I. Drafting of employment contracts
Although the freedom of contract also applies to employment contracts, numerous provisions are aimed at limiting this freedom. Still, by means of a skilfully drafted employment contract the position of the employer can be extremely improved.
In the process of drawing up these contracts, it first has to be determined which regulations exist against which the individual contract may not contravene. Besides health and safety regulations, the most important regulations are collective pay agreements and works agreements; from which the individual agreement may not deviate to the employee's disadvantage.
Sometimes it is difficult to find out which specific regulations apply to the individual case. Collective agreements may only apply to employees within a certain geographical territory; for this reason there may be substantial differences between contracts in Bavaria and Saxony.
There may be other areas of the contract which are not determined by previous agreements. As far as the work hours and the place of work are concerned, there is usually more room for individual arrangements. Regarding the working hours, the legal provisions and the provisions contained within collective agreements often allow more flexibility, for example if the work is seasonal a full-time contract would not make financial sense to the employer. The job description should be kept general and not too specific to avoid the situation where the employer is prevented from transferring the employee to another job or place of work.
II. Termination of employment relationships
Disputes regularly arise between the employee and the employer on termination of employment. These are mostly about remaining wage claims, holidays, or redundancy payments.
Many of these disputes end up almost automatically before the Labour Court, this is because an employee who has been dismissed has to bring the action before the court within 3 weeks otherwise the termination is considered valid. In the case of company directors, for whom the Labour Court is not responsible, it is rather likely that the parties reach an out of court settlement. In both cases it all depends on the negotiating tactics. For the employer as well as for the employee it is important to know that German labour law does not automatically provide for compensation upon dismissal. Quite the reverse, German law is based on the notion that, if the dismissal is justified, compensation does not have to be paid. But in practice compensation is generally agreed upon to avoid long-term disputes, which are not desirable to both parties.
Costs
In the field of employment law we charge on the basis of our regular hourly rate. The drafting of a standard employment contract requires about 15 to 20 hours. Of course, we are willing to consider lump-sum payments once we have examined the concrete circumstances of the case.
Regarding in and out of court activities during disputes, we normally work on the basis of the Federal Code of Lawyers' Fees, (Bundesrechtsanwaltsgebührenordnung) see fees. In certain cases which are very time-consuming due to their complexity and the issues involved, we may possibly need to find a different costing system. Since each case is different we cannot give specific costs here, but we will discuss the expected costs and expenditure of time with you.
When starting a sales organization it is recommended that you work with agents. The following terms should be considered when drawing up the contract.