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Comment by michalstanko | Hacker News Reader

It really depends on the people you work for, it's not like Europe is some kind of paradise in this matter. I was working as a contractor for a company in Germany, after a few years working together, they cut me off from one day to the next (the new manager decided to start saving money), even though my contract included a clause about a one-month notice period. They didn’t even bother to pay the invoice for the work I had already done that month (it was the 23rd of the month, so we’re talking about a few thousand euros). And since I wasn't living in Germany, extracting that money from them was almost impossible.

Yes, it may be different for full-time non-contract jobs, but once you're on a contract, nobody cares.

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Working as a contractor means you're self-employed and the relations you have with "your boss" are a B2B relationship where you agree to get something done in exchange for money - no different from renting office space or servers. Since you're a business owner, you're expected to be competent in the areas of business (which can be cut-throat) and law. You chose to take on this risk by being a contractor.

Yeah but that's kinda the point of being a contractor, no?

Here in the Netherlands contractors are also 'at will employed' as the Americans say.

But they pay you more so...

OP said that they did this for contractors too!

Sounds like a case every lawyer in Germany would like to take. 500€ for first letter to send to the manager reminding the contract conditions. It is enough for most companies not to go further with shady activities. As a contractor one should know how to deal with the clients.

I don’t think that’s shady? When I was hiring contractors it was always project based with mutual understanding things could end quickly if the project or collaboration didn’t work out.

Yes, they get paid 1.5-2x, and that also prices in that it’s not always 100% utilization. Only once had a contractor oppose that, but that was in the context of (severe) underperformance.

In his case, the contract had something different, and they did not pay the actual invoice - that's the shady part.

With contractors, you have more freedom of choice when you write the contracts, but whatever contract you agree on, you still have to honor the contract as agreed.

Oh my bad, I thought you referenced contractors in general. In that case I agree: agreements are to be honored.

The legal responsiveness for contractor disputes is definitely not as good as employment. Messing up employment relations in Europe ends up really expensive in most jurisdictions because there'll usually be some mix of unions, government agency or charity that'll have the employee's back.

Contractors don't have that kind of support pretty much anywhere (that's sort of the point), and it's just a standard contract dispute that lawyers argue about.

Sure it was possible, just not convenient. Small claims charges in EU court do work. One major benefit of EU.

Oo? It should have been no issue at all for you to get this money.

We are a law and order country.

You got yourself played

So what you're saying is your company had a customer that breached contract and didn't pay. I wouldn't compare that to being fired?

That is obviously criminal though.

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