alt Hacker News> It's part of the reason why Europe is falling behind on everything.
I read a news article that Orange Telecom in France was being sued by a woman they had on payroll for the last 20 years doing nothing, because due to a medical condition she suffered, she became unable to do her job, and since they couldn't fire her due to France unions and labor laws, nor did they have any available job that could fit her current condition, they just kept paying her for 20 years to do nothing at work, and now she's suing them for the depression she got to get paid for no work.
It felt like reading a Monty Python skit.
But Europe is failing due to a myriad of compounding issues and structural deficits, not just because firing workers can be a Kafkaesque nightmare in some countries. European workers' unions and labor protections were even stronger 20-25 years ago and in 2004 the Euro stock market was worth more than the US stock market, while now it's worth half the US one. But that's whole different discussion where pages have to be written to encompass the whole context and cover all aspects of European economic decline. Boiling it down to crazy labor protections would be reductionist and incorrect.
That lawsuit sounds legitimate enough to me.
They couldn't find anything for her to do? Hard to believe, but if there's a reason not to fire her then then pay her the money she's owed and stop demanding she show up. Making someone come in with no tasks assigned is fun for a week and quickly turns into punishment detail. Putting someone on punishment detail because you're not allowed to fire them is Bad.
Unless she was allowed to stay home, in which case I take most of that back and it falls on her to go outside and find something to do. I can't find any articles with enough detail. But I'm still skeptical they actually couldn't find a job for her to do. It was 'just' paralysis on one side.