Elon Musk started his political career with a novel approach. In recent days, he has (among other things) shocked the world by requiring federal employees to send in a weekly report on their work. Failure to file a report will allegedly be considered as giving notice. This proposal, which sounds more like a dystopian vision than a practical reform, raises fundamental questions about the limits of labour market liberalisation in democratic societies.

In countries with functioning legal protections, such as the Czech Republic, the employment contract and job security have become pillars of social stability. Any attempt to liberalise them provokes strong emotions. An example is the current heated debate on the possibility of introducing notice without stating the reason. A large part of Czech society already sees such a change as a threat to its position and therefore perceives it negatively.  

It is undeniable that labour market flexibility promotes innovation and increases efficiency. However, once economic logic is divorced from legislative boundaries, liberalisation risks becoming its own adversary. Even countries with the most liberal labour law frameworks do not apply a system that requires employees to continuously report their performance under threat of immediate termination. 

The debate on labour market liberalisation should therefore be conducted not only from the perspective of efficiency, but above all with regard to the values on which the democratic order is based. The “Musk letter” is thus not a model reform, but a curiosity that reminds us that labour market modernisation must always face legal and ethical constraints. But let us subject this curiosity to at least a short professional reflection and try to place it in the Czech legal environment. 

There is no doubt that an employer’s requirement to send reports on the work performed by the employee is perfectly legitimate and employees are obliged to comply with such a request. This stems in particular from the employee’s legal obligation to comply with the instructions of his or her superiors. Such a measure will then enable the employer to monitor, among other things, the employee’s compliance with other basic obligations, such as the use of working time to perform the work assigned to him/her, the timely performance of work tasks and acting in compliance with the legitimate interests of the employer.  

What may not always be so obvious is the question of who is entitled to make such a claim on behalf of the employer. This is typically the case in multinational companies, which have a unified management and often a coherent structure of job positions. It is therefore not rare that some employees of a Czech company are subordinated to and report to managers of foreign group companies, or that the Czech company falls under a shared HR department of the group abroad. In practice, doubts arise as to the extent to which the actions of persons from the group, who do not have a direct legal relationship with the Czech company, are binding on Czech employees. In such cases, it is ideal that this is adequately covered, for example, by the employer’s internal regulations and a written authorization or power of attorney for the person from the group from the Czech company.

Only if the reporting request is made by a person authorised to do so on behalf of the employer can the employee’s failure to comply with the request and the resulting consequences, including possible termination of the employee’s employment, be considered a breach of the employee’s obligations. All this under strictly defined conditions in the Czech legal environment, which are miles away from Musk’s above-mentioned requirement.  

Nor can we say that failure to comply with reporting – even if required for perfectly legitimate reasons and by an authorised person – can be regarded as a sufficiently legitimate reason for dismissal without the employee first being warned of the possibility of dismissal or asked to remedy it.