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No they can't, they have a requirement to be at work and to perform their assigned duties. If they suck at their duties, well, employer should provide training I suppose. But they have to work of course, no question about that -- this was just about firing not being possible "at will" as it is often the case in the US.

Also, stuff like coming to work drunk is a valid reason for immediate firing.

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Is it legal to negotiate terms for them to leave voluntarily?

Yes, of course. For example in Finland it's ~common in big companies to offer "packages" for employees that leave voluntarily if the company needs to downsize. The problem with this approach, of course, is that the best people take the package and get a job elsewhere. This could perhaps be tailored just for the lower achievers too, but I don't think the big companies have such ranking systems in place because they aren't part of the work culture.

Yes, that is a common way of firing people under permanent contracts in Europe. You give them a crappy position for a few months until they get bored to death and then offer them to leave for X months/years of salary.

You used an employment concept here that isn't typical or well-understood by American workers: permanent contract. Americans are well-versed in short term contracts, mostly because of sports, but I doubt more than a few percent of them ever consider that, absent any specification otherwise, all employment contracts are presented as permanent.

>all employment contracts are presented as permanent

On the contrary, the vast majority of employees in the US are under "at will" conditions, where their employment can be terminated at any time. There is nothing permanent about any employment contract in the US.

That's what he meant -- that in Europe almost all employment contracts are permanent, which may not be obvious to an American reader without explicit mention.

You're right, it wasn't obvious. I had hit submit too early, I had meant to ask how long the contracts typically last for and if maybe it was better for a company to just use shorter contracts. Are they required to be permanent for the most part? Sorry for getting way OT here.

We're getting so detailed that I'll mention the following applying specifically to Finland.

It's possible to have temporary/fixed-time contracts too, and lots of people do. It's however illegal for the employer to chain temporary contracts one after another instead of offering a permanent contract if there's a continuous need.

If this happens, the employee may sue on grounds of it being de facto permanent employment. If successful, they will get all the associated benefits, including things such as compensation for wrongful contract termination and withheld bonus payments only available for permanent employees. Suing is pretty easy/risk-free if the wronged person is in an union, and the unionization of workforce is around 60%-70%.

I'll explain how it typically works in the Netherlands, for non-self-employed people at least (that I'm not familiar with; note also that there has recently been some controversy where companies will classify employees as contractors to get around the stricter permanent contract laws, e.g. PostNL delivery people being contracters instead of full employees).

Typically two temporary one-year contracts will be offered (or some variation of this; four six-month contracts, etc.) Once this temporary contract duration is up an employer can either not renew the contract, or if they do renew it is by law an indefinite contract. If, for instance, you were hired at a company through a recruitment agency and your employment contract was through said recruitment agency, your clock would be reset at the company if you were to negotiate a direct contract with the company after leaving the recruitment agency contract.

It's also typical for a probationary period at the start of the first contract; in my case it was only one month, though I'm not sure if this is usual or if it could be longer for others.

NB: Previously, the law allowed three years of temporary contracts before the indefinite one, but this was changed several years ago.

> but I doubt more than a few percent of them ever consider that, absent any specification otherwise, all employment contracts are presented as permanent.

While much social expectation and institutions are based around that kind of essentially feudal lord/tenant relationship, that's not actually the case with at-will employment in law: employment contracts without specificity of term are indefinite but not permanent (were they permanent, it would be illegal for an employer to terminate them without a breach of a nature that made the contract voidable.)

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