March 2022

 
     
 

LABOUR LAW

LEGISLATIVE AND CASE LAW DEVELOPMENTS

 
     
 

1. Voluntary improvements to temporary incapacity benefits provided for in a collective bargaining agreement do not apply to sick leave for COVID-19

The Supreme Court has held that a voluntary improvement in a collective bargaining agreement that meant workers’ temporary incapacity pay was supplemented so that they were entitled to up to 100% of the regulatory base for the month prior to the sick leave for temporary incapacity does not apply to workers whose temporary incapacity is a result of COVID-19. The temporary incapacity caused by COVID-19 likened to that caused by a work accident, but exclusively for the purposes of the benefits payable to the worker in the social security system.

2. Long-term temporary worker’s refusal to accept a part-time permanent contract does not amount to resignation

The Supreme Court has held that following a string of temporary employment contracts with one employer, a worker’s decision not to accept the employer’s offer to make him a permanent part-time worker (to acknowledge his status as a permanent intermittent worker) did not imply that he had resigned and therefore that his employment relationship with the company had ended. The Supreme Court therefore held that the employer’s failure to recall the worker constituted a dismissal.

3. Permanent intermittent employees have 20 days to initiate a claim for dismissal once they become aware that they have not been recalled even if they are on sick leave

The Supreme Court has held that when a permanent intermittent employee is on sick leave and their employer fails to recall them to work, the time limit to initiate a dismissal claim begins to run when the employee should have become aware that they have not been recalled (in this particular case at the start of the school year) and not after the employee’s sick leave when the employer refuses the employee’s request to return to work.

4. Prorating extra pay when prohibited in a collective bargaining agreement means the employer is still liable for its payment [even if the agreement does not set out the consequences of breaching the prohibition]

The Supreme Court has held that when a collective bargaining agreement prohibits an employer from prorating extra pay or simply establishes that it must be paid in July and December each year, the employer must comply with this provision and cannot prorate the payments in the employees’ monthly salary. In this case, the judge held that although the specific collective bargaining agreement did not establish the consequences of breaching this prohibition, the employer would still be liable for the extra pay as the prorated monthly amounts could not be considered as payment of the extra pay.

5. Employer’s refusal to allow an employee to rejoin after a voluntary leave of absence is not a dismissal if it does not have any vacancies

The Supreme Court has held that an employer’s refusal of an employee’s request to return to work following a voluntary leave of absence because it did not have any vacancies cannot be considered a dismissal. In this case, although the workplace that the employee was assigned to had closed down, the company had other workplaces and therefore the employee would be able to work in one of them as soon as there was an appropriate vacancy. In the meantime the contractual relationship between the employer and employee would remain intact.

6. New hires in one workplace do not affect objective dismissals carried out in another workplace

The Supreme Court has held that a company could carry out objective dismissals in one of its workplaces for organisational and production reasons after it lost the only client it worked for in that workplace, and at the same time hire new employees in another of its workplaces in a different location but in the same province.

7. Dismissal of a pregnant domestic worker declared null even though the employer did not know she was pregnant

The Supreme Court has declared that pregnant workers are protected from all types of dismissals, even when the employer does not know that they are pregnant .

8. Spanish Data Protection Agency fines Spanish Amazon subsidiary EUR 2 million for requiring police clearance certificates from self-employed delivery drivers

A Spanish subsidiary of the Amazon group has been fined EUR 2 million for breaching data protection regulations. The subsidiary was fined for requesting delivery drivers for police clearance certificates during the contracting process, despite there being no legal basis for the request. This lack of a legal basis meant that the consent that the delivery drivers’ gave to sharing this information was invalid.

 
   
 

In case of any doubts or comments, please do not hesitate to contact

           
 

Mario Barros
mario.barros@uria.com


 

Juan Reyes
juan.reyes@uria.com

 

Ana Alos
ana.alos@uria.com

           
 

Raúl Boo
raul.boo@uria.com


 

Jesús R. Mercader
jesus.mercader@uria.com

 


 
     
 

The information contained in this Newsletter is of a general nature and does not constitute legal advice

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