The US have common law and Switzerland has civil law. Civil law is rule based not judge made, which means there is very little a lawyer can do in the case to a termination, provided the employer follows the correct procedure. In other words lawyers don’t specialize in labour law because there is no money in it.

There are sad & jealous people everywhere, some of them make it into management, life is too short to engage with them.

It would be nicer if a lawyer could determine if there's some merit in the allegation or not. She can consult a lawyer at the permanence the avocats de Genève. 60 CHF for 45 min https://www.odage.ch/particuliers/permanence

I guess one these lawyers can make a quick assessment and give advice is there's a point in fighting or not. I'm sure that much better than us armchair experts.

From the perspective of expectations management, don't expect too much. As others mentioned, if the employer follows the checklist of what to do when firing someone there's nothing to do. The main points of the checklist comprises proper notice period, and don't fire anyone during vacations, illness, etc.

PS. has the employment relationship effectively ended by now or is the firing used a whip to make her compliant to whatever the manager wants?

Exactly. I could have fought, I could have gone on sick leave, I could have gotten a lawyer.

But, tbh, didn't want to deal with all that bullshit. I just wanted it to be over with.

And karma is a bitch, both my boss and the CEO were fired a couple of months later.

And had you had done something you might still be working there without them?

I wouldn't want to.

First they treat you like a number 1 and then they discard you.

Life is too short to work for such a company.

Actually, three of my colleagues just completed their specialization in labour law: https://www.walderwyss.com/en/news/2...employment-law

Even if you never win a case, doesn't mean people won't give you money :-)

Top of the list?
Head of the heap?
King of the hill?

OP said it's a nurse. I guess it's important for a nurse to avoid the word incompetence or similar in the job reference. It's about future money, not the past one.

The lawyer i hired, charges every minute he works on the case.
The total amount (value) seems pretty low,but can make a big difference in the future.

Thanks for all replies so far, a good deal of common sense on here. She's going to the "permanences" mentioned above first to get an assessment if it's worth hiring a "real" lawyer.

No such thing here.

Tom

No, it's a foreign concept, does NOT exist here.

Tom

There use to be CH lawyer here on this forum - haven't heard from him for a while ..

Yes, to all intents and purposes, unsackability does exist, but since 2016 (when a change in the law came about), these positions have become less common. They are public service positions that are essentially jobs for life. After several years' service, the public servant changes from being a salaire to a fonctionnaire and enjoys considerable protection. If the department wants to eliminate the role of a fonctionnaire or remove him/her from the role, the public service has to find another job for the fonctionnaire. Essentially, the fonctionnaire can't be sacked except for really serious cause, like s/he has commited a serious crime.

The term in French is fonctionnaire de l'État avec un contrat à durée indéterminée.

See above.
See above above.

I thought that the former status "fonctionnaire", in German "Beamte" had been done away with.

Edit:
Yes, here's official info on this.

Fonctionnaire / Beamte

https://www.bar.admin.ch/bar/fr/home...-employes.html (French)

https://www.bar.admin.ch/bar/de/home...en-wurden.html (German)

https://www.bar.admin.ch/bar/it/home...impiegati.html (Italian)

This article explains that on 24. März 2000, (i.e. just over 20 years ago), a new law was passed that did away with this status of "fonctionnaire", in German "Beamte" altogether.

As I understand it, that law means that there is no longer any contractual distinction between working for the state or in commerce. Now, working for the state is regulated by means of the same legal framework as all other employment.

There still is one...

My experience is quite different.

While labour law is based on written rules, they can become quickly obsolete, and there are gaps that need legal interpretation.

I've seen situations where two cantonal govt agencies published entirely opposing legal interpretations of statutory law.

Case law is commonly applied in Switzerland, although it is subordinate to statutory law.

My experience of tribunal judges is that on the one hand, they have the code of obligations, on the other they have significant latitude in the real world application of the law for cases that come before them.

In Swiss law firms, employment practice includes exec comp planning, helping employers structure their policies, cross border workers, pension, immigration, share plans, data protection.

Any meaningful Swiss law firm has an employment practice - client rates, or remuneration might not be same as Corporate and M&A work, they do compare well to family, IP, or real estate work.