Feb 6, 2019 16:08
5 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term

employed at will

English to French Law/Patents Law: Contract(s)
Are there any interdependencies between the two and any contractual commitments.
Schedule of all employees who either are not employed “at-will” or have contractual severance rights.

Proposed translations

+4
3 hrs
Selected

peuvent être licenciés sans motif

At-will employment is a US legal concept that means the employee can be fired, or can quit, for no reason and without notice. Most US employees are at will. Essentially it means there is no contract for employment to last any amount of time (neither durée déterminée nor indéterminée).

The original text is in the negative ("employees who... are not employed 'at-will'"). It's talking about employees who cannot be fired without justification ("not employed at will"); the rest of the phrase refers to those who cannot be fired without severance pay ("or have contractual severance rights").

A very close translation of that bit of the sentence would be, "...employés qui ne peuvent pas être licenciés sans motif et ceux qui ne peuvent pas être licenciés sans indemnité." These are two different classes of employees (some people can only be fired for cause but don't have the right to severance pay; some have the right to severance pay).

French hates the passive voice, so if you want to make the sentence more natural you could rephrase it to avoid passive voice; what I've suggested there is the meaning but not necessarily the style you want.


Note from asker:
Great answer, thank you Eliza :)
Peer comment(s):

agree Ph_B (X) : Je cherchais aussi du côté de « (pas) employés à titre précaire » quand avez affiché v/réponse.
3 mins
Thanks. Yes, that's the exact concept.
agree Daryo : nice fix for this sentence.
16 hrs
Thx
agree Yvonne Gallagher
18 hrs
agree Maïté Mendiondo-George : employé à titre précaire serait mieux
2 days 13 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
-2
13 mins

employés de gré à gré

Peer comment(s):

disagree Daryo : "de gré à gré" is a general type of contract defined by opposition to "Contrat d'adhésion" - no connections whatsoever with "employed at-will" [except a big fat red herring: "on his own will = de son plein gré"]
2 hrs
I see your point! Thanks for the clarification :)
disagree Eliza Hall : I have seen this translation used but I agree with Daryo that it's wrong. An at-will employee basically has no contract at all, not a contract freely chosen by the parties. They can quit or be fired for no reason at any time.
3 hrs
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