Legal Advice Employment Contract: Discover Your Rights

Questioner

Revised message. I just sent a question to your site but by mistake part of the text disappeared. Here is the correct version. Good afternoon, I applied for a management assistant position somewhere and was offered a contract for 40 hours per week. This contract states that working hours are between 8:30 and 18:00 but with the following comments afterwards: The nature of the position entails that a certain excess of the times indicated in the previous paragraph of this article, this at the free discretion of the employer, may be necessary. In addition, the employee is expected to have a certain flexibility with regard to working hours in the sense that irregular hours (evenings or weekends) must also be worked. The extra hours worked are deemed to be included in the salary and do not qualify for separate compensation. My question is: is such a requirement common and legally correct? Another point I would like to put to you is the ban on secondary employment. The contract states the following about this: The employee is prohibited from performing any paid or unpaid secondary activities in addition to his employment contract with the employer, regardless of whether this is done for his own account or for the benefit of third parties. Furthermore, the employee will refrain from developing secondary activities that, in the opinion of the employer, could in any way affect the employee's performance within the framework of his employment contract. At the employee's express written and motivated request, the employer may grant the employee written permission in general or for specific cases to deviate from the provisions of this article. 1. Violation of the provisions of Article 8 Prohibition on secondary employment, Article 9 Confidentiality obligation, Article 10 Employer's property and intellectual property rights and Article 11 Documents will result in the employee forfeiting an immediately due fine to the employer of € 10,000 per violation, as well as a fine of € 2,000 for each day that the violation continues, without prejudice to the employer's right to recover the full damage from the employee instead if this should be greater and without prejudice to the right to immediately terminate the employment contract with the employee in such a case. I hope to hear from you. Yours sincerely,

Lawyer

In certain functions overtime is common. It is more common that this is not paid separately. That is then discounted in the employment conditions. Your employer says that this also happens to him -> is that so? A certain amount of overtime (evenings and weekends too) -> agreed. Then the employer says, at his own discretion -> what is this? 5 hours a week? 10, 15 or 20? -> this seems to me much too vague. Prohibition on secondary activities -> occurs more often. This clause seems to me (much) too broad and the fines (much) too high. I advise you to consult with the employer and regulate another more tightly. If you cannot reach an agreement, please contact a specialized labor law attorney as soon as possible.

Questioner

Thanks for your response. My question is mainly: are these above provisions common and especially: is this legally allowed? Hope to hear from you. Yours sincerely,

Lawyer

Unpaid overtime with compensation in wages and a ban on secondary activities are common and legally permitted. This is also evident from my answer. The question is whether the concrete implementation by this employer is also the same? Probably not.