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My employer threatened me verbally, saying that he/she will search and find a critical error, in order to end my employment contract immediately, if I don't end the employment relationship from my side.
Is it fine to threaten an employee like this? Otherwise, what are the consequences?
Additional info:
Your employer is most likely bluffing. It is better to be fired than to quit voluntarily.
The problem with quitting voluntarily is that you won't get unemployment benefits (Arbeitslosengeld I) for a while. So don't quit voluntarily if you aren't keen on living from savings for three months. If you want to quit, get another job first. (You should get another job anyway instead of working for a toxic employer.)
Your employer can only terminate your employment under certain circumstances, and with certain notice periods. Germany is very employee-friendly.
Your company's establishment is currently large enough that the Kündigungsschutzgesetz (KSchG) applies. To be clear, it doesn't matter how large the company is overall, only how many employees there are in the office, shop, or other place of business. Part-time employees are counted partially. Contractors are counted as well. The KSchG fully applies if there are typically more than 10 (11 or more) employees. The KSchG does not apply to company leadership, e.g. C-level executives.
Under the KSchG, the employer can terminate employment for one of three reasons: reasons in your person, reasons in your behavior, and operational reasons
Personenbedingte Kündigung: Your employment can be terminated for reasons in your person if you are unable to carry out work in the future, for example if you need sick days so frequently that this puts an unreasonable burden on the employer. It is generally impossible to use this reason without the normal notice periods.
Verhaltensbedingte Kündigung: You can be fired for reasons in your behavior if you committed some gross misconduct. Typically this requires an Abmahnung (written warning) so that you have opportunity to cease the problematic behavior. For example, you might get an Abmahnung the first time you skip a shift, and get fired the second time.
In especially severe cases of misconduct, it is possible to skip the Abmahnung and/or the notice period and to fire an employee on the spot. For example, this might happen if you embezzled funds or stole your employer's property, even if the monetary damage was very small. As such dismissal with cause stems from your behavior, you would not get unemployment benefits for three months.
Betriebsbedingte Kündigung: If the company has to downsize for economic reasons, it can lay off workers. However, the employer must apply social criteria for selecting the employees to lay off. Factors are: the length of employment, age, support obligations for children or other dependents, and disability status. That is, a young, new, childless and able-bodied employee is more likely to get axed.
If you have a union (Betriebsrat) they can veto a termination in certain cases.
These criteria can be clarified via collective bargaining agreements, but cannot be circumvented in an individual contract. So your employer will not be able to find any error in the contract that will allow them to fire you.
The best they could do is to go really carefully over your application and paperwork to find any misrepresentation, and use that as the basis for a Verhaltensbedingte Kündigung. However, it is quite unlikely that they will find a misrepresentation so severe that it could serve as grounds for firing you without notice.
Minimum notice periods are given in law. The minimum is one month notice. Your contract cannot have a shorter notice period in your context.
In case of a dismissal for exceptional reasons (e.g. theft), no notice period is necessary.
If you are terminated, go to a lawyer. You only have three weeks to file a lawsuit. Contacting the lawyer should be the second thing you do after getting fired, with the first thing being the registration with the Arbeitsagentur to start the clock for unemployment benefits.
If your employer is making unprofessional threats like claiming that there could be a “critical error” in your contract, it is quite possible that the termination notice could be deficient in some way.
If the dismissal was improper, a court can award compensation (lost wages) and reinstate the employment, though this is unlikely to be desired. Your wage from subsequent jobs (or wages you could have earned if you had looked for a job) will be subtracted from the lost wages.
To summarize this large text dump, firing an employee is difficult unless the employee does something very stupid like stealing from the employer.
Therefore: reasonable employers that want to get rid of an employee don't look for errors in the contract. Instead:
They watch you very closely to find any behavior that merits a written warning (Abmahnung). This builds a case for a termination with cause.
They offer an agreement to terminate the contract (Aufhebungsvertrag). With such an agreement you mutually terminate the employment. You won't get unemployment benefits for three months since this was your decision, so typically these agreements provide for generous compensation. A reasonable employer knows that paying for the notice period + additional compensation is cheaper than dealing with an unhappy employee + a potentially invalid termination + a prolonged legal battle.
Of course, less reasonable employers resort to bullying to get you to quit yourself. This is cheaper than paying compensation with an Aufhebungsvertrag.
Is it fine to threaten an employee like this?
No. It's actually a crime (StGB §240 Nötigung).
If they can do it that way, what are the consequences?
They absolutely cannot. Ending an employment contract immediately (BGB §626 Fristlose Kündigung) is only possible if there are facts that make continuing the employment to the end of the notice period "intolerable" after considering both sides' interests. Generally, this applies when the employee substantially violates the contract or intentionally does something damaging to the employer. Examples would be working hours fraud, sexual harassment of colleagues, or passing business information to a competitor. Errors or mistakes, no matter how critical, pretty much never fulfull this criterion.
How should I react to this threatening?
Record everything. If it's not in writing, create detailed meeting notes (i.e. what they said, when, where, in what context). Insist on written instructions for everything that might be construed a breach of contract, like "you don't have to come to work tomorrow". Do not give in to the threats, don't sign anything, but do start looking for a new job, because you sure don't want to stay in such a toxic environment.
I'm pretty sure they know they don't stand a chance, so the most likely outcome is that they'll fold and keep paying you until the end of the notice period. If they really try to go through with it, consult an employment lawyer.
amon gives a good answer, but let me approach it from a different direction.
Frankly you don't want to be working for a company that wants you gone. Even if they can't get rid of you, they can make your life very unpleasant indeed. On the other hand you want a stable job, and the money you are due if they fire you. Here is my advice:
I suggest that you inform HR of this verbal threat. Since there is no evidence right now that you have done anything that allows them to fire you, a threat "we will search and find a reason to fire you unless you quit" clearly indicates that someone is willing to fabricate evidence against you.
That would put the company in a very bad legal situation if you are fired. So you start a paper trail, and that alone should make HR talk to the person threatening you and advise them not to come up with any false evidence.
