Englische Vertragsmuster #5: Deutscher Kündigungsschutz für anglo-amerikanische Mandanten

Haben Sie schon einmal versucht, einem US-Amerikaner oder einem Briten das deutsche Kündigungsschutzgesetz zu erklären? Das ist - sowohl sprachlich wie auch inhaltlich - eine Herausforderung. Unsere Kanzlei berät einige amerikanische Gesellschaften und steht deshalb öfter vor dieser “Challenge”. Wer ebenfalls versuchen will, anglo-amerikanischen Mandanten die Ratio des deutschen Kündigungsschutzgesetzes zu erklären: Hier unser englisches Memo dazu:

1. General protection against dismissal (Kündigungsschutz)

While the special protection against dismissal deals with the restrictions to dismissal from which only specific employees benefit (e.g. members of a works council, pregnant women), the general protection against dismissal applies to all employees who fall under the scope of the Act on the Protection against Dismissal (Kündigungsschutzgesetz). Basically, this Act applies to enterprises that employ more than ten employees. The protection against dismissal does not touch the termination of employment for other reasons than dismissal (e.g. contract of consolation, expiry of the agreed period in case of an employment contract of limited duration).

The general protection against dismissal applies only where the employment relationship of the employee involved has already existed for more than six months without interruption in the same enterprise or company at the moment of dismissal. In the course of the first six months (so called “Probezeit” or “test phase”) an ordinary dismissal by the employer is basically possible without need to give a reason. The act on the protection against dismissal applies only to enterprises that regularly employ more than five employees not including the apprentices.

Dismissal is only socially justified if it is caused by reasons that

- lie in the person of the employee or - lie in the behavior of the employee or - are urgent operational requirements which are opposed to the employee’s continued employment in this enterprise.

a) Dismissals founded on the person

Reason which lie in the person of the employee and which may socially justify dismissal are objectively existing ones, for which the employee need not to be held responsible. Most frequently sickness of the employee is the cause for dismissals founded on the person. Great demands are to be made on the social justification of a dismissal on the grounds of sickness. The Federal Labor Court declared dismissals due to sickness compatible with the Act on the Protection against Dismissal only in two cases. So far as it is clear at the moment of dismissal that the sickness will not be curable in the foreseeable future and if this entails unreasonable consequences for the employer (permanent sickness) or as it is a sickness with a risk of frequent new phases of sickness, i.e. if the employee was extremely frequently absent from work in the past and it…

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