Can someone give me a reference to the Swiss labor law that precludes extension of temporary contracts beyond two times? I understand that if the company exceeds this limit, it has a legal obligation to hire the person as a permanent employee.
I have been advised by my employer that temporary contracts cannot be extended beyond two times. I currently have a one year contract that expires 30 March 2016, but have been told that it cannot be renewed since it has already been twice extended previously.
I suspect it's that they can't renew your residents permit..... Assuming your non EU, that will be the issue.
Are you on an L permit? If so then they are issued inititally for 1 year and can be extended for another 1, making 2 in total. Although there have been reports on the forum of people being on L permit for 3/4 years. Bear in mind though that the Swiss recently voted to curb immigration from the EU so this may be having a knock on effect on extending non-EU permits as well.
As far as I know there’s absolutely no obligation in Swiss law to make a job permanent after a certain period of time.
To my knowledge employers can only extend/renew a temp contract so many times. After that it has to be a contract without limitation.
If that’s the case doesn’t the employer have to go through the non-EU hiring criteria again to show they can’t find a Swiss/EU person to do the job now? If so, then it doesn’t sound as if the OP’s employer wants to go through the hassle and expense to prove their case and prefer to let him go.
The issue with non EU hiring still remains. It only relates to the contract itself and after 2 extensions (I think) it has to become a permanent contract. If so, I would assume that the employers has to jump through the same hoops again to hire a non EU Person.
No, the residency permit is not the problem. I have a "C" permit. I have been working for this company (now GE) for over 7 years.
According to Beobachter , a short-term work contract can be replaced by another so long as there is a valid reason for doing this, e.g., a research project is funded once a year and, if it is funded, it would be valid to renew the short-term work contract for another year.
However, it is not allowed that a company chain short-term contracts together to avoid making the employee a permanent employee.
I am wondering whether the HR department is running into this obstacle, i.e., if it renewed the contract again, it could not justify that this job is not permanent.
See paragraph in this article called "Unsichere Verlängerung" for more details:
With a C permit it shouldn’t matter how many times it can be extended surely?
(Unable to edit my above post.)
After seven years, legally you might already be a permanent employee. If so, this would mean that the company needs to follow the normal redundancy process, e.g., three month notice. You might wish to contact a labor attorney.
Added:
Something to consider. If your temporary contract was previously extended tacitly without a formal agreement (so-called "stillschweigend"), then it might have turned into an open-ended (permanent) contract:
Art. 334 1 G. End of the employment relationship / I. Fixed-term employment relationship G. End of the employment relationship
I. Fixed-term employment relationship
1 A fixed-term employment relationship ends without notice.
2 A fixed-term employment relationship tacitly extended beyond the agreed duration is deemed to be an open-ended employment relationship.
It's as Mullhollander said above, a short term contract is supposed to be just that short term. If the contract is extended by an additional year then technically it is not short term but a permanent position.
Companies use short term contracts to save money and avoid paying some of the benefits that permanent employees are entitled too. Not allowing them to be renewed more than twice is a way to prevent this.
It has nothing to do with permit status.
There are no savings in 'benefits' on a short term contract over 3 months in a year. (Pension being the only possible saving with employment for less than 3 months)
Thanks for the reference-- it is helpful. In this case, I think the employer is utilizing this tactic to avoid hiring me as a permanent employee. I had a permanent contract for four years until I turned 65. After that I received contract extensions three times. I am not sure whether this might be grounds for age discrimination or whether the employer is really following Swiss law.
Oh dear, here it comes again........
By law your contract ends automatically when you reach retirement age. Nothing done wrong by the employer.
You yourself also agreed to a temp contract? What did he/she say when you asked for a permanent contract after you retired??
Unless there has been a recent change, there is no Swiss law against age discrimination in employment or otherwise. This is so stated in a 2006 UZ dissertation "Altersdiskriminierung" by Sonja Schumacher on this topic (cannot link this dissertation, will need to google on it to find):
"In der Schweiz gibt es im Gegensatz zu den USA kein Gesetz, das die Altersdiskriminierung verbietet. 4 In der Bundesverfassung existiert lediglich ein allgemeiner Artikel, der besagt, dass vor dem Gesetz alle Menschen gleich sind und niemand diskriminiert werden darf."
There was in my husband's company. There were lots of things that contracted employees weren't entitled to that permenant employees were.
Currently my employer has a head count freeze and would not off me a permanent position.
So why don't you give us all the relevant info in the first post...... Retired, on a temporary contract, head count freeze.
No offence... from what I can gather, you are 3 years past retirement. I think your employer is trying to tell you that it's time to retire.
Not that I agree with it, but it doesn't seem normal in Switzerland to keep working past retirement age, like in the UK.
My buddy has just turned 20 years at Julius B all on contract. He's a mainframe guy and every time he has tried to quit, they offered more cash. When the cash bait failed they kept him on the same and halved the hours and he's past retirement age. Depends on the employer and how important they think you are ultimately.