Harsh? This beats getting fired on a whim by miles!

It depends. One of the reasons economists point to the youth employment/wage problem and non 'standard' contracts in countries with these laws are situations like this, as firing older bad performant employees is too expensive and hard. If I work in a company for 20 years, and I have 15 years to retirement, I can decide to spend my entire day browsing Facebook and most companies will have some difficulty firing me as they will probably have to pay between 3 and 5 years of wages and even risk a lawsuit like this.

My ex-mother-in-law had a factory, and when she caught an employee stealing (taking already made products home), she was fired on the spot, and after a year long battle, the court forced her to be re-admitted and paid lost wages. (our labour court is very very very pro employee to a stupid degree, but final decision was basically : 'she doesn't get paid enough and needed the money, so it isn't her fault')

I think there needs to be a balance. Firing an employee can't be so expensive that after a certain time an employee can do whatever they want and not face consequences, and employees should still have some financial and personal responsibility if they need to fire someone.

can't edit, should have been " employeers should still have some financial and personal responsibility if they need to fire someone.

Yeah, it's tempting to use the example to show that "labour laws" of this kind are obviously wrong, but occasional stories like this are a blessing compared to some of the alternatives.

Very common tactic in Europe indeed. The new thing is that now employees retaliate... and win.