few back and forths with them, they wouldn't budge. So, I called a lawyer and asked them how much to handle this, 600,- for a few letters and at least another 600,- again if it goes to court. 600,- isn't a big deal for us but for someone in my wife's job (often parttime, unwilling to confront and dependent on the income and frequently single moms too) that's quite a sum without any guaranteed prospect of returns. I said go for it. The lawyer had a nice back and forth with HR.
Meanwhile my wife is in her last week. HR or the manager was putting on airs and she had to work 6 days, one until 23:00, starting the next at 7:00 and that for all consecutive workdays (she had 3 of those days the past month and their union agreement states that such a shift may only occur once every 14 days). I called her HR again and said that if they didn't change it, we would report them. I also implied that my wife wasn't feeling well and might call in sick (which had serious repercussions if she left the workforce sick, as in they had to keep on paying sickleave for up to 10 years if she was unable to work).
They changed the shifts to all late shifts, annoying but OK. Salarywise, my wife didn't need to work (my base salary was more than enough for living cost) so we didn't apply for unemployment. Unemployment has some very annoying rules and my wife didn't want to go through that again. Also, there was a risk that we had to return the unemployment money if the lawyer didn't do a good job and ended the contract in the wrong way.
1 month later, DW had the same job with a different employer at a close-by town/village ;P The lawyer had an offer from the previous employer entailing that they would pay one more month of salary, it should have been the 10 month still left in the contract BUT my wife would have to remain "available" in case te employer folded and let het finish the contract. So, I told the lawyer that we wanted 2 months as a final offer (matching the employer notice period) and otherwise we would go to court and I told the lawyer specifically to mention that as well. They accepted.
For me this was a case of principle and I would have taken them to court, regardless of the outcome or cost. They are a fairly big company and know how the rules work. They knowingly transgressed and played ignorant which appearently works and I figured it should stop. What also played a major part is that they advertise that they desperately needed people, women returning to the workplace after the kids left home (education included) were more than welcome. But when my wife was hired, all promisses went out the window (even the mandatory training and re-certification one) and they basically walked all over her.
Realistically, they won't change their ways but at least they got bitten by their own stupidity.
